Polar
An aging Assassin is asked to do one more hit before his retirement only to find the company he works for wants him dead.
A fun watch, Mads Mikkelson kinda plays the role of Black Kaiser the same way he played Hannibal Lecter, cold and emotionless. Plenty of action, boobs and bums and Matt Lucas is actually quite fun.

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Have decided to work my way through my Twilight Zone box set, just on season 1 disc 2 but wow! Best tv show in history! Always enjoyed it when i was younger but now I'm older, appreciate it a LOT more.

Enough extras to last a year! I advise everyone to go out & buy the box set before it gets deleted.

Solid gold!

Valentine (2001)

Decent slasher from Jamie Blanks with a good cast, (Denise Richards is at her finest here) and a pacy script. However it's a slasher without much in the way of slash as the many kills aren't particularly gory, although there are definitely one or two suspenseful scenes and overall it remains a bit of fun.

A fine soundtrack including Rob Zombie, Linkin Park, Beautiful Creatures, Orgy and Marilyn Manson, always helps maintain interest.

I was actually planning to pick this up recently, I felt like going on a 'millenium' horror trip and watch stuff from Scream onwards until the boom fizzled out, Valentine being towards the end. One I've never seen, mainly due to my aversion to Boreanaz :lol:

I watched it a few weeks back on Netflix, first time since it first came out and tbh I was a bit bored in places, not one of my favourite post Scream slashers, I did give it 3 out of 5 on Letterboxd though :nod:

Oh I'll check if it's still on Netflix, I've cancelled my account and it ends in a week :lol: May as well make the most of it.

It's still on there, I saw it listed last night when I was searching for something to watch

You've got a day to watch it. What's the point watching it after Valentines Day? :lol:

I forgot it was Valentine's Day :lol:

Watching The Psychic commentary by Troy Howarth, simply amazing! Between this & Murder Rock it looks like imports currently top uk companies for most wanted Fulci on blu!
Region free!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P19yLo53t3g

Forgotten how much I like this one , very atmospheric and creepy, with some good acting for me a better film than the original Amityville. 8.5/10


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bjsag2vYlQ

Great Larry Cohen monster movie. Shaft and Caine are a couple of new York cops who have to deal with a giant Aztec lizard/bird that's biting the heads of the local population as well as this they have to deal with small time con,Michael Moriarty who's using the creature to his advantage. 8/10

Now watching city of the living dead.

Saw Happy Death Day 2U at the cinema today. The original was slight but fun, but this one is bloated and unnecessarily wildly overcomplicated, losing the simplistic conceit and thus charm of the original with unwanted gobbledygook explanations and a wholly unwanted lurch more into sci-fi and even broader comedy than horror. Eh, I wasn't impressed. :whip:

I've heard and seen bad reviews of this online so I'll just wait till its somewhere like Netflix before I bother with it .

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Two sisters run away from home attracted by the glitz and glam of London hoping to crack into the modelling business. Right from the get go something isn't right when one of the girls get a job in a country manor for the weekend.

Apart from the beautiful woman and nudity the thing that struck me right off the bat was the beautiful use of light and colour in the country manor especially in the night time ritual scenes. I really enjoyed the change in power from the potential abuse and manipulation of two innocent young woman to a sort of hunter becoming the hunted. Films like this make so much more scense these days with what ee know abiut wjat really haopens in hollywood and the entertainment business or maybe im just reading too much into this trying to find hidden meaning in a straight forward soft core romp in the country. 😄😄😄😄

7/10

Diary of a Country Priest

8/10

Why would anyone want to be a priest, a life of misery and martyrdom unless you're like a top priest partying in the hot tubs of the vatican.
Good film though, felt sorry for the wee priest fella.


F/X and F/X 2

7/10

Loved these films for years. "Rawlie" is some man.

The Nun 2018.

A troubled priest and a young nun investigate a suicide at a convent encounter a dark malevolent evil force in Romania.

I held off watching this thanks to the trailer, with a few spoilers in it, the plot to it was interesting as the origin of Valak was slowly revealed. Taissa Farmiga does play her part as Sister Irene pretty well as Demian Bichir as the Vatican investigator Father Burke.

IMHO the film did seem to be too dark even with the lights off and although it was filmed in a decent pace it was like parts of it was rushed and predictable jump scares, was good how it does tie in with The Conjuring. 6 out of 10.

Captain Pirate (1952)

Louis Hayward returns as Captain Peter Blood, this time out to clear his name after a second pirate causes havoc in the Caribbean whilst posing as Blood.

Even more of a swash buckler than Fortunes of Captain Blood (1950), whilst the film lacks ship to ship battles there's a terrific set piece finale as a pirate ship attacks the island fort of Tortuga and sword fights throughout the rest of the film as the film focuses on action rather than romance.

The Toxic Avenger 1984.

After a prank gone wrong, janitor Melvin falls into a batch of toxic waste and becomes a superhero in Tromaville.

This is not to be taking seriously as a great super hero movie, it has so called acting that can be as bad as pornstars (not that I have watched them) way over the top acting and bad special effects, but gotta love Troma movies, will admit I have seen a few of their movies and thought they were great, childhood movies still live. 7 out of 10.

THE POSSESSED
Aka LADY OF THE LAKE, this beautifully filmed noir / giallo is a visual feast from beginning to end. Great score too. Arrow’s blu Ray presentation is stunning. Highly recommended. Any chance of LE ORME / FOOTPRINTS?

SWEENEY!
Regan and Carter move to the big screen, in the first of the two Sweeney movies. A bit more of a convoluted plot than the usual tv series blags, with good rapport between Thaw and Waterman ( though not quite up to the peaks of the best of the tv series ). Great stuff. Network’ s blu Ray looks superb.

Saw. Two men wake up chained in a bathroom, the latest victims of a notorious serial killer known as "Jigsaw", and soon find themselves expected to play a very deadly game. Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter and Michael Emerson star in the original Saw which, even despite its endless pointless sequels, remains a potent and intense horror thriller come whodunnit. Still a very fine film. :nod:

Border River (1954)

Decidedly average western set at the Mexican border as Joel McRea arrives in Mexico trying to buy guns for the confederacy.

McRea is a veteran of films like this and Yvonne De Carlo is pretty good as the 'love interest' but the lack of a creditable villainous co-star relegates the film to second tier as does the shouty Alfonso Bedoya who comes across more irritating than threatening.

Oddly i don't think i've ever seen quicksand used as much in a film as they do here. Although the location filming is quite nice it's also quite clearly shot in Utah and not the Mexican border.

Sssssss (1973)

I was quite unsure about this 'mad scientist creates a monster' film prior to viewing. Something about the whole premise somehow made me think it would be a damp squib of a film where pretty much nothing happens. However, Bizarre_eye recommended it so i gave it a go.

I have to admit it and say i loved it.

It could have been a cheap n' cheerful monster movie and in a way it was but the whole thing was so well done. The script was excellent, immediately making you care for the three main characters as played by Dirk Benedict, Strother Martin and Heather Menzies. Martin in particular as the 'mad' scientist out to turn a man into a snake was particularly well realized and despite the fact he was the villain of the piece he also had my sympathy too.

What really gave the film authenticity and a proper fear factor was the use of real snakes. From King Cobras to Black Mamba's all are featured and all are terrifying in that the cast really did handle them throughout.

A real surprise and a real treat. Recommended.

Glad you enjoyed it, Dem.

I have to say when you were asking whether it was going to be a half-snake half-man monsters on the rampage type affair I was a little concerned that you wouldn't like it.

The Girl in Room 2A.

After being recently released from prison, Margaret(Daniela Giordano)is sent by her parole office(the foxy Rosalba Neri) to stay at the guest house of the eccentric Mrs Grant and her oddball son. and soon discovers a sinister secret involving missing guests and a creepy chap in a red hood.

Not too bad at all. with a good opening involving a gruesome murder of a topless woman and is later thrown off a cliff.
Although it does drag a bit at times and the murders are few and far between despite the female nudity and sleaze. Still worth a watch though, and with a good twist at the end.

So a solid 70 out of a 100 for this giallo, although i would use the term 'giallo' rather loosely.

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We all know their music and just how special not just Freddie was but the four members together they wrote some off the greatest rock songs of all time. Bohemian Rapsodey explores the rise of Queen and some of the personal trails Freddie faced. I was worried that they would focus too much on his sexual exploits and just turn it into a seedy exploration of his private life and not show the human side. Everything is touched upon but they managed to balance everything just right between Freddie and the rest of the band.

The acting was top notch from everyone involved and Remi Malek had all Freddies on stage movements spot on. It also found it scary how much the guy playing Brian May really looked like it was actually him 😄😄

Some of the time line was a bit mixed up but overall it was a great film and as much as I heard people moaning about the Live Aid part I enjoyed every second of it. Im also very happy with how the they ended the film it was done very tastefully and with a lot of respect towards everyone involved with Queen.

I will admit I had a tear in my eye at the end I grew up with Queens music my mother is a die hard fan so they were always an ever present in my life so even when he died i was very young it still had a profound impact on me.

Freddie and Queen will live forever.

8/10

Our local football ground are showing it on an outdoor screen in May, so that’ll be the only time anything decent happens there, definitely going to get tickets to it, best film I saw last year! :nod:

Final Score (2018)

It's easy to say this British actioner is a Die Hard rip off, which it is, but plot wise it's more or less the same as the Jean Claude Van Damme film Sudden Death (1995) as Dave Bautista comes across Russian terrorists in a London football stadium as a match is going on.

The plot is daft as a brush (but the most ludicrous thing about the film is West Ham playing in a European semi-final) and some dialogue is, quite frankly awful, but somehow it works, even if it does possess what i'd say is the most irritating character to grace a Die Hard rip off in Lara Peake's Eastenders reject, Danni, although she does improve as the going gets tough.

Whilst nowhere near the best example of a film of this ilk i thought it far superior to the mega budgeted Skyscraper (2018) although that film's star - Dwayne Johnson - has a bit more about him than Bautista in the charisma stakes. The addition of Ray Stevenson as the terrorist leader and Pierce Brosnan as Stevenson's brother gives the production a bit more gravitas than it might have.

There are some good action sequences (And even a few laughs) in what is a very violent movie, such as a motorbike chase across the roofs of the stadium and Bautista abseiling from the roof to the pitch using a football banner.

If you like this kind of film then you should get some enjoyment out of Final Score.

An Eli Roth double bill began with his remake of the classic Charles Bronson film Death Wish (2018)

Bruce Willis takes over the role of architect Paul Kersey from the great Charles Bronson in this re-imagining of the mother of vigilante films.

Roth is more well known for his horror films so to take on a straight if slightly twisted revenge thriller was a bit of a departure from his usual gore soaked fayre and on the whole Death Wish is very good. Bruce Willis (a surgeon rather than architect) convinces with his acting although i don't recall Bronson crying that much in the original and Roth builds tension and suspense.

Naturally Death Wish is a violent film as was the original, but for the most part Roth the horror director is fairly restrained with only a single torture scene that could have come straight out of Hostel (2005). There's even social commentary in it's depiction of how easily an average American can acquire fire arms.

Rather than a seventies vigilante film i'd really compare this with the 2007 Kevin Bacon film Death Sentence with it's unrelenting pacy style being geared towards a 21st century audience.

I found Death Wish very enjoyable and it's certainly a film i'll go back to multiple times as it's great grizzly popcorn fun.

How do you follow a remake of a classic vigilante thriller?

With a spooky PG rated family film, that's how.

The House with the Clock in it's Walls (2018) is a proper departure for Roth. It's a fun spookfest about a ten year old boy who, following his parents death goes to live with his uncle in a big old Gothic house. A house which holds many secrets.

I really enjoyed The House with the Clock in it's Walls. It's a fun exercise in mild scares and spookiness with witches, warlocks and zombies not to mention killer Jack O' Lanterns. There's ideas and atmosphere in spades and the house itself is a gorgeously designed affair with a creepy yet equally wonderous aura with the constantly ticking clocks sounding great through a home surround sound system.

Owen Vaccaro plays the boy and he's very good for a child actor and not in the least bit irritating, Jack Black plays his uncle with the great Cate Blanchett as Black's best friend and neighbour. Blanchett is excellent and has good chemistry with Black but he falters slightly in that he's a bit too nice, a bit too Jack Black, and not quite creepy enough for this sort of thing, with Vincent Price in the same role this would have been almost perfect.

Style wise The House with the Clock in it's Walls is reminiscent of Tim Burton's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) in fact Roth displays a lot of the visual style that Burton excels at and should Burton leave this sort of film making behind Eli Roth would be an excellent choice to take over his mantle.

This week's viewings:

Witchtrap (1989)

Whilst not quite as good as I remembered, I still enjoyed re-visiting this one as a group of para-psychologists are enlisted to visit a bed and breakfast that is haunted by the ghost of a witch. Directed by Kevin S. Tenney one year after he made Night of the Demons, whilst this is certainly not up there with the horror calibre of Demons (the fact that it was apparently filmed in three weeks could have something to do with this), it certainly has its moments and is worth a look.

https://66.media.tumblr.com/05be231a...8m9wo1_400.gif

54/100


Sole Survivor (1983)

I had been wanting to check this one out for years hearing that it was kind of a pre-cursor to the Final Destination films but more with a zombie vibe.

Denise Watson is a TV station worker who is the only survivor of a unexplained airplane crash in which she is completely unharmed. Denise becomes haunted by feelings of unworthiness and begins seeing strange people following her and hearing voices calling her name which no one but she can hear. Disregarding warnings from a psychic friend, Denise tries to get on with her life while it’s slowly revealed that she was supposed to die in the crash. Now the unseen spectre of death wants to collect Denise by sending its minions, people that have recently died, to kill her.

My wait luckily wasn't an anti-climax. This was a creepy little affair with some great suspenseful moments. The film plays more for a slow-burn approach with unease and dread oozing in rather than all-out death and gore and I think this worked in its favour.

Despite a slow start and it being quite talky for a horror film, I ended up really enjoying it.

https://66.media.tumblr.com/d00de19e...szgqo1_500.jpg

72/100


Pick-Up (1975)

Trippy, Hippie love fest about a couple of young girls who hitch a ride with hippie Chuck, who has been tasked to deliver a mobile bus home across country. After a storm leaves them stranded somewhere in the Florida Everglades it is the perfect excuse for lots of spirituality, sex, and self-discovery.

This one is a real curio. Not your typical sexploitation flick at all, as it often borders on arthouse, with plenty of surrealism thrown in on top of the groovy and sexual vibrations. Its alternate title is Pazuzu, referencing the King of Demons of the Wind, made infamous of course by William Peter Blatty in his novel, The Exorcist. There are plenty of ritualistic allegories, such as astrology and tarot thrown in as well as flash-back sexual assaults on one of the girls by a priest.

As if the film wasn't already suffering a little bit of an identity crisis, it was marketed as Pick-Up, with a poster and tag-line reminiscent of a back-woods rapey affair akin to a Last House on the Left type scenario, which (spoilers aside) manifests itself as a brief but poignant scene of assault by a gang of rowdy rednecks near the film's conclusion. Aside from that vignette the overall tone of the film is far removed from the poster's depiction.

A bit of a mixed bag for sure, but one you've just got to sit back and ride with.

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69/100


The Apartment (1960)

The perfect blend of romance and comedy, but one which is also spiked with drama (and thankfully not the melodramatic kind), as Jack Lemmon's apartment loaning to his superiors crosses into his personal life and his feelings for elevator operative Shirley MacLaine. For a film that handles so many themes, it deals with them all superbly to the extent that nothing feels out of place.

A true classic and one I never tire of watching.

https://66.media.tumblr.com/38127bc6...c36fo1_500.gif

92/100


The Honey Pot (1967)

Another I've been wanting to check out for a while, as the plot alone just made me feel that I would enjoy this one.

In Venice, the millionaire benefactor Cecil Fox (Rex Harrison) watches a Seventeenth Century play ‘Volpone’ and plots a practical joke to play on his three former greedy mistresses. He hires the unemployed actor William McFly (Cliff Robertson) to act as his butler and stage manager and sends letters telling the mistresses he is terminally ill. The prime intention of Rex is to see the reaction of the women after the reading of his will but things do not go as planned.

Being based on a stage-play this one of course does play out like one to a large extent and it's main core strength is in its script and in the performers, both elements of which I thought worked well overall. A tad overlong in places and the tone sometimes wavers but enjoyable enough.

http://fgmxi4acxur9qbg31y9s3a15-wpen.../05/image2.jpg

68/100


There's Nothing Out There (1991)

On stats alone I probably would have happily dismissed a film such as this - a '90s Troma film about a monster attacking a group of teens on spring break, nothing really remarkable about that and a trope that had been done to death already in the '80s....

However, the darkly comic premise at play here completely sells the film as something a little different to the norm. Yes, seven teens head up to a cabin on the lake for spring break, but one of the teens is a horror video anorak, and recognizes the signs of foreshadowing of doom. The others dismiss his concerns as the workings of a person that watches too many videos, but there really is 'something out there', and that is a weird squidgy tentacled green alien thing, and the teens begin experiencing an attrition problem when they start stumbling into all the cliches found in a typical teen horror film.

There is plenty to fill the running time here too, as not only do you have the 'threat' element resulting in some gloopy kills and green laser-beam eye effects, but you have plenty of t&a as well as the back-and-forth between the horror nerd (who incidentally makes Randy in Scream look like a complete novice) and the others as his persistence that something is going on meets their growing annoyance at trying to ruin their vacation. Whilst often playing for laughs the threat always seems real and therefore creates a nice blend of comedy and horror running throughout all the various shenanigans. A pleasant surprise.

https://66.media.tumblr.com/dd42db44...1qkyo3_500.gif

66/100

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ovieposter.jpg

10/10

Absolute master piece. Great acting, lighting, soundtrack, everything about it is just perfect.

You have to wonder what poor Travis is thinking taking Betsy to that porno though. Like did he not think maybe Rocky or something would be a better choice.

The Toxic Avenger Part II 1989.

After wiping out crime in Tromaville, Toxic Avenger travels to Japan in search of his father while a evil corporation Apocalypse Inc tries to control Tromaville.

This was given a bigger budget than the previous movie, but does seem to drag on in bits and really take the p@ss out of the Japanese when they speak which was a laugh, with Troma there is gore and nudity, even the actress playing his blind girlfriend was a bit annoying and not as great as the previous actress. 5 out of 10.

The Toxic Avenger Part III. 1989.

Toxie is back in Tromaville and looking for a job and signs up for the evil corporation then turns against it and rid the town of Apocalypse Inc.

This was the second part to the previous installment, to be fair it was a bit more enjoyable, the start of the film was a bit of a inside joke and the cardboard cut out. It is like a bad rip off from the story/movie of Faust. The guy playing normal Melvin in this must have got his junk caught in a vice and kept there to get the high-pitched voice. Still not as good as the first but watchable. 7 out of 10.

Inseminoid/Horror Planet - 7/10

Cheesy Alien goodness.

Way Out West
Laurel and Hardy are tasked with giving the seed of a mine to a woman at a bar only to be hoodwinked into giving it to the wrong people.
Some more good clean fun, with some entertaining moments included a gag where laurel is able to light his thumb.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfDiQ99f1-4

8/10


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef0oH3ZizfI

8/10


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCZnuo1vuWU


By far my favourite hammer film, a true masterpiece fantastic acting, wonderfully shot , gripping from beginning to end 10/10

Now watching the perfect host.

Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger part IV. 2000.

Toxie has to do battle with a evil doppelganger and teams up with Sgt Kabukiman N.Y.P.D and other sorts of superheroes.

If you don't have a very bad sense of humour then avoid this film, it has content that only Troma can get away with, this was one of those thats, "abit below the belt" and "really" blended with more nudity from men and women mixed with slapstick comedy that's near close to a porno parody. Watchable..just.

'That dance' is one of my favourite moments in all of cinema.

I could watch it forever!

@ MrBarlow.

I couldn't wait to get rid of my 88 Films Toxic Avenger box set. Awful films the lot of em'. :lol:

Troma films what exactly does anyone expect , trash cinema at its best no troma film can be taken serious in any way shape or form . but some literally are bollocks and some have become cult films like Mothers day . but they all are naff movies tbh.