What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[keirarts]

[/B]Apologies to any cult labbers who just saw suspiria/dotd. I was the fat sod in the arrow vid t-shirt. The hissing noise was my pepsi max bottle, trying to save a few quid for the merch stall. Suffice to say it was bloody marvellous. More grimm tomorrkw as well. Shall be wearing my eraserhead t-shirt.

Went to the screenings throughout the day as well.

devils mile

Mixes in elements of dead end with the dark horror noir of lost highway with some j horror thrown in for good measure. Odd, occasionally nasty with a nice metaphysical twist in the tail.

lfo

Swedish dark sci-fi comedy done on a low budget. If dry black humor is your bag this tale of a hapless unlikeable schlub developing a sound that can hypntise anyone should be right up your street. At least a few points that had me wondering if i should be laughing at it. Still, will be picking this up.

[reconstruction of william zero

Tonally this tale of cloning gone awry felt like a horrible way to die its a well crafted intelligent film but once is enough for me.

sororal

A very uneaven but visually stunning australian giallo replete with 70s fashions, yellow jacketed edgar wallace paperbacks and j&b to be found in every other scene. Dissapointing ending and some dodgy performances aside its probably worth checking out if you get the chance. Needed george hilton and perhaps a dwarf.

[PaulD]

Originally Posted by keirarts

[/B]Apologies to any cult labbers who just saw suspiria/dotd. I was the fat sod in the arrow vid t-shirt.

Aha, I think I spotted you; the Arrow tshirt caught my attention. I was wearing a red Thriller: A Cruel Picture tshirt but had a dark blue blazer on top of it. Was an excellent night.

If I'd known Sororal was being screened I'd have come down earlier as I really want to see that.

[Rik]

Yeah, the Arrow t-shirt caught my eye too, also saw someone with an Arrow messenger bag.

[Buboven]

Originally Posted by ArgentoFan1987

Recently watched Cop Land. Quite an average thriller with an all star cast. Acting was excellent, but the film was just good. Not terrible, not great. Just good.

I really like that one myself. My fav Stallone film, showed how good an actor he actually is.

[shel]

Watched Gamera 4 (Gamera vs Viras) which recycles footage from previous movies and tries to pass them off as new, thing is the first Gamera was b&w so you kinda notice when the movie switches in the old. Definition of cheap.

Also watched Torso, hadn't seen this before and although I guessed the killer was going to be in the first few minutes its everything I want from an Italian genre pic like this and looks even better when watched in close vicinity of the likes of Bloody Moon (Spanish I know). Nice bit of tension, cheesy but decent sfx, good camera work and varied locations with a smothering of bare breasts. What else could want on a Friday night.

Need to check out more of Shameless' output it's just off putting that most of their stuff is more expensive than you'd pay for blu rays.

[Handyman Joe]

Dipped into my unwatched cheapie pile with mixed results

Pontypool - a pleasant surprise. Why was this lumped in with the glut of late naughties zombie cash ins? In no way is this a zombie film - it's a more of a David Cronenberg type effort in the Shivers mould - an inexplicable virus mutating through words, producing a kind of cross between accelerated Parkinson's and rabies. Nowhere do dead people rise. Instead you get some pretty cerebal ideas - imagine not being able to speak in case your sentence contained an 'infected' word, imagine a Magritte type scenario where we need to change the meanings of words, our way of seeing things. Can you speak different languages and be OK? If this makes it sound like a boring communication studies experience, it isn't, there's plenty tension, gore and laughs. A great Poundland pick up.

Frogs - sorry guys, I know we try to keep it positive on here but this was just utter utter shite, an unbearable 93 minutes of cutaway shots of lizards, Ray Milland looking like Alan Partridge in his fat suit and ridiculous tension free deaths (eg a greenhouse filed with jars of lethal poison (!) which some geckos (!!) proceed to push off the shelves) The Long Weekend (original)made this animals revenge scenario work through a surreal atmosphere and intense interpersonal focus, Squirm did it it through sheer tongue in cheek fun. This has neither, it's po faced , joke free and with no depth beyond a vague ecological nod . Avoid like a plague of frogs.

[Dave Boy]

Original Double bill...


ALIEN (1979)/THE FOG (1980)

Fantastic double bill. ALIEN still remains an brilliant scarefest. Just forget about any of the sequels that came after and watch as a stand alone film.
THE FOG still is as atmospheric as ever. The figures of Blake and his crew in the fog waiting outside...knocking on doors is really creepy and the fact that you don't really get a good look at those figures in the fog until the end (As in Alien) makes the film more haunting.

[Frankie Teardrop]

THE HEADLESS EYES - B_E's 'Nightmare USA' thread is an interesting read, one reason being that many of the obscurities at the margins of yesterday's grindhouse are revealed as being somewhat lacking in far-outness, weirdness and squalor, qualities often associated with off-radar horror of the day and which latter day fans want to pick up on. It can certainly be hit and miss when it comes to this kind of seventies shittiness - for every 'Last House On Dead End Street' there are at least a handful of Rebane-wannabees - but for me, 'The Headless Eyes' somehow captures the essence of the feeling I always hope will hit. In it, a hard up artist loses an eye when confronted with a spoon wielding woman (!) when he tries to rob her apartment - of course, this has to trigger a spoon-driven, eye gouging killing spree. We follow him from kill to kill, although during down time he tends to go from existential strop to existential strop when he's not arguing with his ex, pawing at young art students or playing with his eyeball collection. 'The Headless Eyes' is just great. I could watch it endlessly. It straddles the divide between intentional artiness and questionable competence with total ease, and drops lopsided compositions next to skewed, dreamy imagery with breezy nonchalance. Actually, 'breezy' isn't a word I should choose to associate with 'The Headless Eyes', as its head is definitely rammed down a sewage pipe when it comes to atmosphere, vibes and overall 'texture' - its aesthetics are quintessence of scuzzbucket, and like TLHODES it looks like it was filmed on stock which must have been oozed on by something at some point. The seedy grit of its milieu, seventies New York, comes across so strongly you can almost feel it against your skin. A couple of things really stand out, beyond the general sickliness - the lead's performance, which is wonderfully contorted and overdriven, and, for my money, beats J Spinel's beloved turn in 'Maniac' for sheer spittle-flying angst - "I'm...TWISTED'... also the soundtrack, which is teeming with sleazy early seventies wah-wah and electro clashing with swing-beat moments. Truly a classic, and still only available on long deleted VHS (haven't checked ytube). Whilst a knackered format might suit its sensibilities more than hi-def, I'd love to see a more definitive version.

THE TURNPIKE KILLER - More NY scuzz, this time contemporary. 'The Turnpike Killer' is a recent indie, shot on video but obviously filtered to make it look dirty in that mean early eighties kind of way. It follows the travails of 'John', a thick-set dude with a serious attitude against women, although his main misogynistic inspiration seems to be the Euro-voice in his head urging him to "destroy the impure". So he does. Or at least, he kills a lot of women he doesn't like. I held out for 'The Turnpike Killer' being a real sleazefest, and I think it aspires to be so - it obviously treads in the wake of 'Maniac' and its recent remake - but, despite some intense scenes, it nearly veers towards being 'just another indie horror'. I say 'nearly' - it does distinguish itself in several ways - the kills are pretty gory, although more takes place off-camera than on, the performances are better than average, the 'twist' ending is intriguing (and maybe should've been expanded upon) and some sequences approach a good standard of squalor. I can't believe a just wrote that last bit, maybe I'm getting too desensitised. Anyway, then there is that grainy, messed up vid-cam 'look' - which I really liked. It does lend a certain atmosphere, but in this case 'look' doesn't quite translate into 'feel', and for 'The Turnpike Killer' to have reached the kind of dour, bleak intensity that maybe it gropes for it probably needed to be tonally more coherent and concentrated. Still, I'd say it's definitely worth a look for those into the nastier side of the indie-horror spectrum.

[applecore]

Just watched Horns..
When I first heard about a film coming out where Daniel Radcliffe sprouts horns, I wasn't sold, but for some reason I never fully wrote it off. It could be that I'd recently read and seen The Fault in Our Stars and thoroughly enjoyed both book and film, so my attitudes towards "teen" drama movies was a bit more relaxed than usual, or it could just be that I was in a reading mood, but once I heard it was based on a book, I decided to jump ahead of the hype and have a read. I'm glad I did, because I loved that book. Joe Hill does not pull any punches, sets the scene like you'd expect the son of Stephen King to do, and breathes fresh air into a story that, arguably, has been done before (in that, the protagonist can get people to reveal their darkest desires, and read into their past by touching them). So I was confident that the movie would be excellent, as long as it follows the book to the letter.
Well, that went out of the window pretty quickly.
It's a cliche thing to say, but the book is better. However, that's not to say that the film is bad. Just that it isn't as good as it could (and should) have been.
First things first, Daniel Radcliffe is absolutely fantastic as Ig Perrish. Comparisons to Harry Potter are inevitable, but completely unnecessary. His portrayal of Ig is passionate, dark and one of the most accurate-to-book things about the film. Juno Temple also gives a great performance in flashbacks as his deceased girlfriend, Merrin. The supporting cast, however don't have any real stand-out players (except arguably David Morse as Merrin's grieving father). I could just be saying that because I found it hard to identify with any of them, due to the sheer difference between their book and film personae. A repeat watch may shed a bit more light on some of them.
It seems that this film is Alexandre Aja's way of continuing his branching out from shock and gore that he started with Mirrors and into the more mainstream level of film making, and if that is the case then he's making that transition well. However he's still got work to do on deciding whether he wants to take the subtle approach (which this film shows he can do), or go all-out with the gore - a few points seem almost jarring with the level of violence and gore that he chooses to show, as the rest of the film doesn't take up such opportunities. I was also disappointed to see him opt for so-so CGI makeup (especially when a leaked earlier image shows awesome work that was sadly only used for one shot) and quite dodgy looking CGI snakes (considering none of them do anything all that special, this was extremely pointless) when using practical effects would have likely cost much less and had a better effect.
Separating this film from the book, you are faced with a decent teen horror. It is worth seeing for Daniel Radcliffe's performance alone. The story is engaging enough to keep interest, it starts strong, has a decent third act and then kind of flails about in the water for the ending.
I keep coming back to the word "decent" with this film, and I think, unfortunately, that is the best way to describe it. I really wanted it to be fantastic, but instead it is simply "decent".
6.5/10

[trebor8273]

IT!(1966)

Roddy McDowall plays a unhinged museum curator (who lives with the corpse of his mother). Who ends up discovering a Golem wihich looks like the cousin of Groot. Which he ends up controlling and killing those that have wronged him. Not going to win any awards but was a enjoyable monster movie and McDowall is always a pleasure to watch . It also had a young Ian McCulloch as a police detective 7.5/10

Fight for life (1977)

Like IT! This was my first viewing of this film. Which I really enjoyed it the story of gang of escaped convicts lead by a Jessie (William Saunders) who takes a middle class black family( father played by Robert Judd of crossroads ) hostage and terrorise and humiliate them. Very hard going to watch in places With the convicts sicking raciest behaviour and the killing of a child. When the tables turn I felt that it was over to quick and they should of suffered a lot more than they did. 8.5/10

Next up for tonight unhinged and doomwatch