What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Snake Eyes (1998)

A lesser Brian De Palma effort but one which remains entertaining and intermittently gripping despite an opening fifteen minutes of Nic Cage histrionics which almost distracts from De Palma's stunning one take tracking shot which follows him around.

A conspiracy thriller which has a simple enough plot but fails to explode just when you expect it to go into overdrive. Cage settles down as the film continues and spars well with a slimy Gary Sinise and vulnerable Carla Gugino. However Snake Eyes is a film where the director is the star of the show and De Palma excels in the camera department giving a veritable tour de force of photography techniques.

Worth a watch.

[Buboven]

Witchboard 2 (1993)

Would get a 5/10 but the lovely 'assets' of Ami Donelz pushes it up to a nice round 6.

[trebor8273]

The fast and the furious 1-6


Star Trek (2009)

[Rik]

Originally Posted by keirarts

Deliver us from evil

Eric bana is a no nosense cop who discovers his latest case is a litte different. Slowly he begins to realise the chief suspect is demonically posessed and leaving a trail of posessed nutcases in his wake.

While its not going to do anything revolutionary for horror Scott dericksons occult chiller is an entertaining enough pot boiler with a nice gloomy atmosphere and a seedy depiction of New York I havent seen in cinema for a while. With Sin City 2 ect playing this ones probably not going to be a big hit but its worth a look if you get the chance.

Missed this at the cinema, but watched it last night thanks to LoveFilm.
I really enjoyed it, so I'll be adding it to my collection at some point.
Definitely worth a watch 8/10

[Vampix]

Watched Reign of Fire on the BBC last night ... it was quite an entertaining sci-fi flick that I hadn't seen before. I wasn't expecting the likes of Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey and Gerard Butler to be appearing in it. It was way over the top and cheesy, but enjoyable. It would probably look good on Blu-ray too.

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Rik

Missed this at the cinema, but watched it last night thanks to LoveFilm.
I really enjoyed it, so I'll be adding it to my collection at some point.
Definitely worth a watch 8/10

I'm going to re-watch it at some point as it was a lot better than my expectations and WAY better than the dreadful sin city 2.

[keirarts]

We are still here

we are still here.jpg

A couple grieving the death of their teenage son head out to there new house in New England. Little do they realise that every 30 years or so, the house "wakes up" and demands a sacrifice. Worse still, not only do they have to contend with the malicious spirits that inhabit the house they also must content with the locals who protect the houses dark secret.

This is a real little gem of a find that turned up this evening on my mates TV box and is definitely getting bought as soon as I can secure a copy. It starts out as a real slow burner with a tone that's close to films like A horrible way to die or house of the devil before switching gears in the third act to become something closer to the splatter and ferocious energy of a film like Evil dead

Best of all the central characters feel like real people and are not the generic teen protagonists there to screw and drink beer. Barbara crampton plays the grieving mother brilliantly and really owns the film. Larry Fessenden and Lisa Marie turn up as the couples ageing hippy friends who realise something is wrong.

While the film isn't perfect (no film is) I really dug this film a lot. It really brings something fresh to the haunted house genre and is well worth a go.

[keirarts]

Here's the trailer!

[J Harker]

Last night i watched '71.
Jack O'Connell plays a young British soldier accidentally separated from his unit following a vicious riot during his first tour of duty in Belfast in the early seventies. With no way of clearly identifying friend from foe and no knowledge of his surroundings he has to survive the night and get back to his barracks.
I picked this up based on a few glowing reviews on here and I'm glad i did as it's for the most part brilliant.
Jack O'Connell sticks in my mind as the terrifying gang leader in the underrated Eden Lake.
And he's very good here too as rookie soldier Gary Hook.
What for me stands out is the setting though, i don't know as much about Northern Ireland and its problems as i should but its portrayal here is scary as hell and i suspect not too far removed from reality. To me born in 78 most of the 'troubles' were settled down by the time i was really aware of such things and to concieve that there was a warzone so close to home is quite unsettling. The synopsis on the case describes it as an alien landscape and there really is something eerie seeing this sort of stuff going on in what doesn't look that disimilar from my town, or any other for that matter.
The film does plod a little in the middle i felt but on the whole highly recommended.
I almost followed this up with Carol Reeds brilliant Odd Man Out a more romanticised tale of Belfasts past alas it were a bit late.

[iank]

Jurassic World. Not bad, entertaining enough, though I can't quite shake the impression that I saw this movie before about 22 years ago, and it was better the first time.