Nobody liked Exorcist II at the time tbh :lol:
POD grew on me. Now I see something new every time. REWATCH.

I'm old enough to remember the original reviews

With the exception of 'Halloween', at the time of release, nobody liked *ANY* John Carpenter film!

'The Fog', 'Escape from New York', 'The Thing', 'Big Trouble in Little China', 'Prince of Darkness', 'They Live', 'Escape from L.A', 'Vampires', 'Ghosts of Mars'...they were all totally ignored or slated by the reviewers when they were first released!

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Possibly my favourite from the ten proper Star Trek movies, this is a pacy and fun fish out of water tale with a genuinely heart felt save the whales message as Kirk and his crew travel back in time to eighties San Francisco attempting to save the earth in the future as a powerful alien probe sends out signals in the 23rd century to the now extinct species of Humpback Whales.

The new Blu-ray taken from a 4K scan for the most part looks superb aside from the scenes inside the captured Klingon Bird of Prey which appear soft due to the smoky ambience of the crafts innards.

The 7:1 soundtrack is terrific. Loud when it needs to be but for the most part subtle and atmospheric as the San Francisco street scenes play out all around the viewer or the whales splash about in the surf.

The extras are plentiful and the Library Computer feature which you can watch throughout the movie looks awesome if you really want to dig deep into the Star Trek universe.

Does anyone like it now?

Martin Scorsese and Quentin Taratino seem to like it :lol:

It's one of my favourite comedies certainly. :nod::pop2:

Brainscan. 1994.

A teenager receives a mystrious game, when he plays it he goes into a trance where people die. When he comes out of the trance he discovers the murders in the game have happened to people in his neighbourhood.

We got Edward Furlong fresh from T2, which the director didn't have a happy experience working with him, give a teen a starring role for his first movie and you may get a total diva and everything should be abut them. But anyway this was a good film, the trickster seems to be playing a psychological game, nice added touch and Frank Langella as the detective on the case investigating the murders. Something I may watch gain at some point.

Attachment 236217

Pfft What do they know?

:lol: exactly, who are they, I have never heard of them before :pound:

Rabid Grannies. 1988.

Two sweet ladies for under a curse which transform them into bloodthirsty killers.

I remember being in Blackpool aged between 11-12 years old and just about every video shop had this film on their shelves and never saw much interest in this film until today and I should have seen this before now. Very low budget but does make up for it with the OTT gore and slapstick comedy horror. It doesn't hold back on the killings and really doesn't discrimnate on who to be killed. Not exactly a hoot but enjoyable.

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BLACKENSTEIN – As the title suggests, a semi-blaxploitation cash-in on the tried and tested modern myth, and a thoroughly buffoonish one it is too. I wasn’t bowled over, but there was enough silliness to keep me going once I got my head around the idea it wasn’t trying to make even as much political sense as ‘Blacula’. A physicist teams up with the fairly quaint ‘Dr Frank’ in an attempt to save her hubby, who was blown up in ‘Nam – her jealous admirer sabotages things by slipping the soon-to-be-monstrous-guy some ‘bad DNA’ (or something). Lumpy and full of talk at first, but leavened by the unexpected appearance of leopard legs, gothic exteriors and flashing lights; later, we witness hulking monster attacks with glimpses of butchershop gore, a racist hospital bully getting his arm ripped off, and amusing little diversions like the bit where a comedian on stage just basically tells a fairly lame joke to an appreciative audience for five minutes (filling out the gargantuan 78 min run time quite nicely).

ANGUISH – Bigas Luna’s strange meta-horror from the late eighties. Michael Lerner is an eye-obsessed Norman Bates-type cossetted by his overbearing mother, Zelda Rubinstein, who can mysteriously pick up people’s thoughts through overlarge snail shells. The pigeon-fancying slasher that unfolds is only the tip of the iceberg however, as it soon transpires that it’s all just a movie playing before an audience about to face a ‘real life’ horror of its own... you could argue that ‘Anguish’ takes a cue from the far less arty ‘Demons’ from a couple of years prior, which in turn derived from ‘Videodrome’, though Lunas freights his film with an array of Hitchcock references to lend ballast to a ‘world within a world’ conceit that was already getting a bit stale, even at the time. I was more intrigued by the sheer weirdness of the Lerner/ Rubinstein strand than the drama in the movie theatre, but it all meshes quite impressively, and even finds room for a typical schlocky twist. Slightly underappreciated these days, it seems; though certainly not really obscure, it’s the sort of thing you’d expect to have had the bells and whistles from the likes of Arrow by now, but the German blu ray is pretty good.

The Police Accuse... The Secret Service Kills (1975) aka Silent Action

The actual outline of this film is fairly straightforward. As soon as the opening credits have rolled three high ranking military officials seemingly commit suicide (Although it's clear to the viewer they are murdered). The press report the suicides but Luc Merrenda's police inspector isn't convinced and begins a murder investigation.

Co-starring Mel Ferrer and Tomas Milian, this is a classy thriller from the prolific Sergio Martino. Like many of these Poliziotteschi thrillers the plot twists and turns and we don't really know who the protagonists are until the big reveal although in truth it's not difficult to guess. Where Silent Action stood out for me from the others in the genre i've seen were the action set pieces, especially a police assault from the skies on a mountaintop paramilitary camp which is particularly thrilling and especially epic.

The remainder of the film is an absorbing procedural thriller as the terrific Merrenda uncovers the clues to the murders - one of which is particularly nasty and beautifully staged - and begins to uncover corruption at the highest levels.

The 2K restoration released by new UK label Fractured Visions has had a bit of flak from those with too much time on their hands regarding it's image quality but i thought it looked fantastic for a rather obscure Italian film from nigh on fifty years ago. Certainly at times it doesn't look like the latest Disney blockbuster but that's to be expected, isn't it. Given it's lack of home disc releases it's difficult to actually compare what it may have once looked like anyway.

I haven't watched any of the extras yet but looked at their run times and found there to be well over three hours of documentaries and interviews including two fifty odd minute features in The Age of Lead: Italy in the Seventies Between Fact and Fiction and The Milian Connection, which i'll get stuck into this week.

One final mention for the soundtrack by Luciano Michelini, it's one that genuinely stands out whilst watching the movie and i'll be delighted to listen to the 57minute cd that comes with this great Blu-ray package.

Jack Reacher (2012)

I don't think there's much point going into detail about a Tom Cruise movie that's based on a character from British author Lee Child other than to say it's an enjoyably solid action based thriller with Cruise as good as ever as he helps uncover a twisty turny storyline of corporate corruption in the eastern state of Pennsylvania.

I'd like to say how great this film came across on Blu-ray though. The image practically sparkled and the 7:1 soundtrack was extremely immersive. Not just during the bullet strewn action packed finale either. There's a scen three quarters through as Cruise sits behind the wheel of a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle with it's engine ticking over. It genuinely does seem that i was sat in the car also as the engine sounds came filled the room from all speakers. Proper petrol head ambiance. It's probably needless to say that when the shit really flies i was practically ducking for cover as bullets whizzed by.

As a showcase for the HD format this movie is hard to beat.

As always FT :hail::hail::hail:

Anguish is something else and a half imho. :nod::nod::nod:

REWATCH.

'Neath Brooklyn Bridge'. 1942.

When a body is found in a flat, a girl is accussed of murder, the Easy Side Kids try to clear her name, only for a finger print on a baseball bat to be found that belongs to one of the kids.

The East Side Kids movies have always been a laugh even though they are only a hour long or just over, we know that one of them didn't commit the murder but it's a laugh to watch them look for the real culprit and place the blame back on them in more ways that gets comical and comical. Leo Gorcey who leads the gang always to trust his friends and knows nothing goes to plan even with Scruno able to do a small dance off.

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Meet The Applegates. 1990.

With the looming destruction of their rain forest in South America, a family of bugs disguise themselves as human in order to infiltrate a power plant and destroy it.

Think this is one of those movies that you either like and laugh at it or hate it. you got Ed begley Jr and Stockard Channing as the parents of two spoilt teens or as they appear to be trying to infiltrate a small town in America, the film is set in present time yet they dress like a family from the 50s. Glenn Shadix plays their neighbour and has a device he uses to annoy or kill bugs...you got great neighbourd there Applegates. The bugs themselves are like giant cockroaches that seem to have the same length of arms as a praying mantis. Lighthearted comedy from the late 80s.

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You Only Live Twice (1967)

I'd forgotten how poor this Connery outing actually was. The plot is fine but it's the smaller plot points that totally ruin it. You can really see why the makers of Austin Powers ripped it to shreds.

Examples - Well where to start? Why does Bond spend twenty minutes of the film Ninja training and marrying a Japanese girl? Simply so he can walk up a jetty with her it would seem. Not really sure you have to get married for that. Then there's Bond 'turning Japanese'. The moment he enters Blofeld's volcano base the prosthetics are nowhere to be seen. SPECTRE's number 11, as played by Karin Dor, captures Bond and takes him to her base, ties him to a chair, makes out with him then concocts an elaborate plan to escape with him in a small plane before she leaps out with a parachute leaving Bond in the plane to crash, except he doesn't obviously. Why the hell not just shoot him when he's stuck in her chair? Meanwhile Donald Pleasence portraying Blofeld is simply comical. As Jimmy Cricket would say 'And there's more', in fact much more, but i'm bored typing it.

It's not all rubbish writing from Roald Dahl though.

There are one or two fun scenes, in particular an aerial dogfight featuring Bond piloting 'Little Nellie' an armed gyrocopter against four SPECTRE helicopters - it's exhilarating stuff as is the Ninja assault on the volcano base but by then it's all a little too late.

No wonder Sean Connery decided to leave the role of 007 midway through filming. Thankfully as promised James Bond returned in the far superior On Her Majesty's Secret Service two years later.

The Torture Chamber Of Dr. Sadism (1967, Harald Rienl)

Kept thinking "this would make a great game".
Almost a German Hammer flick, a disparate group find that the written word doesn't always tell the whole story ahem.
Fun here, with Chris Lee, Karin Dor etc.
It does kind of falter in the last third but I got a lot of enjoyment out of this slightly lurid little film. Alternately atmospheric and hilarious, this was just what the doctor ordered :nod:

That seems to happen a lot in early James Bond films and is presumably where Mike Myers and Jay Roach got the idea for this scenario in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wmHV...BasilGentleman

Deliver Us From Evil. 2014.

New York detective Ralph Sarchie begins to investigate why a mother threw a baby into a moat at a zoo and a ex marine beaten his wife and why a family think they hear noises coming from the basement. He teams up with a uncoventional priest who believes demonic forces are at work.

Based on actual events that Ralph Sarchie retired from the police force and became a ghost hunter, this movie does get it's flack for being poor, too dark, poor writing and directing, yet seems to be praised for it's true presentation of exorcism.

I'm not sure if Eric bana was the right choice for the lead but manages to make the character believable as in he has to see to believe what is real and what isn't. Edgar Ramirez plays the drinking and smoking priest who faced his own demons to battle supernatural demons and makes the unbelievable beliveable. Sean Harris makes his possessed character Santino creepy as f'ck, not as creepy from the film Creep which he was good in that. It does build up the slow tension for a predictable jump scares, got to admire that they used The Doors as refrences throughout the film. Entertaining enough.

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You enjoyed Deliver Us From Evil a lot more than i did MrB.

I thought it was terrible. :lol:

Win some lose some.

Yeah wasn't too bad. I watched a episode of The Demon Files, the film was a bit more tense than the paranormal investigation Ralph sarchie was investigating :lol: there is other films out and about that focus on possession that some may hate and others don't, It may not be the best horror film but it kept me quiet and entertained :lol:

Eyewitness (1981)

I was expecting to really enjoy this noir-ish thriller from Bullitt director Peter Yates, however i actually found it really dull and lacking much in the way of thrills. It's only real plus point was how pretty Sigourney Weaver looked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8X44NRltMM

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOhoIBkOYf0

Watched these 3 , which is often called the genesis trilogy. Khan returns and sets his sites on getting revenge on Kirk for the death of his wife, he steals the genesis device, Kirk shouts KHHHAAAAN! And Spock saves the enterprise at the cost of his own life, the crew steal the enterprise and set out too find Spocks body whom has been brought back to live by the genesis wave the enterprise is destroyed and Kirk fights Doc Brown and finally they go back to 20th century to get some humpback whales to save the future from a probe that's destroying the earth.

Was a lot added detail to uniforms etc with the 4k transfer and more natural skin tones and colours but we had a lot of scenes in the three movies with soft focus. I might of said this before but originally Eddie Murphy was going to be in The Voyage Home playing the marine biologist, good knows how this would of turned out.


Now watching what many consider the worst star trek, but I've always had a soft spot, it's not perfect and has a lot problems but it has it charms.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S5TDrAWBd8

The Mist. 2007.

A freak storm unleashes a strange mist where a group of people trapped in a supermarket try to fight of blood thirsty creatures, while tensions mount up on what to do....fight or flight.

Only Stephen King can come up with something like this and Frank Darabont is able to deliver what King had envision in his head, even the master of terror once said he was terrified of his own adaptation when he saw it for the first time.

The acting in this is brilliant, nobody goes OTT or try to outshine everyone else, it's like the director just said "how would you react in a real situation"people wanting to go, others wanting to stay and in times like these there is always someone religious who thinks Judgement day has come. This is one of the few films where CGI was used and created decently and very little background score was used except The Host Of Seraphim was used that gives that apocalyptic feeling with the ending of the film that still is still unbelievable to happen.

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Best Of The Best 4

In a Film that I didn't know existed until I saw it in the Best Of The Best set sees Tommy Lee inadvertently be given a disk containing U.S. Currency designs that Russian Mobsters, led by Tobin Bell want back therefore kidnap his Daughter. Ernie Hudson and Paul Gleason co-star in a somewhat decent effort but certainly far away from the first two B.O.T.B Movies. This is more like a P/M Entertainment release.

Overall a really good Blu-Ray set with 2 really entertaining Movies with 3 and 4being watchable but only connected by the fact that Tommy Lee was a character in them. Picture quality was better than expected (As I was expecting a DVD to Blu-Ray transfer)

Born To Fight

Steve Austin is a High School Janitor who helps train a bullied Teen in Boxing so he can take on his abuser. Yes this is a version of The Karate Kid (Or the Billy Blanks Film, Showdown for the Fight Film Connoisseurs out there) again decent enough but not essential watching.

The Lost Coast Tapes (2007, Corey Grant)

Somewhat similar to Exists, a group of debunkers travel to a secluded location to meet with a man who claims to have something rather concrete in the sasquatch evidence stakes.
The "presenter" was a total arse, so could not wait to see him go in the grinder, so to speak :laugh:
Somewhat more grounded than ... the last one, it does go a tad doolaly at the end ... ho hum.

Is that the one that ends up at a military installation where they farm creatures? Or is it the one with the lights in the cabin?

I do have both this and Exists and to tell you the truth whilst a fun watch at the time they do tend to blend into one.

One of the very worst bigfoot films was Goldthwaite's film. I was really looking forward to that but really didn't get on with it.

The Aftermath. 1982

Two astronauts return to earth after a year in space only to discover the earth was involved in a nuclear war, with a gang running the street, a band of people try to survive their onslaught and mutants.

Calling this a B movie may be a insult to other B movies, big man Sid Haig plays Cutter who runs the gang the pillages places and kills those he finds alive for sport mostly men. Steve Barkett writes and directs this film and also plays the main lead who finds survivors and tries to help them with Cutter and his minions. This is one of those films that is sooo bad yet somewhat good. with the homage of Planet Of The Apes and The Omega Man.


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Isn't your first description a British flick?

Did you watch the colour version of this?

If you did, rewatch it with the BW version - it is much better

They feel like completely different films. The colour version of The Mist feels very contemporary whereas the black-and-white version feels more like a film from the 1950s, an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-type paranoid thriller.

Absolutely - the BW version is much more atmospheric

The Wicker Tree (2011)

DCI Foyle - "Samantha Stewart, why are you in this terrible movie?... and, er, why are you, um, naked most of the time?"

I can't believe i liked this first time round. It's genuinely quite poor, as if someone who had no notion of what the 1973 horror classic was actually like was given a sketchy outline to make a sequel. It all feels so wrong and ill thought out.

The fact that Honeysuckle Weeks, who i'm currently enjoying in Foyle's War, is in it is the film's only slight saving grace. That and the raven obviously.

Poor film

My copy went straight back to CEX

It's a great light comedy film.

Well, that's what I saw anyhow :laugh::behindsofa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S5TDrAWBd8

Kirk , Spock and Bones are on Holiday, when they are called back too the enterprise , someone has captured the ambassadors a human, Klingon and Romulan on the so called planet of galactic peace, this some one turns out too be Spocks half brother Sybok, whom could well be nuts as he is on a mission too find god, as well as a Looney Vulcan Kirk has to contend with a Klingon Captian . It's has many problems but it's enjoyable in its way, probably the best thing is the dynamic between Spock, Kirk and Bones. Sean Connery was approached for the role of Sybok,but luckily he went too play Indys farther this year. It was supposed to be a lot grander but the budget wasn't big enough for supposedly what Shatner had in mind.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYA2q2Sm_Jo

My second favourite star trek, which we see the original crew together for one last adventure . The Kilingons closest moon explodes, which leads too the Klingon empire seeking help from the federation as they empire will be dead in 50 years, but treachery is afoot from both sides.

This follows the Chernobyl disaster and the fall of the Soviet Union. Always getting a little tear in my eye , when the cast sign , there names at the end.

Superman. 1978.

I'm sure we all know how the story goes,

Seeing the director's cut was like a big boner, seeing the 3 hour tv version, major chubby, but the 4k UHD ,


For those that were able to see it at the cinema back in the day now I know how you felt, this was amazing to see and hear.

House Of Dark Shadows (1970, Dan Curtis)

Whilst I always preferred the "sequel" Night Of Dark Shadows, I felt I would give this one more go.
When an estranged relative returns to the family domicile, the Collins' find they have a cuckoo in the nest.
A tad more talky than the remake, belieing the parent material tbh, this is really just as flat as I half remembered, there's no tension, regardless of how many closeups you shove into it Dan, sorry. Ho hum.

The Doll Of Satan. 1969.

Eilzabeth has just inherited a castle from her Late Uncle, she is persuaded to sell it and decides to hang on to it but strange things begin to happen.

This was a blind watch for me and had no idea what I was going into, typical giallo, eccentric Uncle, distant relative and a house in the middle of nowhere...what can go wrong? Thing I have learned is if you are offered a creepy place don't stay the night, run fast run far. I don't get the jist of this one except someone doing a bit of chemistry in the basement and a criminal on the loose, will say this Erna Schurer was a beautiful lady, and Roland Carey is able to get help from a German Shepherd dog. Re-watch will be due again.

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