What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by keirarts

Any signs of a UK release? I saw this one several years ago at manchester Grimmfest. It is an excellent and hard hitting film and I've been wanting to get a copy.

It's been out a couple of years now.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kidnapped-DV...ords=kidnapped

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

It's been out a couple of years now.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kidnapped-DV...ords=kidnapped

Cool. Shame its DVD only as Its actually a pretty good looking well shot film.

[Nordicdusk]

p5772_p_v7_aa.jpg

After waiting for a couple of weeks for the Friday The 13th boxset to arrive I couldnt wait to crack it open and over a couple of weekends watch all the films in the order they were released. But those plans went straight out the window when I opened the set and BOOM old school blue and red 3D glasses and a copy of Part 3 in 3D. Would this be a great nostalgia trip or just look stupid lets have a look

This is not a film review because everyone has seen the Friday the 13th films and you love them or hate them. I love them myself not so keen on Jason X but the rest I have always had a soft spot for them and I always have a good time with them all.

No not a film review I want to talk about the 3D real classic old school 3D. I remember as a kid at Halloween they would give 3D glasses away with the newspaper because they would show some 3D films on tv every Halloween. Every year without fail we would be treated to The Three Stooges so much fun getting poked in the eye smacked in the face with a pie or some household object would come flying through the screen. Thats 3D not what we pay stupid prises to watch at the cinema. My idea of 3D is not "oh look im surrounded by foliage" my idea is " Holy shit the film is coming out to try and get me ".

I was unsure how well it would work when on Blu Ray on a wide screen TV would it recapture the magic I remember from my childhood or would it hurt my eyes looking through these funny coloured glasses and look stupid. I was excited and a little worried.

The film starts and we are notified that the first few minutes will not be in 3D as we get some flash backs to Friday The 13th Part 2. The wait continues my mind is racing I am like the 12 years sitting in my grandparents house again waiting for Moe , Larry and Curly to burst on the screen and hit me with something. The few minutes of the flashback drag I want to skip the scene and put myself out of my misery but I wait. The title shows up and we are in to the 3D action. It feels strange on my eyes for the first few minutes but soon that passed when bed sheets blowing on the washing line appear like they are about to brush across my face. I feel like I am standing in the garden I can almost feel the soft cotton brushing my face. Then out of nowhere the first big moment the pole for the washing line is lift and it comes straight through the screen it makes me move to the right to avoid it myself and my girlfriend burst out laughing like schoolgirls in the playground. We are barely given a second to compose ourselves when a TV aerial is adjusted on top of a TV set and it whips across the screen making us duck again once again we are laughing our asses of this is awesome and there is plenty more where that came from

I paid €113 with p&p for this set and I got my monies worth just by watching one film from the set. It took us back to our childhood and gave us a thrill that modern 3D just can never recapture it maybe cheesy having a knife fly out at you or a snake pop out of the screen but this is what horror is about giving you a thrill a scare a jump and a good time. Even if you are not the biggest fan of the series this is worth a watch if you get the chance just for the chance to be excited just a kid for 90 minutes.

Films are not always to be judged on acting or plot or from a technical point of view some films are to be judged by how they make you feel and where they take you maybe to a time and place where you sat around a small TV with you friends as a teenager watching a mangled VHS of a horror you were not supposed to watch but the oldest guy in the group managed to rent it from the local video store or your first time you took a lady friend to the cinema to see a horror you were both too young to get in and see but your dodgy pubescent facial hair all four strands of it fooled the guy at the ticket office.

We need more of this 3D

Film 8/10
3D Fun 10/10

[Frankie Teardrop]

ANGST – Gerald Kargl's 1983 murderfest has a reputation for being seriously depressing, so I was a bit surprised to watch it a second time and witness the emergence of a twisted black comedy. OK, I probably say that with reservation, as I think any film which shows the bathtub drowning of a mentally handicapped man in unflinching detail shouldn't be taken lightly. And, due to a tech malfunction, I had to watch it without subtitles, so the grave sounding narration passed me by and obviously this zapped a lot of context. But... there's this beagle, or beagle-type dog, and it's always pissing about during the intense bits, kind of making a mockery of things, or really trying to. And I sort of ended up laughing, in a queasy way. For those who may not have had the pleasure, 'Angst' is about a killer who, on his release from prison, finds that the system hasn't quite done away with his bloodlust. He goes on a murder spree straight away, and breaks into the first feasibly attackable household he can find, ravaging an elderly mother and her son and daughter (but, crucially, not their pet dog). He ends up being arrested at a nearby service station after making off with the beagle and feeding it some bratwurst. 'Angst' is definitely quite a strange film. One thing is the cinematography. It veers from a sort of wildly careening bird's eye view to the opposite, extreme close up. This gets quite icky, especially when it thrusts us full on into highly intimate bratwurst consumption. The effect is kind of dehumanising. There's the Klaus Schulze soundtrack, but the main draw is the lead character's performance, which winnows down tortured mania to animalistic perfection. The look in this dude's eyes is incredibly haunting, just completely predatory with no introspection. His gauntness and desperation made me think of Egon Schiele, a bit. In fact, all the performances are a bit weird, with the family appearing dazed and automaton-like as they're individually slaughtered. Very spooky. But yeah, the whole thing seemed a lot more sardonic than how I remembered it – the overstylised camera moves give it weight as an essay in alienation, but they neutralise some of the grimness, whilst the sarcasm of some of the acting creates distance rather than identification. And yes, those beagle antics again. How would a film like 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer' fare with all this flamboyance? For a really depressing account of the destruction of an arid middle class German family, see Haneke's 'The Seventh Continent'. 'Angst' is still pretty morbid however, and, just as a film in itself, is really quite unique. So definitely recommended, although I'm not sure how available it is these days (is it meant to be coming out on Blu Ray or something? I thought I read that fairly recently).

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nordicdusk

We need more of this 3D

No we dont!!

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

ANGST – Gerald Kargl's 1983 murderfest has a reputation for being seriously depressing

It sounds marginally less harrowing and downbeat than Combat Shock!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

ANGST

I thought it was going to be a review of Penetration Angst which goes under the title Angst in the US.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

It sounds marginally less harrowing and downbeat than Combat Shock!

But then again, I don't find 'Combat Shock' to be all that bleak either. Yeah the events it shows are, objectively, depressing on any human level, but it just doesn't get there atmospherically. Like, having a really crummy eighties synth tune bouncing away in the background during that bit with the dole queue. Things like that I find a bit undermining. I'm being picky and / or desensitised. I do really rate 'Combat Shock' actually. But again, I tend to respond to atmosphere a lot more than I do narrative events, if that makes sense? So conversely there are loads of films which aren't particularly harrowing in terms of the events they show or the stories they tell, but which really get under my skin.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I thought it was going to be a review of Penetration Angst which goes under the title Angst in the US.

'Penetration Angst' is a pretty crazy film! You've made me want to dig it out now.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

But then again, I don't find 'Combat Shock' to be all that bleak either. Yeah the events it shows are, objectively, depressing on any human level, but it just doesn't get there atmospherically. Like, having a really crummy eighties synth tune bouncing away in the background during that bit with the dole queue. Things like that I find a bit undermining. I'm being picky and / or desensitised. I do really rate 'Combat Shock' actually. But again, I tend to respond to atmosphere a lot more than I do narrative events, if that makes sense? So conversely there are loads of films which aren't particularly harrowing in terms of the events they show or the stories they tell, but which really get under my skin.

Totally agree Frankie.

I only saw Combat Shock for the first time last year and wondered what all the fuss was about. I think you nailed it by saying the events are grimy but the atmosphere undermined it all.

I enjoyed it as well, which seems wrong when you see what people have said on here about it in the past.