I had similar thoughts about the film to you, Dem, only I didn't rate the first half as highly as you. I didn't think it ever really got going in a way that fully engaged me or left me feeling entertained, wanting more.

Although Jungle Cruise is based on a theme park ride, it was so similar to The African Queen and The Mummy that it felt derivative and uninspired.

From Beyond (1986)

The ever so slightly crazed Dr. Pretorius (We know this because he has a bondage dungeon in his house) has invented a machine called the Resonator which taps into the pineal gland and produces intense pleasure and also shows the recipient creatures from another dimension. When he ends up with his head bitten off and assistant Jeffrey Combs becomes the main suspect, Barbara Crampton's psychiatric doctor begins an investigation to find out exactly what happened.

Produced by Brian Yuzna and directed by Stuart Gordon, From Beyond is a prime example of eighties gloopy horror, a film bursting with gooey effects and horrific visuals with memorable if overwrought performances from Combs, Crampton, Ken Foree and Ted Sorel as the screwed up Pretorius.

Loosely based on the short story of the same name by H. P. Lovecraft, From Beyond shows it's inter dimensional beings through what can only be described as an eighties horror synthesizer light show with weird fish like creatures floating in the air, although it's so very much of it's time it's also totally brilliant with it.

The Second Sight Blu-ray is simply a joy to watch. A visual feast for the eyes and i heartily recommend it whilst it's currently at the low (for Second Sight) price of £9.99. A stunning release.

To say it was a Collet-Serra film it was severely disappointing. I'm not suggesting he's a great director but until Jungle Cruise he was a director i could rely on for a fun couple of hours entertainment because everything from House of Wax to The Commuter i've thoroughly enjoyed as popcorn entertainment. He also proved he could make a terrifically gripping film with just a single woman on screen for the majority of the time in the excellent The Shallows, so to say i felt let down by Jungle Cruise was a bit of an understatement.

He's a very capable director with a good eye for visuals. I didn't like House of Wax, but everything else he's made has been, at the very least, entertaining. Even with a fairly minimal plot (as in The Shallows), he can make a gripping film. Unsurprisingly, Jungle Cruise looked good, but the story and characters weren't very interesting.

Death Ship (1980, Albin Rakoff)

Revisiting this one, yep, it's still really odd :nod:

A pleasure cruise comes to an untimely end, but the guests have more to worry about than losing their place at the captain's table ahem. Finding an unusual shelter, they try to make the best of things, but something seems to have something else in mind. The eerie atmosphere and lack of pandering still makes this work imho. Recommended. :nod:

FATAL GAMES – I suppose a lot of these lower-tier slasher movies are best appreciated for their quirks and misfires. There are plenty of those in ‘Fatal Games’. The setting, a sports academy, has an air of strangeness – for the first half hour or so, everything is games, workouts, showers. It’s an obvious ploy designed to show a lot of young people in and out of tight gym gear, but it all feels quite detached and clinical. This is cheapshit filmmaking on a porno budget; tonally, it’s all over the shop. I should have mentioned, before all the deadpan sports stuff there’s a yee-ha rock’n’roll theme (one specific to the film, a seventies / eighties trait I adore) and a bit of light relief; it opens with an inexplicable tug of war involving a huge kitchen roll (?) Then the comedy is gone, and the serious stuff begins. This is a movie which is basically about death by javelin administered over and over by some creep in a shiny shell suit, so of course it’s played with suitable gravitas. There are many films out there in the world – which one should you choose? If your idea of fun is watching some dude on crutches hobble for what seems like a lifetime through a maze of corridors, accompanied only by ‘Madman’ blue lighting and bizarre musique concrete… then welcome to the team, you’ll find your skimpy costume in the locker room. But you shouldn’t ever knock a movie that ends with impalement by sports trophy.

DEADLY GAMES – Reviews of the recent Arrow have been on the discouraging side, full of gripes about it being dull and not really ‘a slasher’. They’re right, it’s not really ‘a slasher’ (although it is, a bit). You can’t really take it in the same way as ‘The Burning’, or even ‘Fatal Games’. It’s actually quite an odd film. After an opening which, with its balaclavas and gloves and nudity, is all very ‘giallo’, it settles down into soap mode with an eye on small-town bitching more than anything else. Then it gradually splinters. There’s the disfigured Nam vet who bears a grudge, the square-jawed hero who seems more and more of a total cock as things roll on, the musical interlude where the three main characters play a board game, and then of course there's the board game itself – what's it all about? Is it really 'deadly? is it a metaphor? If so, what for? Snatches of strangeness pile up; gothic bits in a graveyard, a roomful of mannequins. A seemingly inexplicable freeze-frame caps it all. You sense the sharpness behind the camera, little references and nods that suggest some refinement of vision; the pithy dialogue and drama of the first half are well handled, but they give way to some really strange shifts that make you question what it’s all about, whether its deliberate, whether there’s a key to it all. Me, I have no answers. Is it any good? I liked it. I wouldn’t watch it every day. I think going in with a certain set of expectations will end in disappointment for many, but those with a fondness for mildly strange cinema that’s quite enigmatic and difficult to tag will find something. A film this talky would’ve been a drag to watch on VHS, but the Arrow restoration is very nice.

:hail::hail::hail::hail::hail::hail:

As always FT ....

Rock And Roll Cops (2002, Scott Shaw)

Another belter from the SS ... er ... :rolleyes::laugh:

Hassled by their captain and drenched in complaints about their behaviour, two coppers decide to "get Mr Big" as respite to their woes. How they go about this is .... unique to say the least.
Making Breen look like Lean is some mean feat but boy does he achieve this ... in spades. Some fascinating cameos towards the end made me sit up at least, the rest was tear enducingly funny tbh. :lol:

I remember that picture in the centre of a Video Shop Magazine back in the day.

Kinda scared me at the time lol, this and Hellraiser

The Godfather, in 4k, what a film, what else can I say? Take the cannoli!

But leave the gun :lol:

Bloody Bloody Bible Camp (2012)

Very silly modern take on the 80's slasher genre in which a satanic nun terrorizes a bible camp out in the back woods.

Despite it's very low budget the film has some good practical gore effects, loads of T&A and also manages to blag a horror 'name' in Phantasm's Reggie Bannister as the religious camp leader (you can take those last three words any way you want as they all work).

So if you want cheap thrills, gore galore and some crazy dialogue, Sin, as it's called in the UK, might just be the film for you.

Oh, and did i forget to mention? Ron Jeremy plays Jesus.

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MAGIC (1978)

Another movie I had not seen in ages, in fact I forgot most of what was in it!
There are some really good creepy scenes in this, involving 'Fats' the doll.
The "is it alive or not" thoughts running through your head as Fats watches out of the window or his eyes are watching or moving.
Good performance by Anthony Hopkins.

I've never seen this. Wondered about it from the Second Sight sale at the moment as a blind buy. I take it you recommend it, Dave. Is it Gothic horror or very much 'modern day'.

It's very much a modern day Psychological horror.
As I had not seen it in a very long time, the movie kept me guessing all the way as I forgot how it ended! And yes, I do recommend the movie and I think it is sadly overlooked.

They're Outside (2020, Airell Anthony Hayles/ Sam Casserly)

FF.
When a rather conceited "expert" accepts the challenge of tackling a severe case of agoraphobia, all bets are off after she relates a local legend which may pertain to her condition.
For all that, the most I got out of this was seeing Boof (Emily Booth) again ahem. The male lead is an ARSEHOLE, and I couldn't wait for him to get his. Even that was limp.



Commando Ninja (2018, Ben Combes)

If you're basically just going to make a homage to Predator (and Commando), then why set it in 1986????
Only quibble really, as this is a laugh riot literally.
A lone wolf survives the hell that was Vietnam only to fall foul of a tinpot dictator. The references will make you smile and groan at the same time. Well, that's what I did anyhow :rolleyes::lol:
It's only an hour and a bit!!



Preternatural (2016, Gav C. Steel)

FF. Two friends audition actors for a "horror spoof" set in the woods. This was an oddity, as the "main plot" seemed to be more of a contrivance rather than the actual events that occur. A brave attempt at something different or needlessly "meta" ?? Hmm.
A group travel into rural England in search of scary stuff and well, they find it tbh. This was the problem really, the framework is bog standard for this genre (outsiders trample over ancient myths and pay the cost) and the wild swerve it takes just as this is coming to fruition, well, I can see some shutting it off to be fair .... maybe budgetary limits meant they chose to develop the "meta" element as that don't need no FX ... who knows. Haven't been as infuriated with a film since Midslumber tbh.
NEXT!!! :rolleyes::laugh:

NIGHT ANGEL – Nineties ripeness set within a fashion mag’s head office, where various poseurs fall victim to the razor-claws of a pouty siren. Sooner or later, everyone is seen wearing a beret in at least two shots. I liked it, it has the tacky smoothness of a lot of B movies of its era, a kind of stylisation that’s over the top but somehow lifeless at the same time; ‘Night Angel’ is the natural corollary of a world where Calvin Klein, direct-to-video and the crass plundering of folklore coexist. It’s too heavy handed to be remotely erotic, but looking past the sultry décor there are plenty of wild fx moments, such as an orgy that looks like it might’ve been hosted by Hot Gossip and Screaming Mad George (I should mention that the make-up was by Steve Johnson, but you get my drift, it all goes a bit ‘Society’ there for a couple of seconds), a crazed slow-motion zombie siege and a few other splattery mishaps. Even after all that, ‘Night Angel’s most endearing quality is just a kind of bad pop-video goofiness. Utter bollocks but fun.

Saw bits of this on

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Never actually seen a decent copy of the film and forgot all about it, your review has put me back on the trail to find it again.

The Playbirds (1978)

A serial killer is murdering the girls sleazy Alan Lake uses as centerfolds for his Playbirds magazine. The police are f*cking useless - seriously. Two murders happen to girls supposedly under police protection - so beat bobby Mary Millington goes undercover at Playbird magazine in a bid to snare the killer.

To say this is a Mary Millington film she must have all of two minutes screen time during the first hour. She's in it more for the final 25 minutes. However it becomes clear why she's not given many scenes of dialogue. She simply isn't a very good actor and speaks her lines as if reading a cue card. A pity as Mary seems a very likable girl and other than the sex and stripping scenes i can certainly see her appeal.

Last night was my second viewing of The Playbirds. It's not bad with a couple of effective kills, especially the final one which is a proper downer, but too much of it is given up to scenes of horse racing and or the police acting generally useless. In truth this isn't as good as the film it borrowed it's plot from, 1959's Cover Girl Killer.

It's far and away the best movie Mary appeared in and i was pleased to see how lovely the restored dvd picture looked on my tv, thankfully justifying not purchasing the Blu-ray box set.

Bring Me The Vampire. 1963.

A group of would-be beneficiaries must spend the night in a house in order to receive their inheritance.

Would be old dark house from the 1930s film, with a assortment of characters who seems to get scared at the their own shadow. A head that appears at a dinner table that eventually manifests into a ghost and flies through the wall and a creepy dark atmosphere. What the Americans made with these type of films, the Mexicans thought we can do better but on a lower budget and failed. The acting wasn't too bad but just the bad dubbing that made little sense to the film, someone must have been having a laugh to screw this up. Helped pass some time away.

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Rambo (2008)

If you want blood... you've got it!

Rambo and a team of mercenaries travel up the Burmese river to rescue a party of missionaries from a crazed military unit.

Seriously, this would have been butchered by the BBFC in the eighties. It's possibly the most violent mainstream film out there not in the horror genre. Had this been directed by Lamberto Lenzi it would be seen now as an exploitation classic.

The Phantom Express. 1932.

A railway line has caused trains to derail, is it a ghost train or something else.

A decent fast paced mystery movie that starts off with a train derailment and a engineer who is fired for causing the derailment after seeing another train light in a tunnel coming towards him and people looking into the cause of it. About 20 minutes in we see what's going on but the reason is played out well right up to the end with decent acting and the use of model railways for the exterior shots which is a bit of a laugh. Enjoyable.

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The Ultimate Ninja (1986, Godfrey Ho)

A tale as old as time. When your dad is killed by the local scuzzball, what are his children to do? Kick the feck out of everyone naturally. Featuring that mature measured dialogue that we've grown to expect from the Ho.
To be fair, this could easily be the ultimate Ho flick, as it is blatantly 2 films shoved together (3??), the only bum not being that the Harrison is replaced by ...someone else with a moustache :lol:
Yet again the horribly cropped 4:3 print just added to it.
Recommended AF.

High-Rise. 2015.

Dr. Laing, tries to settle in at a new tower block, soon the residents lives begin to go out of control.

After reading the book (which took me 2 and half hours to get through) I was eager to see how the film was in comparison to the source novel. The novel itself is dark, grim, dramatic and violent which is written down to a T, the film has toned down a lot of the violence, added in some more drama and intentionally (or Unintentionally) added in a bit of comedy, where would you see Jeremy Irons saying "Et Tu" to a dog?

Right at the start we see the dystopian carnage with Laing describing what has happened, then goes back three months earlier where everything is more peaceful and settled before all hell breaks loose. The acting is brilliant from everyone involved. The cinematography is done greatly except when a riot breaks out in the supermarket that makes it feel like a P.O.V. film. This was enjoyable and like the novel there is some violence towards animals, it is not shown graphic but we do see the end results.

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Breaking The Waves. 1996.

Bess from a small community in Northern Scotland marries Danish oil rig worker Jan, both are happily in love til Jan is paralyzed in a freak accident and encourages his wife to find men to have sex with which she slowly becomes despised by the community.

A strange tale of happiness, joy, heartbreak, deceit and loyalty, Emily Blunt and Stellan Skarsgard play the happy couple who hard hit with tragedy and to keep his wife from being celibate encourages her to find pleasure with other men which goes against her religious beliefs. Bess who believes when she is praying and thinks god is answering her back plays on the mind that she is borderline Schizophrenic.

Lars Von Trier manages to capture some interesting cinematography and can seem amateurish at times with the back ground of Northern Scotland and does his masterful film making by making the film into chapters even with the journey from start to finish making the audience feel the emotions for the characters portrayed in the film.

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THE KINDRED – Late eighties tentacle fun about a genetics experiment in an abandoned house, complete with slight shades of “The Dunwich Horror” (sort of, seeing how I’ve developed a tendency to slip in Lovecraft references everywhere these days). A solid B pic, although its workmanlike finish fails to conceal a few dodgy effects along with a tone that sometimes doesn’t hold up. Someone who looks like Paul McGann is a very standard male scientist hero; Rod Steiger lurks on the threshold before raving like a cry baby when everything explodes at the end. During the build-up, tendrils burst out of a watermelon. ‘The Kindred’ features a few effective scenes (in one, a screaming woman is transformed by gills that tear her flesh open), but, back to that wavering tone; the film is undermined by a melodramatic screechiness and an insistence on heading down a very standard route. It’s enjoyable, but convention snuffs the moments of intensity, making the dollop of goo at the end a bit less of a treat. The film has its fans. They’ll be happy to shell out big time for the newish Synapse blu ray, I guess (I watched an old knackered VHS version). It’s not overly stylised, but maybe it’ll play better in a superior format, considering all the stuff I’ve dismissed when I’ve seen it via cruddy analogue video / DVD, only for it to spring to life in HD. I tend not to be cynical about that, I think it’s simply that film is a visual medium and a better presentation usually enhances.

GIRLS NITE OUT – A rewatch, to find out whether the upcoming blu ray might be worth getting. Seeing it again, I’m not surprised I’d wiped it from memory. We’re in familiar slasher territory on a campus full of rowdy studes, where a sinister back story unfolds when a now-crazed alumnus escapes from the local psyche ward and etc etc etc – sounds OK? Part of the problem is that, for a solid half hour, ‘rowdy studes’ is all we get. Then someone is stabbed and a bear costume is stolen. And then… more students hanging out, but then also an unforgivable swerve into plodding police procedural during the home run. It’s enlivened by a few quirks, a dab of blood and not much else besides the weird ending. Hal Holbrook tries his best to look dignified through it all. A disappointment really, because who doesn’t want to get behind a film in which a maniac dressed as the college football team’s mascot bear (!) goes around whispering cryptic proclamations to a radio DJ, or prefaces a fatal encounter by hissing “bitch! Bitch! You whore!” But GNO is from the same place as ‘Killer Party’, all tease. The effective moments never reach beyond their moment. I would say it’s worth sticking around for that weird ending, but I’m not sure it is. Apart from that, the slim pickings of eighties nostalgia and a few bits of oddity might not be enough to warm even my cockles. “Be mellow. Be Happy. Get High,” says college DJ Harry Kaiser at one point. Yeah, you’d be better off just doing that.

That’s a bit arty for you lol, are you feeling ok or have you literally run out of films to watch :D

So is The Kindred on blu now, Frankie? Not seen it for donkeys years.

It came out through Synapse as one of those posh limited editions at the start of the year. Not sure how available it is, you can certainly still score through Diabolik if it's one of your all time faves (doesn't sound like it is if you haven't seen it for donks - me neither). Has to be more than just a serviceable monster flick to bag my money at those prices these days.

Ha ha, just looked on ebay and some clowns have it up for over £100. "Cost of living, mate". Martin Lewis, bring it on.

Cheers, good sir. I'll wait until it comes available in a cheaper edition. It's certainly not a fave as i can't recall anything about it. Except the vidoe cover which seemed to be everywhere in the 80's.

Me run out of stuff to watch :lol: was something that popped up and decided to watch it.

I have one particular memory of The Kindred, so this will spur me on (but not to ebarf :lol:)

Kudos as always ..... :hail::hail::hail:

The Silent Scream. College students move into an off-campus boarding house run by a reclusive woman and her teen son. Heads start to roll. This horror flick with Rebecca Balding (The Boogens, Soap) feels very creaky and old-fashioned, often feeling like it was made in 1970 rather than 1980, and is so agonisingly slow and filled with uninteresting characters I often felt myself losing the will to live. A bit of a snoozer, tbh.

URGE TO KILL – Dick Randall had his hand in this one. It’s flabbergasting, as though a fourth rate Ken Russel had been charged with the task of “Stock, Aitken and Waterman; the Untold Story” and decided to remake “The Demon Seed” instead. Confused? You will be. A sleazy record producer lives in a flat controlled by proto-Alexa surveillance system known as S.E.X.Y (red flag number one – the acronym doesn’t even stand for anything). He chats up girls, watches sci-fi porn plus or minus mud wrestling, is visited by dominatrices who end up in a hot-tub nightmare starring the most inspired severed limbs I’ve seen this side of ‘Tenebrae’ (don’t get your hopes up, it’s utterly bath-etic). A number of other fairly horrible computer-driven deaths occur. Somewhere along the line, S.E.X.Y materialises as a naked living statue impersonating Siouxsie Sioux. “This movie is like a fever dream” is a phrase used too often these days, but it’s accurate in this case. Not having much cash for blu rays has sent me scuttling in search of bad VHS rips on youtube; thank goodness for that, because mind-blowers like this are the reason I’m still watching screens. I realise I’m asking in vain, but can’t BFI or Vinegar Syndrome put out a nice refurbishment I can at least drool over in HMV shop windows?

It's an odd one alright. I sat transfixed.

REWATCH. :nod:

Sold!

Abso****inglutely sold!

Enjoy D! It's not forgotten easily :nod::lol::pop2:

Phantom Of The Open

Mark Rylance stars in the story based on the world's worst Golfer and how he manages to play in the British Open and other tournaments in disguise after he is banned. Really enjoyable with a special mention to the Commentator who is able to insult people without realizing the reactions of their faces as they are watching the TV.

Exam

Several people are having a Exam as the final part of an interview but there isn't a written question. Very decent effort with definite Cube vibes (Without the violence)

Eyeball (1975)

A killer in a red plastic mac murders a bus load of American tourists visiting Spain, removing their right eyeball as he goes.

Whilst parts of this Umberto Lenzi directed giallo work other times a visit to the optician and reading the eye chart is more exciting, especially during the many mind numbing conversations that bring the films pace to a near halt.

Some of the kills are sweetly done, the largely female bus passengers all seemed happy to shed their clothes and the final pay off caught me by surprise. However I'm not sure which Umberto Lenzi turned up to direct this but i'm pretty certain it wasn't the same one as made the excellent Nightmare City, Violent Naples or Rome Armed to the Teeth. So all in all not one of Lenzi's better efforts but watchable all the same even if some scenes drag.

The 88 Films Blu-ray was a huge step up from the Marketing Film dvd i'm about to throw away.