What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Make Them Die Slowly]

"Galaxy of Terror". "Holy Mountain" crash lands on an alien planet, dumbs down and freaks out in a very 60s in the 80s way. Excellent.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. 3D. With zombies that look like rejects from CSPWDT and a loop of the same 10 seconds of music endlessly playing, this should have been great...it's not but there is a lot worse out there.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

BLACK CADALLAC. Three college kids go for a night of whoring, drinking and fighting to end up being chased down the snowy back roads of Dogdick USA by a menacing black car...I really enjoyed this spin on DUEL and JOY RIDE. It's fast, funny and kind of dumb but very likably if viewed on it's own terms.

[Linbro]

From the sublime - 'Mulholland Dr' - to the inept - 'The Apparition'. Really lame ghost story that's basically 'Paranormal Activity' without the found footage element. Couple of standard jump scares, but no tension, and some of the silliest 'science' I've ever seen in a film. Avoid.

[keirarts]

1941. Dir Steven Spielberg.

Ok, so the beards biggest 'flop'. Is it as bad as the critics made out?

With hindsight no it's not but the attempt in the feature length documentary to portray it as a neglected classic is somewhat off the mark. Certainly the comparison to Buster Keaton is unwarranted. The truth is Spielberg didn't seem to understand how to make a comedic movie. Sure he can pull off comic moments in films like Raiders of the lost Arc, but delivering a feature length comedy seems beyond him. In that regard he's certainly not a patch on someone like John Landis who could have taken the film and made it work.

Watching the documentary straight after the main film is a revelation in some respects as it really hits home WHY the film didn't work and why the budget was so enormous. Everyone involved seemed to have a great time just making a lot of stuff up as they went along. There is even an admission that at least one of the jokes is an inside joke the audience would never get. I'm all for films being self indulgent but with comedy it seems everything needs to really be planned ahead of time and improvisation is fine when there is a gifted Actor like John Belushi on set but there really does need to be a distinct vision behind the picture as a whole. Seriously, Spielberg could learn a lot from watching an episode of BOTTOM, Keaton, chaplin and Lloyd may be the masters but even good old Bottom hits its marks more consistently than this.

As a result 1941 is a somewhat fun mess. A collection of some individually great scenes and some pretty rotten and unfunny ones too. Its perhaps too long and too much of the humor misses the mark. It also helps prove that comedy is one of the hardest genres to pull off.

[Buboven]

Has BBC2 just brought back the legendary Horror double bill. The Awakening, The Ring (remake) and Quatermass 2, were all on tonight!

Just finished watching Quatermass 2. A fun film, does exactly what it says on the tin, enjoyable sci-fi fun.

I give it 4 out 5 stars!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Nazi Zombies (2003)

A crack team of Army Special Forces is sent into a secret biological weapons facility, only to fall prey to the failed experiments of Nazi scientists that was recreated by the government after World War II. The team end up battling the flesh eating zombies as well as assassins within their ranks.

Although the story sounds interesting its one that has been played out to death over the years and all of them are better than Nazi Zombies.

Where to start? Well, the box artwork is easily the best thing about Nazi Zombies, or Operation Nazi Zombies or even Maplewood as it was first known when made ten years ago. However it is completely unrepresentative of the film itself, it gives the impression of a Dead Snow type film. It isn't.

For twenty minutes i could forgive the largely terrible acting and forced dialogue as it seemed to have some sort of psychokinetic‎ hold on me forcing me to watch whilst making my brain pretend it was enjoying it. However once the team of intrepid soldiers arrive at the facility it all goes downhill so, so quickly. The pixelated picture quality looked worse than ever in the dark corridors of the complex. Characters went missing without explanation and a convoluted storyline of conspiracy and cover ups took hold of proceedings to the point of overkill, ensuring complete boredom and a total break in the films psychokinetic powers.

Nazi Zombies is recommended to no one, except those hardy purveyors of extremely cheap direct to dvd rubbish, Frankie Teardrop,and MTDS

[Rik]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Nazi Zombies is recommended to no one, except those hardy purveyors of extremely cheap direct to dvd rubbish, Frankie Teardrop,and MTDS

And me

[demonknight]

The Fall of the House of Usher;

First off, this looks amazing on Bluray. Well done Arrow. Nice to see all the extras in HD too. While this is not my favourite Poe movie adaptation, seeing it in HD really brings the movie to life. Every extra feature was first class. Loved the ten minute interview with Vincent Price from 1986 with the non removable subs. Entertaining and funny. And Joe Dante is always interesting to listen to. All well worth staying up late for

[keirarts]

One word review time!

R.I.P.D.


Banal.