What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Bearing in mind my last few comments, my next review will probably have me locked up with the key thrown away.

Is it Bob Clark's SHE-MAN?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Texas Chainsaw (2013)

A direct sequel to the 1974 original although set in the present day.

I really enjoyed this after having sat on it for over a year due to poor word of mouth. Beginning soon after the end of Tobe Hooper's classic shocker, a vigilante band of shocked townsfolk surround the Sawyer farmhouse and in a desperate shoot out kill the whole family and burn the house to the ground.

Fast forward to the present day and a young woman (A very good Alexandra Daddario) learns of her inheritance of a large mansion in Texas. Once there with her friends, she learns the terrifying truth about herself and the shocking realization that someone may have survived the farmhouse massacre.

The opening siege is lifted directly from Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects, even to the point of Bill Moseley from that film and Texas 2 being a member of the Sawyer clan. However from there on we have a wholly original story proving the point that evil doesn't just wear a dead skin mask. It can wear mayoral robes as well.

A fast moving film that has plenty of gory moments including a guy being sliced in half with a chainsaw, but actually paints Leatherface as a kind of absurd anti-hero so come the climax you are just willing him to take his blade to more than one of the characters. Because of this change in tone and attitude toward the character the film loses the psychological horror of the 1974 classic and in a way becomes just another horror film. It does however make the film more of a crowd pleasing popcorn muncher which was fine by me as the other numerous other sequels to Hooper's original all tread the same ground over and over.

A few misfires aside (reviewers seem to be apoplectic about an incorrect date on a newspaper - some people really do need a life) Texas Chainsaw is a lot of fun and far superior to the Evil Dead remake that hit cinemas around the same period.

It was great to see so many of the original production have something to do with this film. Tobe Hooper produced and Gunnar Hansen and the late Marilyn Burns co-starred. All three are all over the numerous featurettes and three commentaries on the extras packed dvd.

[Rik]

Glad I'm not the only that enjoys this, so much that I have the regular and steelbook editions on Blu Ray

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Rik

Glad I'm not the only that enjoys this, so much that I have the regular and steelbook editions on Blu Ray

Zombie's Halloween 2 aside we do share a similar taste in horror it seems, for better or worse.

[Rik]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Zombie's Halloween 2 aside we do share a similar taste in horror it seems, for better or worse.

Yeah, and Dawn of the Dead (1978)!

[Rondadoronron]

Is it possible that i just read a positive review for that film.MTDS do you own or know of the whereabouts of a ducking stool or any medival torture equipment.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Rondadoronron

Is it possible that i just read a positive review for that film.MTDS do you own or know of the whereabouts of a ducking stool or any medival torture equipment.

Yes but they are only used for my own pleasure. As to TEXAS CHAINSAW, I thought it bloody awful but admire Dem and Rik for saying they like it in public, especially Rik as we know what he looks like and where he lives...

[Invid Ninja]

On the other hand, I have no particular interest in ever seeing Texas Chainsaw and for the record Black Christmas is one of my personal favourite horror films, arguably top five.

[Buboven]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I think i'm the only one on here who thinks Black Christmas is a piece of thoroughly over rated, foul mouthed tripe.

Id say Black Christmas is 100 times a better film than Halloween myself.

[SShaw]

I had forgotten just how good Wes Anderson's Rushmore is. Unfortunately it's the only one of his films that has not screened as part of my local Program Kino's retrospective so I was reduced to watching the Criterion blu at home.

I also watched Non-Stop again. I really like this Neeson thriller.