What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[SCM]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

That would be me then. An easily pleased sadist. I much preferred this to his Hatchet films.

I think they are both as good as each other.
Watched evil dead 2 earlier as I waited for paint too dry (no joke). Still a brilliant piece of horror comedy.

[PaulD]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

That would be me then. An easily pleased sadist. I much preferred this to his Hatchet films.

Same here. I don't mind the Hatchet films but don't get the whole "back to old school horror" praise they get - they're far too tongue-in-cheek for that.

I've watched a fair bit of stuff since I last posted in here and will probably do a proper write-up when I have more time but one thing I have to admit is that I really enjoyed the Robocop remake. Like everyone else I was against it, remaking one of my favorite sci-fi/action films seemed sacrilege but they really pulled off a good film. It takes the basic components of the original and takes them down a slightly different path, still dealing with ethical issues through satire and although the ultra-violence of the original was lacking in favour of a wider audience and it needed a more defined and interesting villain(s) it was a real pleasant surprise. Definitely worth watching even if you love the original I think

[trebor8273]

Beverly Hills cop.

Classic Murphy. Great mix of comedy, action and cop movie. Fantastic sound track only downside is you watch something like this and see how far Murphy has fallen. 9/10

Friday the 13th part 2 and 3

Put them in as they continue on from one another, not my favourites (that's the next one) and the character of shelly is really annoying and couldn't wait for home to get dispatched. Watching them they really are tame by today's standards .6.5/10

Hellraiser

A classic. Great special effects that are still as good today as the first time I watched them. We have great performance from the underrated Andrew Robinson( Dirty Harry/ deep space nine) as Larry/ uncle frank. Come to daddy! But as good as it is the sequel is my favourite. 9/10

Next I think I might watch another movie in the David lynch boxset was thinking of blue velvet.

[keirarts]

Dead Kids.

Many years ago, back in the ye olden times of the nineties I spent a good portion of time and money, especially in the school holidays, touring the country with my folks hitting all the car boots, charity shops and junk stores I could find hunting down pre-cert tapes and other obscure horror titles.

One of my finds was the Iver Film services x-rated release of Michael Laughlin's dead kids. I'd never heard of it before and ended up writing a letter to Dark Side magazine to find out more. Turns out it was readily available under the title small town massacre and also got a later release as strange behaviour.

Intended as a straight exploitationer, Dead kids actually ends up as something stranger and more unique than one would expect. From the use of rural New Zealand as a location for mid-west America, to the teen party that morphs into a weird musical choreographed dance sequence and the ambient tangerine dream soundtrack combined with the almost languid pacing. Dead kids is a film that has stuck in my mind for a good many years.

Back when Scream relaunched horror for the late nineties early noughties cinema crowd I remember seeing Disturbing behaviour and thinking, hang on a second...

A lot of Disturbing behaviours ideas are taken straight from Dead kids. The idea of operant conditioning to make kids conform to adult expectations, and said experiments having disastrous consequences. It was almost as if the producers thought "heres a dodgy B-movie no ones seen, lets just nick the plot and make a few changes."

Disturbing behaviour is probably going to be a more entertaining experience for younger audiences but for me Dead kids is better. After all DB could never muster a mad scientist quite in the same league as Dr Claude LeSange, played to perfection by Australian actor Arthur Dignam.

Dead kids is out on Blu-ray from severin and currently reasonably priced. It's region free and the transfer looks great to me. (Will have to wait for the folks with PC equipment and huge tv's to zoom in on the action and find out if its actually acceptable or if im wrong for enjoying the disc.) It's region free and worth a look!

[keirarts]

CANDYMAN.

Based on the clive Barker short story The forbidden from his books of blood, Candyman is an intelligent and thoughtful slice of horror that really brings something fresh to the slasher genre. Freddy, Jason, Michael and all the lesser known slasher villains are all based on folklore to some extent. The idea of story's passed along over a camp-fire or at school. The bad thing that happened down the street ect. Candyman actually goes into this idea much better than any of it's contemporaries.

He's the hook handed folk devil that symbolises white persecution of african americans. The son of a freed slave who became wealthy and was horribly murdered for the 'crime' of falling in love with a white woman. Candyman exists as a piece of urban folklore, a being that exists because of peoples belief in him.

When Helen Lyle causes that belief to be tested, Candyman comes forward to make an example of her and slowly her life begins to unravel in very bloody ways.


While Candyman himself is a fairly original character in many respects, the film imbues him with certain traits found in popular american myth and folklore including the hook for a hand and the Bloody mary legend where you need to say his name five times in the mirror. These things help establish him as a creature of folklore in the audiences mind as these aspects of his character should be familiar to the audience.



Bernard rose really brings out the best in the material. It's easy to disparage the American tradition of taking story's and re-locating them to America but here it works. A ghetto is a ghetto whether in Liverpool or Chicago and the only real difference is that one is based on class while the other is race. Philip Glass brings a haunting and memorable score to the film and it lingers in the mind long after the film is over.

The blu-ray is decent quality but not jaw dropping, it lacks the bonus material of the special edition DVD but I picked it up cheap so no loss.

[Sam]

Great review of Dead Kids keirarts, it's a personal favourite of mine too and holds a truly unique position in the cliche-ridden teen slasher genre.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[SCM]

I watched django last night, damn good western I must say. The acting was good (despite the dubbing). The action sequences were great as well

[SShaw]

Elijah Wood is an actor whose success I never really got. Beyond his role as Bilbo in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where his childlike stature is perfectly suited to the role, he always comes across as a child in ill-fitting adult clothes. But my opinion may be changing. After the Maniac remake, where he was absolutely convincing, and via supporting roles in films like The Pawnshop Chronicles and Revenge for Mr Jolly and now Grand Piano which was released on German blu-ray this weekend.

The basic idea of Grand Piano, a pianist playing a concert, seems the most unlikely of starting points for a suspenseful thriller but with a couple of cheats, the use of a mobile phone, it actually works quite well.

The script is largely obvious. But apart from a few ridiculous moments, for example Woods on screen wife Emma being asked during the interval to take a photo with a toddler, that develop neither the narrative or the characters it delivers on its premise.

In an effort to overcome the rather static nature of a pianist on the stage the director makes perhaps too much use of camera motion so that by the end of the film it all seems a bit repetitive. None-the-less he is largely successful in orchestrating the camera and editing in such a way that the running time flies by.

Except for the opening limo ride Wood manages to conduct himself quite well and while his stature and looks continue to be an impediment for me to take him seriously in adult roles this turn, along with his performance in Maniac, are enough for me to begin to reassess my view of him as an actor.

Grand Piano never quite reaches the foothills of the Hitchcockian peaks it tries to ascend but it does at least try to do something different from the raft of torture porn and found-footage wannabes that currently dominate genre cinema.

[demonknight]

The Purge and The Paul Naschy doc "The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry" - both excellent IMO. The only downside to the doc was a lack of English subs for us non Spanish speaking viewers. That aside, a very informative and pretty detailed study of one of Spain's deeply loved actor's. Enjoyed both

[sjconstable]

Originally Posted by SShaw

Elijah Wood is an actor whose success I never really got. Beyond his role as Bilbo in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where his childlike stature is perfectly suited to the role, he always comes across as a child in ill-fitting adult clothes. But my opinion may be changing. After the Maniac remake, where he was absolutely convincing, and via supporting roles in films like The Pawnshop Chronicles and Revenge for Mr Jolly and now Grand Piano which was released on German blu-ray this weekend.

I recall liking him in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and he was pretty sinister in Sin City.