A bit pretentious. It's basically an excuse for lots of female nudity (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). It's okay, and worth your time, I'd say (especially as it's only 13 minutes long).

Bet you've got that damn theme tune of The Damned buzzing around your head all day, what is it, 'black leather, black leather..!' Really cool film that, like The Delinquents meets Quatermass

There's also a feature length version which uses the stuff from the short as fantasy sequences.

Dude be sure to see Mad Detective (Masters of Cinema, Blu-Ray/DVD)... Here's what I wrote on the excellent HK Cinema blog A Hero Never Dies about the film...

Stylish, intelligent and complex enough to demand multiple viewings, Johnny To and Wai Ka-Fai's 2007 film, the newest arrival on my list has in it's short life become an instant classic. For the few reading this who havenÃ*t yet seen the film, it's best to go in knowing as little as possible - The Sixth Sense and Fight Club toyed with a similar plot device but Mad Detective avoids the join-the-dots approach to story-telling and makes its audience do its own detective work but once you surrender yourself to the film's hallucinatory weirdness you'll begin to wonder why all films aren't made like this...

The above text was taken from a list of Top 10 Favourite HK films vistors to A Hero Never Dies were asked to contribute - it's a great place to discover HK Cinema...

I'm going to vouchsafe an opinion that won't be too popular around these parts, but, hey, I speak from the heart. Halloween II is shit. Honestly, I watched it last night for the first time in about 20 years and was shocked at how poorly directed and acted it was. Zero suspense, endless tiresome jump-scare scenes (a veritable coach station of Lewton buses if you will) - they even screwed up Myers by having him continually in every frame. The gore was poorly done and crushingly desperate, Donald Pleasance's overacting went beyond ham into the realm of madness. This film was a dog upon release and a dog it remains, God only knows what parts 4-6 are like - happily It's doubtful I'II ever find out. BTW If I missed any merit here, please come on and defend the film, I'd be interested to hear what positive aspects were enjoyed, seriously.

Thanks Paul - I'll have to check it out.


Thanks Wes.

I've seen Mad Detective and have the excellent Eureka blu-ray release. It's indeed a really great film, and the weirdness works really well in what is essentially a hard boiled crime drama.

I'll have to check out your review and explore that site, too.

That's what I thought first time I watched it. Then I got the 30th anniversary blu ray, and quite liked it the second time round.

I hear ya, and much of what you said is true more or less - no one would say it's a classic - Season of the Witch is a better film, but I suspect a lot of us here grew up with the film, and enjoy it for having that unmistakable flavour of a first wave early 80's slasher. It's unpretentious, undemanding, but the rack 'em up and knock 'em down structure just works...

Asylum Erotica AKA Slaughter Hotel: not exactly a stellar entry in Fernando Di Leo's oeuvre although perfectly watchable. To be fair the version I was watching was heavily cut and so sloppily edited. So-so.

The uncut version is pretty good and very sleazy in places. If you got anything out of the heavily cut UK version i'd recommend you give the R1 Shriek Show disc a go.