What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Vampix

Recently had a Chris Farley triple bill of: Tommy Boy, Black Sheep and Beverley Hills Ninja.

The little MTDSs love Tommy Boy and Beverley Hills Ninja, we've not seen Black Sheep, is it child friendly?

[nosferatu42]

May

may.jpeg

Someone mentioned this was on netflix yesterday, so i put it straight on last night,as i've been meaning to watch this since it first came out on dvd years ago.
I really enjoyed it.
Basically it's about social misfit May who lives on her own except for a creepy looking doll who she says is her best friend, it was given to her by her mother years ago. She seems to hear the doll talk to her.
May works in a vets, stitching up animals that have been operated on,in her spare time she likes to create clothes for herself.
One day she meets a bloke and becomes obsessed with him, they start an on off relationship, he likes her weirdness until it becomes a bit too weird.
The problem is she's always been on her own and is incredibly shy and finds it difficult to judge how to act in social situations.
Theres also a bit of a lesbian sub-relationship involving a workmate.
When these relationships fall apart, so does her sanity and she decides to create her own friend and put her love of sewing to good use.
I thought this film was well acted and well shot, it's quirky,thoughtful and entertaining, not particularly gory but it has a few moments. More a character piece and i felt the main actress acted really well and i felt quite sympathetic towards her.
Theres a pretty good soundtrack as well i thought.

Recommended 8/10

[Buboven]

Jack Arnold's Monster On Campus (1958)

9/10.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by nosferatu42

May

Attachment 154121

Someone mentioned this was on netflix yesterday, so i put it straight on last night,as i've been meaning to watch this since it first came out on dvd years ago.
I really enjoyed it.
Basically it's about social misfit May who lives on her own except for a creepy looking doll who she says is her best friend, it was given to her by her mother years ago. She seems to hear the doll talk to her.
May works in a vets, stitching up animals that have been operated on,in her spare time she likes to create clothes for herself.
One day she meets a bloke and becomes obsessed with him, they start an on off relationship, he likes her weirdness until it becomes a bit too weird.
The problem is she's always been on her own and is incredibly shy and finds it difficult to judge how to act in social situations.
Theres also a bit of a lesbian sub-relationship involving a workmate.
When these relationships fall apart, so does her sanity and she decides to create her own friend and put her love of sewing to good use.
I thought this film was well acted and well shot, it's quirky,thoughtful and entertaining, not particularly gory but it has a few moments. More a character piece and i felt the main actress acted really well and i felt quite sympathetic towards her.
Theres a pretty good soundtrack as well i thought.

Recommended 8/10

It was me who mentioned it was on Netflix. I wish I'd watched it now instead of the two piss awful Prophecy films I watched instead.

[nosferatu42]

Scanners 2- the new order

scan2.jpg

Scanners was on tv the other day while i was trying to decide what to watch, remembering i'd picked up the boxset i thought i'd give the immediate sequels a go.
I put them on not expecting much, i thought they would be awful and yes they are kind of an insult to the original but i ended up really enjoying them.
Scanners 2 takes the premise that the scanners are still spread out in society and it doesn't take long before some dodgy geezer in search of power and his medicine men are trying to use them for their own ends.
Trouble is they are unpredictable, experimenting on them they've created a drug that subdues the scanners but turns them into helpless addicts wasting away only wanting the next fix.
Like the first film we have a good scanner who is just trying to use his powers for good and a bad scanner who just wants to cause chaos and explode a few heads.
I enjoyed this one, the bad scanner is atrociously acted and over the top (very similar in acting styles to Bob from Twin peaks), the good guy tries his best and is quite sympathetic, the script is a bit all over the place but it has some action and exploding heads, so did the job.
If you want a decent sequel that lives up to the first film you will be disappointed, but if you want direct to video, cheesy but entertaining dodgyness you could do a lot worse.

7/10

[nosferatu42]

Scanners 3- the Takedown

Scanners_III-_The_Takeover_FilmPoster.jpeg

Looking into this on the web it appears this was also released as Scanner force on Vhs, which i always thought was a separate film.
Anyway i watched this the night after scanners 2, and i must say i enjoyed this one even more, this one is cheesier, dodgier and altogether more nuttier.
Made back to back with part 2 and by the same director, this one is altogether less serious and more comic like, but even more entertaining.
Basically a bloke scanner accidentally throws his best mate off a building and stricken with guilt goes off to Thailand to become a monk, as you do.
Meanwhile his sister who is also a scanner is given a experimental drug by her father that seems to control overwhelming thoughts but also has the side effects of turning her into a raving psycho mad woman.
The woman scanner was experimented on as a child and emotionally scarred from this she decides to take revenge on the doctor responsible, after a bit of mind expansion she takes over his clinic,releasing other scanners being kept there and gets them to join her as she attempts to take over the world.
Obviously it falls to her brother to give up the life of monkery and return to sort her out.
Sounds straightforward eh?, well along the way we get an exploding pigeon, scanner controlled thai boxers trying to kill the monkey man and being scanner thrown all over the shop, a innapropriate drowning of psycho scanners dad in a pool while she stands by in the nude. Totally over the top dynasty style bitch acting, explosions, inept henchmen, a mental scanner nurse, all topped off with eighties style cheesy music.
This is a definitive so bad it's good film. total rubbish but i really enjoyed it.

7.5/10

[Frankie Teardrop]

SLEEPAWAY CAMP – I'm never quite sure how to take 'Sleepaway Camp', but the more I see it, the more I detect a strange magic at work. Or maybe I'm trying to convince myself I do. Sticking with the bare facts, 'Sleepway Camp' is pretty lame as a slasher movie but certainly has a few things going on which furrow the brow and lead to those inevitable questions we all ask ourselves at four in the morning – why the bizarre mother / aunt who claims she's a doctor? What is 'Sleepaway Camp's stance towards the casual molestation of minors – light hearted? Vengeful? How can someone be stabbed through a wall like that? These questions never end. 'Sleepaway Camp' is full of strange performances, off key moments, odd and uncomfortable undercurrents. It doesn't often feel like a truly weird movie – the direction, the pacing, the music are all a bit anodyne. But it's the kind of film you take a step back from once in a while and just go “...huh?” I wish that happened more often to me. Oh, and there's The Ending, which has cemented SC's place in history – it still gets me every time I see it. It's not the reveal, which tbh is a bit throwaway, but something about the intensity of the image itself, truly haunting.

THE HOUSE ON STRAW HILL – The unbeatable Udo Kier is a stuck-up writer slumming it in the English countryside with an enigmatic Linda Hayden in this sleazy Brit-horror / thriller from the mid seventies. As with 'Sleepway Camp', it's a movie which has grown on me over the years. I never used to be into it so much, but, viewing Severin's recentish restoration the other day, I was quite taken with its eerie qualities and some of its stylistics. It's not quite good enough to sustain genuine tension – for that, a real grasp of character, dynamics, psychology is required, and frankly the unlikeable inhabitants of 'The House On Straw Hill' don't really offer much by way of audience attachment. But the atmosphere is good, and this follows mostly from the aesthetics, which are part neo-gothic, part tawdry English gloom, part Giallo-ish, or at least that kind of skewed Euro pop-weirdness that I always think equates with 'Giallo'. There are all sorts of strange little details, like control freak Udo's obsession with wearing rubber gloves during his more intimate moments, the odd prominence in some scenes of a stuffed hawk / kestrel, the lamp that always seems to flicker fitfully to highlight the gun displayed above it on the wall. Then there's the sleaze, which really brings home the dreary English grime although obviously seems tame now. Definitely at home in the same gutter you'd find Pete Walker, Alan Birkenshaw or Norman Warren bobbing about in ie recommended, particularly for those with a fondness for THOSH's greasy time and place.

[Dave Boy]

JUNGLE WOMAN (1944)

Sequel to Universal's CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN. Told mostly in flashback and using 20 mins of its 1hr 1min run time to recap scenes from the previous film, a Dr is in the courtroom and tells why he resurected and then had to kill Paula (The ape woman). No horror here, just Paula up to her old tricks falling for the nearest male. There is one quite creepy scene as Paula tips the boat up of her love rival and is seen swimming fast around under the water.
Still, it's all rather enjoyable and features several Universal Horror faces and the usual music tacked on from past Universal films.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Some excellent reviews guys.

Nosferatu42, Dave Boy and Frankie - keep em' coming.

It's what makes the forum worthwhile.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by nosferatu42

Scanners 3- the Takedown

I preferred this to Cronenberg's original.

Somehow it seemed more fun and less po-faced. Just a more enjoyable viewing experience.