Among The Living, 2014. 8/10

http://i.imgur.com/gEOQ3fX.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/IMxAYPD.jpg

Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury have done it again! <3

TRAIN - Pretty much a direct 'Hostel' rip-off, with Thora Birch as an American athlete aboard a train full of torturers. Illegal organ harvesting is involved. I like how the term 'torture porn' seems to promise untold vistas of awful decadence, but usually ends up telegraphing some okayish murders with someone strapped to a chair or a gurney, which is the case here. 'Train' features a bit of reasonable gore and nastiness, and, if you can stomach some not-OK East European stereotypy which not even the lovely and always cool Ms Birch can dignify (at least you could read 'Hostel' as a sort of critique of cultural imperialism), makes for a passable enough diversion for those with enough time on their hands to risk dipping into that bottomless DVD slop bucket (again).

GROWTH - I'm pretty big on parasites. They're an enduring source of personal fascination / slight revulsion for me. 'Growth' doesn't offer anything revolutionary, and falls way short of the likes of 'Slither' both in terms of ickyness and plain fun, but, since we're lost in that bottomless DVD slop bucket for seeming eternity, I guess it makes for a fairly enjoyable eighty minutes or so. The usual kind of set up - some parasite shit went down on an island 25 years ago, and, when a bunch of guys head out there to claim an inheritance, guess what they find waiting for them. It doesn't make much sense, but there are plenty of nice moments - CGI worms pouring from the eyes of a toddler, a strange funeral procession which doesn't really amount to anything plot-wise, some bits of gore, a lot of wormy slithering in out of the infected - though it would've been nice if they'd ramped everything up a notch and incorporated the parasite sleaze which the cover seems to suggest. As far as bottom of the barrel lucky dips go, you could do a lot worse.

RADIO ON - Chris Petit's brilliant take on late seventies UK bleakness. A stiff English guy takes a drive down to Bristol, where his brother died under mysterious circumstances. He goes looking for answers, but finds Sting at a petrol station instead. 'Radio On' remains within the bandwidth of narrative cinema, but is more enthusiastic about drift rather than story telling - it's an impressionistic flow of ambiguous encounters (one of which involves Sting) and motorway glide-bys which takes us in monochrome past looming inner city tower blocks and out into the wintry countryside. Its proposal is very much bound up in Euro art house - Wim Wenders was on board - but it feels deeply English, and very specifically of its time. It conjures a kind of realism, but the realism of the psyche - I've never seen a film so worthy of the term 'Ballardian', and 'Radio On', with its endless montage of grey concrete, detached personas and clipped radio reports always seems on the verge of announcing the emergence of something vague but incredibly dark (we are in the foothills of Thatcher's Britain here), and feels more in tune with Ballard's work than adaptions such as 'Crash', manifesting a really 'dystopian' feeling without making anything obvious. Hope Wheately pulls something similar off with 'High Rise'. Did I mention Sting? I hate Sting. I don't know why. Anyway, his presence really put me off 'Radio On' when I first saw it in about the same way as having Mick Fleetwood as the organiser of a future underground resistance movement ruined 'The Running Man' for me. Regardless of Petit's casting foibles, 'Radio On' is excellent and strange, a stark evocation of a glacial age, and if you haven't seen it, you should. I'd like to get hold of Petit's other stuff - he did a number of collaborations with Iain Sinclair - but I'm not sure how available it is.

The Babadook

Even if the nod to Mario Bava's Drop of Water segment in Black Sabbath hadn't raised a huge smile from me this fantastic film still deserves 5 stars. Ultimately, it is genuinely very scary because it is also very touching and real, something I haven't felt from a horror film to this degree fro a long while.

If only we knew to which film you were referring. :confused:

I really liked Growth. It's not big and it's not clever but it really entertained me.

Train on the other hand. You were far too kind on this garbage mate. So many stupid plot holes. I mean seriously would you really get on a train where the conductor looks like he's just stumbled out from fighting the biggest skin head battle of all time? That's just one implausibility, the list is endless.

I couldn't believe how poor it was first time round so had to watch it again a few months later when it got even worse. If you want a modern dodgy rail journey film give Transsiberian a go. That's rather good.

The Babadook, :doh:

Plot holes yes, implausible yes, but really I'm only looking for one or two things in a film like 'Train', and it sort of delivers... but only just. Don't wanna sound boringly PC, but I was more bothered about its portrayal of Eastern Europe - I couldn't watch something so blatantly xenophobic without feeling my intelligence was being insulted, for one thing. Haven't seen 'Transsiberian' though, will check it out if you think it's any good.

I think the worst film in this sort of genre i've seen for loop holes and situations where the characters should have been able to get away was Shuttle. Terrifyingly bad.

I also thought it was very effective and will definitely buy it when it is available on Blu-ray. In the meantime, I have pre-ordered the book, which will be made if there are enough pre-orders.

Preorder The Babadook Book - The Babadook

What Films Have You Seen Recently?
 

Frankenstein meets the space monster

Attachment 150166


The rockets of the American space program are being destroyed by Martians who have mistaking them for missiles, the Americans decide to give it another go sending up an astronaut who turns out to be a android. This launch is attack but the android meets the ship back to earth but in the crash is damaged and goes on a killing spree. We also found out that said Martians have made there way to earth to steal our women for breeding because there are so few on there planet. So they go about raiding beach and pool party's for females to populate there species, while at the same time the scientist who created the android along with his girlfriend set out to find it. They do this by hiring a Vespa and driving around very slowly while we have some Monkeys knock off song playing in the background, the manage to find him and the girlfriend goes of on her own to get help but is soon caught by the Martians and taking back to there ship and placed in a cage next to a Martian monster. Soon after the android is captured and taking to the ship but manages to break out and free the missing women, has a tussle with the monster and manages to redeem himself by destroying the ship and himself. Corny and silly with poor acting and special effects but if you like the films of Ed Woods you will enjoy it. 7/10

Attachment 150169 Attachment 150170

Attachment 150171 Attachment 150172
Attachment 150173 Attachment 150174

Attachment 150175 Attachment 150176

Attachment 150177 Attachment 150178

Attachment 150179Attachment 150180

About to watch a film I have never seen or heard of before, elves

Attachment 150181