What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[sjconstable]

I've had an all-nighter of cult horror films:

The Return of the Living Dead - 3.5/5
The Howling - 2.5/5
Curtains - 1/5
Night of the Demons (1988) - 2/5

[Frankie Teardrop]

PREY - A family involved in a corrupt pesticide business goes hunting in a forest full of mutant killer boars and predictably gets munched on by same. Good, well made French flick which is enjoyable but sadly doesn't share the intensity of the nouveau Gallic splatter we saw back in its mid noughties heyday. Still worth a watch though.

DARK PLACES - Micro budget horror involving a crack addicted prostitute seeking refuge from the authorities after she (maybe) kills a punter. She ends up at a kind of S&M parlour / shooting gallery run by the sinister 'Luther' and... well, not all that much happens, but this didn't stop me really quite digging 'Dark Places', which drifts along in a narcotic blur, full of trippy edits and cross fades which yell "I've seen 'Requiem for a dream', I can do non-linear!"... some people will find this film and the way it's shot really irritating, but I found it hypnotic and addictive, and, although in many ways it can't overcome its no-budget, it does seem genuinely grimy and bleak.

CURSE OF PIRATE DEATH - More micro budget horror. Wow, this is totally how it's done. It's a sprawling semi-historical epic featuring latter day kids being stalked by an undead pirate from back in the day, made by someone with a camcorder which, going by pq alone, must too hail from 'back in the day'. It looks, feels and tastes so reekingly poverty-stricken... but it works. Everything from the pitiful 'make-up' worn by the ghost pirate to the blank, tongue in cheek self consciousness of the 'performances' seems right on. There's some butchers left over type gore, a dodgy professor who uses sexual blackmail against her students, really bad historical re-enactments, loads of wandering around, hysterical dialogue, etc etc. Just see it.

THE JAR - Very weird almost forgotten mid eighties flick which fully deserves the descriptor 'dream-like'. A guy almost knocks over an old guy, takes him back to his apartment, finds a jar with a kind of demonic foetus in it when old guy disappears, goes into a weird trance state during which blood erupts from the plug hole of his bath, has an awkward relationship with his neighbour, tries to destroy jar when he realises bad things are happening, resumes awkward relationship with neighbour, goes back into trance whereupon spiked ball impacts upon his face etc etc etc etc. The filmmakers were obviously going for a highly 'symbolic' feel, but what exactly do the various goings on in 'The Jar' symbolise? There may be some kind of 'guy trying to deal with his sexuality' subtext, but mostly this is a senseless albeit entrancing meander through a realm made up of one part mid-eighties video fodder, two parts film school dissertation.

FRIGHTWORLD - Starts with a blitz of freaked out gore imagery, and for a while I had my hopes up that 'Frightworld' might turn out to be a slightly more technically accomplished version of the likes of 'The Mutilation Man' or some such... sadly, after the credits role it degrades into another bunch of people wandering around in an enclosed space waiting to be offed by a killer. BUT, there are some highlights and good points along the way ie. lady wanking 'at' some sinister clowns, shitty dialogue-driven hysteria, good set, some OK gore, bad video effects representing 'dark forces'... not quite the catch it could've been, but I didn't turn my copy into an ashtray after viewing, either.

GOTH - The ongoing micro budget saga continues with 'Goth', which I suppose is the kind of movie people expecting to watch a 'proper low budget horror film' automatically pan - I on the other hand thought it was great, entertaining and surprisingly sleazy. A psychopathic goth chick meets a wannabe-goth couple in a club and takes them on a drug fuelled rampage in a strangely driverless truck. Meanwhile, one half of the goth-lightweight couple has an agenda of her own. Along the way are multiple killings, forced sex, aforementioned driverless truck which for some reason I can't get out of my mind (it's not even a plot point), some rules about being a goth and a massacre at someone's birthday party. Very good.

HELL HATH NO FURY - Low, low budget anthology (with one piece by Ryan Nicholson and the others mostly by, er, Vince D'Amato) which is spun around the idea of women extracting their revenge, mostly from men, in various horror-related ways. I really liked it, it's actually got quite a bizarre feel to it, with one or two episodes and some aspects of the wraparound story being particularly mind boggling - this is alongside a preponderance of bad taste moments (I find it quite amusing that this is featured on Lovefilm with an '18' certificate, whereas a cursory glance at some of the contents on display would confirm that 'Hell Hath No Fury' has never been anywhere near the BBFC). It's witty, self aware and referential, and if, like virtually all of its micro budgeted brethren, it can't transcend its technical limitations, it can make up for them by being batshit weird and by throwing in a mutilated hard on or two.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Dark Nature (2009)

I've just read the reviews this film received on IMDB. It has an average score of 3/10. F*cking morons seem to want their films served on a plate with a tasty trifle to follow. I had a review all worked out in my head, but reading their words incensed me and screwed it all up.

The story of a family who go to visit the kids grandmother on a remote part of the Scottish coastline. Thats all you need to know about the plot as to go any further gives things away.

I loved every second of this film, from its shocking opening to the end credits. Director Marc de Launay, for me has created a beautiful piece of cinema. The film has a very stately pace, its no thrill ride i admit, but that wasn't a problem as De Launay has an eye for a scene, his camera work is excellent. Even shots that seem to be irrelevantly admiring the stunning Scottish coastline hold secrets to the plot, not a piece of film is wasted. There's no frantic editing or bobbly camera work here. Often the camera is still, waiting for the actors to come into shot, or lingering when the action has left, again its done for a purpose to make the viewer look at what they are seing rather than just going with the flow of action. The cast of unknown actors do a great job, their performances are believable and hold the viewers attention whilst making you care about them.

Another stand out is the musical score. Often just a single piano note, it creates a quite disturbing build up of tension in scenes which many movies over do with jump scares.

The film is one that can clearly be taken on two levels. It can be seen as just another slasher film, but thats just lazy. It clearly isn't just another slasher movie. Whilst very bloody in places the film has aspects of Long Weekend which were far creepier and stuck in the head longer than any machete blade.


I notice from the film poster below Dark Nature appears to be distributed as a Troma film in the US. This stylish film is head and shoulders above the bubblegum schlock thrust at us by Kaufman and chums.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Sounds like it could be worth a watch then!

Nice review, Dem. Also, I'd pay little heed to IMDb and its 'reviewers'.

I'm not a fan of trifle myself.

[Rik]

Like the sound of this, time for a search

[Wes]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

GIMME SHELTER. F*ck you hippies, the dream is dead. Contains a really mean and raw sounding version of the song Gimme Shelter at the end, which is worth watching the film for on it's own. If you know nothing of the cultural and political background of the times I imagine this has less impact than with this knowledge. Excellent.

Cocksucker Blues is required viewing as well, definitely track this one down. What a spectacular mistake on the part of the Stones and their people to think they could manage the Hell's Angels - I mean those guys, they way they ran back then, would be classed as terrorists today. The Hippie movement like the fashions that came before and after it would have had a shelf life of a few years anyway, but it's unique in that its demise was writ so large within the public consciousness with Altamont and the Manson Family trial in 1970...

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

Sounds like it could be worth a watch then!

Nice review, Dem. Also, I'd pay little heed to IMDb and its 'reviewers'.

I'm not a fan of trifle myself.

Originally Posted by Rik

Like the sound of this, time for a search

I'm more than happy to watch scores of dumb teens get slaughtered but its always refreshing when something else comes along which makes you think a bit.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

I had a brief look at the quality of the films on the Mill Creek American Horror Stories last night.

If you pick it up for Horror Express and Driller Killer then you'll be disappointed as the prints, especially Horror Express (Horror Express - American Horror Story? it'll take me a good while to work that one out) are terrible.

Fortunately i bought the set for two films - Point of Terror and Bloody Pit of Horror and both have vibrant colours and pretty good picture quality in general.

[Rik]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

If you pick it up for Horror Express and Driller Killer then you'll be disappointed as the prints, especially Horror Express (Horror Express - American Horror Story? it'll take me a good while to work that one out) are terrible.

To be fair, anyone picking up a boxset just for the Duller Killer needs sitting down and talking to

[Make Them Die Slowly]

POSSESSION. Screaming madness as "The Brood" explodes into some alternative world where Frank Henenlotter is a respected art house film maker. Glorious and stupid in equal measures, this is both a train speeding down the track and it's wreckage as it crashes. Unmissable and a high point in European horror cinema.