What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

The Babadook has some good things going for it but overall it felt a little clumsy and left me a little non-plussed. Still worth checking out though.

I'm still to see It Follows.

[Frankie Teardrop]

IT FOLLOWS – Larry Clark meets David Lynch doing John Carpenter in this excellent, very odd coming of age horror film. I was really taken with 'It Follows', probably the strongest genre film I've seen so far this year. Its mainstream success has also been heartening, and is possibly another instance where an art-house approach has made typical genre themes more palatable to the specifically cinema-going public and, of course, various critics. For the uninitiated, it's about a young woman who, after having intercourse, finds that she's being followed by a malevolent, seemingly unknowable force. What she does know is that, one, if it catches up with her she will die and two, the only way to get rid of it is to shag somebody else and 'pass it on' to them. Quite a dilemma. The film follows her as she hangs out with her friends, trying to figure out what the situation means and what to do with it. 'It follows' squares up to horror history by taking on lots of standard genre references – eighties slashers, Wes Craven, arguably Cronenberg with the whole venereal ghost thing. Its look and feel, from the gliding camera to the pulsing soundtrack synths, is obviously very vintage Carpenter indebted. But its dreamy distance, slowly building dread and suburb fixation equally put me in mind of something like 'Blue Velvet'. I notice that some reviews have mentioned the photography of Greg Crewdson as a possible influence, and I can see that, too. 'It Follows' doesn't play like a horror film so much – it's way more bothered about the lives and agonies of its bewildered teenagers than any 'Elm Street' revamp would be. It's not exactly plot driven or linear, either - a lot of time is spent waiting for things to happen, and the fractured editing gives it an abstract feel. This sense of dislocation is compounded by the way the film plays with place and era. As many have pointed out, the suburbs are void of adults, parents are absent, and it's as though we're stuck in some imaginary year which has one foot in the eighties and the other in the near future. The film has a mesmerising, slightly intoxicating tone. Definitely a high point of the year so far, 'It Follows' is also yet more evidence that some great work is being done in weird cinema at the moment.

[Rik]

I must be missing something with those 2 films, but when I watch a film I want to be entertained, something which neither of them did. Different strokes I guess

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

I like to be entertained, but I also like to be challenged, so films with a great deal of subtext (and ambiguity) certainly have a place in my daily/weekly viewing. Because there is so much in The Babadook which can be interpreted in different ways, that's why I think it's a great film and why it benefits from (or certainly doesn't diminished with) repeated viewings. I think It Follows will be the same as I enjoyed it more on second viewing than the first and, after listening to the commentary, guess the third viewing will be the best.

[trebor8273]

Originally Posted by Rik

I must be missing something with those 2 films, but when I watch a film I want to be entertained, something which neither of them did. Different strokes I guess

your not. i felt the same and think my score of five was a bit high for it follows, found both to be overrated. just like you i enjoy old stuff a lot more, but there is some good new horror. but for me the ones that people rave about and get good reviews i don't like, its the ones the get bad reviews and a lot of people don't seem to like i end up enjoying.

But I did really enjoy starry eyes and digging up the marrow to a lesser extent but I don't now how well they where received

[Demoncrat]

I really need to watch both again methinks. Then I can imagine how Franco would have done them.

Watched The Adventures Of Robin Hood (1938, Curtiz/Keighley).
How dashing it all is. Dvd looks reasonable enough, so can imagine the blu looking very nice etc. Makes recent adaptations look flabby and corpulent cough.

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

I like to be entertained, but I also like to be challenged, so films with a great deal of subtext (and ambiguity) certainly have a place in my daily/weekly viewing. Because there is so much in The Babadook which can be interpreted in different ways, that's why I think it's a great film and why it benefits from (or certainly doesn't diminished with) repeated viewings. I think It Follows will be the same as I enjoyed it more on second viewing than the first and, after listening to the commentary, guess the third viewing will be the best.

See the whole subtext/ambiguity aspect is a double edged sword for me. Too ambiguous and i lose interest. I like the idea of subtext without the whole film being dependant on it. I liked that The Babadook clearly had it going on but worked absolutely fine as a straight horror.
You've mentioned before Nos about the depth of subtext in The Exorcist and i wonder if thats partly why it was lost on me.

[Rik]

I do like the reverse artwork on It Follows, same as the t-shirt I received from Fetch (which is my new gigging shirt)

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1438078923.956588.jpg

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

INSIDE OUT (2015)

The latest film from Pixar is directed by Pete Docter and is set in the mind of Riley Anderson. As a baby, her brain is populated by Joy, a Tinkerbell-like sprite, who is determined to make Riley the happiest she can possibly be. It isn't long before Joy is joined by Sadness, someone who is only content when things are miserable, Anger, someone with a quick temper, Fear, a perpetually terrified man who sees danger in everything and Disgust, who has a particular dislike of broccoli!

Most of the film takes place when Riley is 11 years old, and a popular hockey player in Minnesota. However, things change when her father gets a new job and they all move to San Francisco. By using the console in her brain, the five emotions try to make the first day at a new school pass smoothly, but Sadness accidentally makes Riley cry in front of the whole class, creating a new 'core memory'. In order to keep Riley happy, Joy wants to prevent this core memory from reaching the central hub but, in the struggle with Sadness, the other core memories are knocked loose and, when trying to retrieve them, both Joy and Sadness are sucked out of Headquarters and deposited in the huge labyrinthine area of Riley's long term memories.

Stuck at home with Anger, Fear and Disgust in charge of her brain, Riley becomes sullen, moody and homesick. With Joy and Sadness trying to return to Headquarters as soon as possible, but finding the journey very difficult, Riley's personality 'islands' (family, friends, hockey, goofball, honestly) begin to crumble and the five emotions and their host embark on an emotional journey.

Pixar has long been the standard bearer of Western animation, equalled only by Studio Ghibli in Japan, but the last great film it made was probably Up, also directed by Pete Docter, with Cars and Brave failing to hit the high standards of their best work. With a very personal story (Docter was inspired to write the film after noticing the way his daughter grew and changed) and a solid psychological footing (the emotions are based on Robert Plutchik's Psychoevolutionary Theory of Basic Emotions, and the writing team of Docter, Meg LeFauve and Ronnie del Carmen consulted several psychologists, particularly Paul Ekman and Dacher Keltner), it has, like Docter's previous film, a sophisticated screenplay aimed at different ages and educational levels which, as far as I could tell from the cinema audience, it hit with remarkable accuracy.

The voice casting is brilliant, with Amy Poehler's Joy exhibiting the boundless optimism of her Parks and Recreation character, Leslie Knope, Bill Hader making Fear a wonderfully endearing paranoiac and Richard Kind is superb as Riley's imaginary childhood friend, Bing Bong (a cat-elephant hybrid made out of candyfloss).

Inside Out is one of those films which has just about something for everyone – like others in the audience, I laughed, I cried, and I want to watch it again. I'm not sure exactly where it will stand on the pantheon of Pixar's best films but, depending on how it fares with repeated viewings, at the moment I'd probably put it in the top five.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Stonehearst Asylum (2014)

Based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story The Systen of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, the film stars Jim Sturgess as a young doctor who arrives at Stonehearst Asylum to take up an apprentice position under Doctor Lamb (Ben Kingsley). However unbeknown to the young medical practitioner nothing is as it seems at the asylum.

Despite owning three volumes of Poe material both stories and poetry i don't recall ever reading Doctor Tarr. However whilst watching this film it is clearly a very influential tale having seemingly inspired Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, Asylum, Shutter Island, Don't Look in the Basement and of course this delightful Gothic melodrama.

The film plays out as if a homage to Roger Corman's Poe films of the sixties. Director Brad Anderson has clearly been influenced by the likes of House of Usher in this interpretation of Poe. Set at the turn of the twentieth century the asylum is of course a hive of creepy corridors, but also instances like the asylum burning at the climax and the classic trait of the doomed love affair, a plot device used in all Gothic storytelling not just horror. The depiction of the asylum is naturally grim and harrowing but thankfully Anderson steers clear of depictions of graphic torture and gore, something Corman also steered wide of. It's not just Corman where the films influences lie. Val Lewton's brilliant 1946 masterpiece Bedlam also provided some inspiration especially with the photography which is at times outstanding.

Whilst the film is relatively blood free and quite sedately paced i still found it an absorbing and creepy, suspenseful watch due to the fact i find asylum methods of drugs and sedation quite horrific and was delighted to find out who was actually running Stonehearst and for the most part running it with a fair degree of success. It was only when Kingsley perfected the electro shock method as the way to go that my sympathies turned back to the facilities original staff locked deep in the dungeons below.

What initially made the film stand out to me was it's superb British and Irish cast - Jim Sturgess, Kate Beckinsale, Ben Kingsley, David Thewliss, Brendan Gleeson, Jason Flemying, Sinead Cusack and Michael Caine - needless to say the film is performed impeccably with every word uttered believably spoken.

It's no secret that my fave genre of the macabre is Gothic horror, also that i have a penchent for British films. To me Stonehearst Asylum succeeds as a fine example of both. From first minute to last i loved the film and would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who also enjoys the Gothic greats of Roger Corman.