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Deliverance - Haven't seen this for ages, revisited it via the US region free blu ray. It's not all banjoes and buggery this movie, it fairly teems with subtexts - masculinity, the environment, past v present, city v country, survival v the law, etc. Imagine a contemporary action film where a lead character is completely traumatised by the killing of a hillbilly rapist - hell, today everyone in the cinema would be cheering to the rafters. More intelligent times I guess. Anyway this is one classic that stands the test of time, it's brilliant. The blu has a decidedly variable picture quality (surely a remaster will happen someday) but decent extras. |
Watched Erik The Viking The Director's son's cut.It works just fine like the original cut ,no big differences |
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I'm quite fond of day-for-night. Except for what it does to campfires and lanterns and such! :lol: It has a nice otherworldly artificiality to it though. |
Maybe in some cases, but not in Deliverance, where it's very distracting, and makes for a shockingly grainy image . . . |
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable (1973) **** out of **** |
WITCHFINDER GENERAL - A re-visit, although the last time I saw it was years ago. Probably its harsher edges have been dulled by the onslaught of cinematic nihilism it arguably helped to unleash, but I still found it pretty bleak - particularly the ending. I liked the desolate vistas of English countryside and the 'Civil War Western' type theme. Lovely cameo by Wilfred Brambell brought a comedic twinge, easily countered by a stern as marble Vincent Price though. HOTEL - Absolutely wonderful, easily the best film I've seen in about a year. Almost ambient cinema, with an atmosphere far in excess of the narrative that contains it. I'm not surprised to hear comparisons to Lynch and Polanski - the Lynch references are pretty explicit and obviously deliberate, but it also put me in mind of J G Ballard and folkloric imagery, a pretty weird combination. All I can say is, I found this film to be utterly entrancing and, despite the fact that nothing really happens in it, I could watch it endlessly. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) - Another re-visit. Actually, I'd forgotton how much I like this film. The first thirty or forty minutes are a master class in the evocation of paranoia, with a wealth of incidental details steadily building an atmosphere of hostile unreality. After a certain point I felt this rich portrait of cloying alienation seemed to give way to a more standard sci-fi / action / chase dynamic but still the oddness and grimness did't let up. And that ending - really upset me when I was a kid, and still gives me the jitters these days. COLD LIGHT OF DAY - Yet more alienation and claustrophobia, this time of a dreary Brit kind rather than San Fran Hyper-real. Made in the late 80's and based on the Dennis Nilsen murders, this film by Fhiona Louise is still pretty obscure but seems to have just been released on DVD (think previously a VHS was avaialble in the 90s). Although it's not quite an 'Angst' or a 'Schramm', its bleak vision is certainly deserving of a wider audience and in some ways it could be seen to have set the pace (or at least provided a context) for the kind of downbeat realist squalor exemplified by 'Tony' etc. The first half hour plays like a minimal, depressing soap opera before unravelling into a series of dream-like recollections, painful stangulations, harsh interrogations and neon-lit wanderings. The framing seemed really odd in places, but I thought some visual cues seemed to indicate that this was deliberate. Also, the aspect ratio struck me as a bit strange, but maybe it was down to my primitive TV set up. |
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Red State 8 Attachment(s) Just watched RED State,and really liked it,great performances from Michael Parks and John Goodman,not a Kevin Smith fan normally but this stood out for me,only complaint was it was too short. |
Calvaire It's funny, I had the trademark Benoit Debie overhead shot confused in my mind - I'm sure I remembered it crossing from one barn to another, over the snowy yard in between. It's actually much shorter than that - I reckon I was confusing it with the fantastic overhead shot in Tom Shankland's The Children. Overall I was a little let down by this second viewing. Think it dips from the silly piano dance scene onwards, and I grew tired of the endless run n' chase. I've reversed my opinion: Du Weltz's follow-up, Vinyan, is the much better work . . . |
Can I nominate my all time favourite midnight, stoner/drunk trash movie? It's 1977 Spanish effort Satan's Blood. It ticks every box - copious nudity, hilarious dialogue ('now we're stuck here all morning with nothing to do, thats because there's nothing we can do'), crazy plot and, despite it all, a genuine creepy atmosphere. It's hot too, despite the 2 actresses looking like Pauline Calf and Gail out Coronation Street. Drinking game suggestion - every time the word 'Blackie' is spoken, large swig of lager, every topless scene, a small short. You will be drunk, believe me. |
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I suspect it was way too soon to bring it out, the swedish ones were hardly obsucre (one of the few foreign langauage films to rent consistantly well where I work) so I suspect a lot of people had the same complaint as I had when watching it IM SURE I SAW THIS ALL BEFORE AND NOT SO LONG AGO EITHER! given another few years it would have worked a little better. |
Just watched THE VIRGIN WITCH. Slightly better than I anticipated, though admittedly talk of its general dullness hadn't raised my expecatations. Actually though there's a nice seam of oddness running through the Brit smut and naughtiness, a kind of pop/psychedelia-lite present in some of the edits, lighting and shots. There's some ceremonial ecstatic dancing which looks groovy enough, some gratuitous nudity and some stiff acting and bad dialogue but not enough horror. Think this one was actually refused a certificate back in the early seventies? It's good though that labels like Odeon are releasing a lot of hitherto pretty obscure early 70s stuff from Britain - see also 'The Fiend' etc. Getting to grips with this sort of thing has been a bit of an eye opener for me, 'cos I used to think those times pretty much boiled down to the fag end of Hammer giving way to Pete Walker. |
Yesterday I indulged in my belovéd world of made-for-TV horror films with a trio of gems. Dark Night Of The Scarecrow - what can be said? A masterpiece, pure and simple. One of the best made-for-telly films ever. Frankenfish - another rewatch. I love this film. Sure, it's formulaic but I think it works on every level. Some of the comments about this film on IMDb both mystify and sadden me. This is a very good film and tremendous fun. Man-Thing - Now this one I have never seen before. I ordered the DVD of this the moment I found out the film existed last week. When I was a kid, horror comics were a delightful lifeline for me. Back then (late 70s early 80s), pre-Forbidden Planet etc, getting American comics regularly was difficult, you bought what you could find. SO I never had more than a few issues of Man-Thing, but I loved it! So I had to see the film. Well, it deviates so much from the comic (even though it is a Marvel production) that you end up having to view it as it's own entity. In a way this is a relief. I still remember the depressing and angering experience of watching Constantine which followed some storylines from Hellblazer very closely but then changed incidentals and details massively and was a bad film to top it all! Dreadful. Well, Man-Thing is not dreadful. The worst aspect is the acting, which is perfunctory rather than bad. Everythign else though, is quite delicious. Certainly one of the best Marvel productions I have seen, it is sad it ended up a SyFy/straight-to-DVD release. It oozes with atmosphere - really gets under your skin. The swamp sets and locations are magnificent and the cinematography is glorious. The lighting in the swamp scenes is all vivid green, shots often looking like panels from the comic. I can usually put up with FX perfectly well, good or bad. To me FX are representations, and I am lucky enough to be able to "suspend disbelief" to a large extent. CGI tends not to upset me as it does others, but even so, the CGI here is, for the most part, very good. Man-Thing itself is a formidable looking creature, even if it's back story is now totally different from the comic. I would recommend Man-Thing for anyone who likes the comic, likes swamp monsters, or admirers of clever lighting and editing. Well worth a viewing and the DVD is cheap as hell! Edit: Also, I was frequently taken aback by how much gore and violence a 15 certificate allows these days! Man-Thing is surprisingly gory! |
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Good though Fincher's effort was, it was, to me, a rather average and cardboard attempt compared to the Swedish one. The lack of human warmth (a common Fincher problem) and bad lighting (a perennial Fincher problem!) scupper it. Very decent for a remake though. |
Pirates of the Caribbean 4...Enjoyable but it is my least favourite in the series. Twins of Evil....Quite liked this one, but found myself taking a dislike to Cushing(how dare he burn hot young women):pound: Ironclad... nice medieval film with lots of gore:) |
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Just watched the extended cut of Stargate. Enjoyable flick although far from awesome. Main thing I like about this is Ra..the guy that plays him looks the part and you can imagine him being this evil god! :lol: |
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Thanks to the Stargate film we then got Stargate:SG1, which was on the whole excellent throughout its ten year run. |
TOMIE UNLIMITED - Newish release from the director of 'Machine Girl' et al. I'm not familiar with the series / Manga, so have little to go on by way of context apart from my exposure to Japanese horror in general. Seems to conform to a certain J-Horror template, one that blends Cronenbergian imagery with putatively supernatural themes, although the latter might be thought to be displaced by metaphysical headf*ckery in this case, another Cronenbergian trope. Whatever. It's certainly very strange and ultimately priveleges warped imagery over narrative, although I say this often in relation to Japanese films of its ilk and then am never very sure as to whether I've missed/misunderstood culture-specific aspects which might render some of the outward bizarreness sensible (intuitively, I somehow think not, though). Also features more than its quota of wrongness... wonder how it would've fared down at the BBFC a decade ago (ie a centipede made up of a recursive sequence of evil daughter's face crawls into skirt of mother). After all this freakery I found myself having to re-watch MAN BITES DOG in an attempt to return to earth. Still for me a brilliant film, love the way it all veers drunkenly (but calculatedly) from the killer's insouciance to social critique to bleak scenes of cruelty that for once really do stick in the throat and honour the attempt at deconstruction (of the complicity of media with violence) offered here. But maybe I'm being too earnest - it works as a blacker than black comedy, that's the way I always approach it. I mean, it's just hilarious, like the bit where the second film crew pops up and... but then, there'll be a really depressing murder and the laughter too will die - wonderful piece of manipulation, ABOUT manipulation. I like the film's harsh monochrome look - verite noir in the ruins of modernity. And I like it all way more than I like Haneke - similar themes, but less evasive. |
GORGO - British kaiju flick. http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g72/taj-hob/gorgo.jpg CUTIE HONEY - This film is madder than a bag of spiders. Live action version of the Manga/Anime. Our eponymous heroine must combat the evil of Sister Jill and her minions. More crazy Japanese antics ensue. http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g72/taj-hob/ct3.jpg http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g72/taj-hob/ct1.jpg http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g72/taj-hob/ct2-1.jpg |
British Intelligence(1940).WW1 movie starring Boris Karloff as a German spy and Wedlock, with Rutger Hauer and Mimi Rogers as inmates in a futuristic prison |
The Comeback Enjoyably daft Pete Walker Giallo-of-sorts. Throws up a decent slasher killer in a screaming masked granny figure wielding a sickel, in a couple of surprisingly nasty kills. Has the usual crop of red herrings and nutty group of who's-doing-it? suspects, but does seem to drag its feet in reaching its climax. Think I enjoyed it more than Frightmare though, need to seek out more of Walker's work . . . |
Watched "Caged". A French horror in the vein of "Hostel". Not particularly original but I thought it was well made and acted with some nicely done scenes. Gets a slagging on IMDB but I enjoyed it. |
Watched The House That Dripped Blood last night, having recorded it from The Horror Channel. Excellent stuff, a couple of good stories, a couple a little bit silly but incredibly enjoyable overall. Really must watch more of the Amicus films like that; I forgot how much I love that 70's British horror feel. |
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Then we watched it and thought it was awful. :( |
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after a week off and fair few films watched i ended the weekend with... FROM PARIS WITH LOVE: A fast paced action film from Luc Besson's action stable, Good performances from John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Myers, alot of gun fire and bad language, not much in the way of plot but a definite fun ride. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS NEST: The final part of the trilogy is more a conspiracy thriller mixed with a courtroom drama, still very very good but neither sequel really have anything to do with the first film which could easily be watched as a stand alone film. THE DEADLY SPAWN: first time watching this and it's pretty good, some great monster FX but the rest is a little amateur compared to other's in the genre. Still a pretty decent film though. Hopefully arrow's upcoming release will have a better PQ because most are quite bad. HARD TO KILL: Steven Seagal actioner that was pretty good, the man really hasn't stretched his acting chops in 30 years. Some good action scenes and what can only be described as the worst fake beard in movie history, makes this a fun film. FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR: A film from my childhood and still one of my fave 80s kids movies, hadn't seen it in a while and completely forgot horseface Sarah Jessica Parker was in it. Awesome soundtrack too. |
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I heard he was a handful on the set of the movie and did not really want to act. |
Although they came up with the DHD (Dial Home Device) on Stargate SG1, I always hated how they never explained how they dialled out on the gate on the planet in the film. I guess they turned it manually! |
6 Attachment(s) Watched Mermaids of Tiburon from Odeon. An adventure film with the flimsiest of adventure plots which was basically used as a wraparound for the bulk of the film which involved mermaids swimming about. Admittedly this doesn't sound exciting, however the films story goes that the director was so unhappy with the finished production he shot a lot more footage of mermaids using Playboy bunny from the fifties Diane Webber and adding fifty minutes plus of nude mermaid action. The end result is a fascinating, slightly erotic, extremely surreal experience which is visually hypnotizing as you watch these beautiful nude creatures swimming in the ocean and frollicking on the rocks. This wonderfully filmed movie is highly recommended for those wanting something different from the norm. If you read this Makethemdieslowly, you would love it, guaranteed. |
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Very True did not think of that! |
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Lovely print though. I'd never heard of it before i saw it listed for release and just ordered a copy. Having investigated a little further i think i will pick this set of 6 films up. Is it a good set MTDS? it seems to have decent Amazon reviews. |
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DELINQUENT SCHOOLGIRLS, imagine a cheerleaders type, sex comedy from the 70s/80s crossed with a home invasion rape/revenge film. DREAM NO EVIL, excellent and weird, gets a good write up in Thrower's "Nightmare USA". MONDO KEYHOLE, one of the best 60s roughies I've seen and I've seen a few. THE RAW ONES, nudist film, okay if you like bouncing bodies. YAMBAO - CRY OF THE BEWITCHED, an over ripe voodoo/musical/dance film. Very sweaty and all the better for it. And of course the clothed MERMAIDS OF TIBURON. Some of the picture and sound quality is not the best on the films but for films this obscure it's okay and doesn't distract from viewing. |
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