What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

Shameless:
#19 Baba Yaga (1973) Second time seeing this and like the first time my mind wandered. Its a slow turgid affair.

Baba Yaga.jpg

#20 Footprints (1975) Another second time viewing. Slow but nicely shot and with a haunting theme. I still think Shameless did the dirty by adding '20 Shameless trailers' in order to raise the certificate from 12 to 18

Footprints.jpg

Giving Shameless Sundays a rest for a while in order to concentrate on my Historical Cinema project....Want to get the 60's done by the end of the year.

[Buboven]

Just watched Arrow's blu of Bound (1996) last night. Joins Spider Baby and King of New York as exceptional Arrow Video blind buys, whose films I may never have heard of, or not a long while at least, unless Arrow released it. To me this is why Arrow and similar companies are so great, particurlarly for us cinephiles, as they keep underseen/underrated cult films which will never likely get a digital release alive for rediscovery.

Brilliant cinematography, writing, characters, performances, editing and a killer score/soundtrack all blend into an amazing cinematic experience. One of the finest 90's films in my book, a cult gem. Much better than Pulp Fiction, in book, aswell

Very interesting and engaging interviews for the various extras swell. All in all a top package from Arrow and now one of my most cherished.

Film - 9/10

Extras - 10/10

[Gold6082]

Contracted Phase II


Frankie's excellent review in the last 48 hrs tells you all you need to know about the original and I agree fully with his fantastic synopsis..Then comes this sequel. I will be honest I wasn't a huge fan of the original so wasn't expecting much with the follow up.

I am pleased to say I was proved wrong the sequel is much better than the original in that not only does it put it's foot on the accelerator on both pacing and gore,but it explains more about the origin of the disease,what the disease is and why the man from the original is doing it. This is a full on Body Horror which pulls no punches like the original.

After the opening of an autopsy on the girl from the original The Guy (Riley) from the original is followed in this sequel as he now goes from the stages of this disease and passes it on like wildfire. In this sequel the virus mutates so that it isn't passed on by just sex but even a (non sexual) kiss and becomes an epidemic. It appears basically the virus Decomposes you whilst still alive until eventually you do die. The film also has 2 scenes which are an obvious appreciative Nod to a scene in Peter Jackson's fantastic Braindead/Dead Alive & another which is a cheeky wink at a scene from 1988's Slugs. Do not eat an hour either side of this film 8/10


Cooties

The infections continue but in a much more lighthearted way in this Horror comedy about a horde of ankle biters who's brains decompose turning them into mindless raging zombies who tear adults apart after eating some dodgy chicken nuggets. It is great fun with a few Un-Pc risky jokes about some controversial subjects like 9/11,Paedophiles & Coloured people... although this is fun and I think it deserves a watch, It is not a film I personally would watch more than the once. 6/10


Lessons of Evil

A Teacher isn't the wonderful person his pupils think he is,he shags his students,Blackmails his colleagues, he also has a misfortunate habit of being a psychotic mass murderer too. Enjoyable J-Horror with a brutal full on Massacre filling up the entire last half hour or so. The second Jap film I've watched this week with a character called wherther (that's a wherther original) 7/10


Door Into Silence

John Savage drives around in circles for the entire duration of the film,occasionally speaking to people like construction workers & undertakers trying to establish who they all are and who's corpse is in the back of the hearse. I enjoyed this years ago but on revisit I found it rather boring. It's more or less a drive around Motorways & country roads without costing you any petrol money! 4/10

[Justin101]

Weekend viewing!

Night of the Creeps



My first time viewing this, but a film i've known the name of for a long LONG time. I wasn't aware that it was Dekker's film, and that was something which pushed me towards watching it as Monster Squad is one of my favourite 80's comedy horrors. In this one the protagonists are a little older pushing them into Freshmen College and Frat Houses, making it feel a bit more like a John Hughes movie but one with zombies and mind control slug monsters
Cool film which I enjoyed, the BD is the directors cut, I'm not sure what is different from the theatrical cut, perhaps it's just the ending which is supplied as an extra. Interestingly, I think that the theatrical ending works better than the DC ending, but this is just my opinion.

Hound of the Baskervilles (1959 - Hammer Version)



Enjoyable Sherlock Holmes romp. I didn't think I'd seen this version, but every now and then it felt very familiar. Maybe it was just the Hammer soundstage sets, maybe it was the cast, I don't know. I'm still not entirely sure if yesterday was the first time I've seen the film
It was all good fun and Lee in particular was good as Sir Henry Baskerville but I don't know if it's my favourite version of the story I've seen, I think that is still the Basil Rathbone one!

Mission To Lars



Jeez, I was only 5 mins into this touching documentary about a guy, Tom, with Fragile X syndrome and I was weeping. Basically the premise is that he is obsessed with Metallica and Lars Ulrich in particular. His mantra has been "Wanna meet Lars" for as long as his brother and sister can remember and in order to rekindle the relationship that they used to have with their brother they make it their mission to take him to America and follow the end of the Metallica world tour and see if they can't get a meeting with Lars. The jaded part of me has to wonder whether they are doing this for their brother or to make themselves feel like they are part of his life and to atone for letting him down in the past. That aside, it's a rollercoaster of emotion from start to finish especially since that most difficult thing the family faces in setting up a meeting with Lars is getting Tom to actually go to it!

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN – The new one. I was slightly intrigued to find that the original had been remade, it being something of a mere footnote in genre history (I'm not a fan). This revamp gives it the meta- treatment to a weirdly wholehearted degree – it features drive-in snippets of its predecessor, is set in the same town and uses the folkloric embellishment of the film's 'true-crime' inspiration as its own springboard. Basically, a second series of killings happens in latter day Texarkana, and one of the town's new generation finds she's being stalked by a hooded murderer – looks like she's got herself a mystery to solve etc etc. The plot might be plain to the point of being down-home, but the conveying is a bit odd, with slightly abstruse camera angles being tossed out into passages of gaudy lighting during frequent bursts of semi-stylisation. There's a handful of freaky scenes, too. I mean, death by modified trombone - well, if it hadn't already happened in the first one, someone'd have some explaining to do. The ending flopped a bit, but that's the only real bad I can think of to say about this interesting flick, which pitches itself somewhere between dreamy meander and slightly brutal slasher / mystery.

CONTRACTED – A woman takes a break from her other half and shags a mystery guy at some party. Disappointingly for her, she develops a severe skin condition and begins to worry that her period is maybe just a bit too full-on. Various irritants in her life come round, hang out, hold pointless conversations then go before mystery guy turns out to be wanted for something really bad (possibly necrophilia in a government lab) and it all goes Horror in the last twenty minutes. 'Contracted', the newish one from the guy who brought us 'Maddison County', has shades of 'Thanatomorphose' about it, but is probably closer in concept to Andrew Parkinson's sleeper classic 'I, Zombie'. In truth, it's less grim than the former film and way less bleakly inspiring than the latter. Like Maddison County, its strength lies in build up and incidentals – by which I mean aspects at a tangent to the horror / fantasy, in this case a world of crap friends, bad relationships, wandering around, rubbish jobs etc etc. 'Contracted' has its feet too firmly planted in 'essentially inspired by Cronenberg's 'The Fly'' territory to really dally with the kind of 'post-Horror' approach I've seen creeping in over the last few years or so, but there is enough of that going on here to make the final reel seem a bit clumsy and artlessly done in contrast to what comes before it. Again, that's similar to how 'Maddison County' panned out as a film, and I guess 'Contracted' will possibly disappoint some fans in the same fashion – I suppose I mean people who would want the more 'in yer face' elements of the last few minutes to predominate. On the whole, it's a strong film in many ways – well acted, well paced, interesting and not so obvious in execution if not in concept – although I'm kind of waiting for a definitive statement from the obviously talented director (or, I think he is, anyway).

CONTAMINATION – Oh, the memories. Back when I was a kid and 'Contamination' was a 'video nasty', the only version which came with a barcode always seemed to hang around on dodgy market stalls in Northern towns. I'd walk past what would be my own copy for weeks on end. Looming through the chip fat fumes, case battered and sticky, it looked like a relic from a foetid realm beyond my grasp. Not some warehouse. Not some video depot. A different PLACE. And how it beckoned, tilting through the fog, out of reach, somehow untouchable. Too horrible to contemplate, let alone take home. I knew that it couldn't possibly live up to the slimy and wretched images that coursed through my mind when I gazed upon the blurb on the back. But that somehow didn't matter. And, on the day I finally managed to rally enough courage to speak to the man with the glass eye and get it home under a needlessly furtive handshake, I found out that, yes, it was cut. And that the lingering stench of curdled chip fat from the market had followed me into my house and wouldn't leave. But something about that cover, about the prone, ripped up form of the guy in the hazmat suit, still seemed to promise the unspeakably nasty. The washed out, grainy picture and muffled dubbing still hinted at barely excised horrors lurking just beyond the oxide of the tape (or those censor's snippers). In short, 'Contamination', or the VHS copy I coveted so feverishly, was an emblem, a latter day talisman invoking a different realm, the taboo, the strangely sacred.
Now it's in HMV (or, in my case, the latest Arrow sale), I don't quite feel the same way about it. Hmmm. Things have moved on, in many ways.
At least we can see it now AS a film, rather than as video toilet paper. As everyone knows, it's Luigi Cozzi's 'Alien' rip-off featuring some slimy eggs which make people explode for no reason, a rubber monster with a headlight for an eye, lots of wandering about in South America, and Ian McCullough as a very bitter ex-astronaut. It's not very good. Or maybe it is. I couldn't tell you, because sometimes for me watching films like this is what listening to The Beatles is for some people ie. they stop taking it in, stop processing and feeling it, 'cos it's just THERE. I'm not a Beatles fan, by the way. I'm more into The Velvets. Actually, I'm more into 'Contamination', for that matter. And I've noticed, one thing that a lot of 'these kind of films' (by which I mean mostly Euro exploitation from the seventies / eighties) have in common is that they always have a ratio of 'boredom to awesome to ridiculous' qualities which varies from case to case but is rarely ever quite 'bang on'. Here, there is boredom (need I elaborate?), there is, granted, some awesomeness (the music, bodies exploding in creepy slow motion etc) and there is certainly some ridiculousness (the rest of it). The ratio is a little too weighted in favour of boredom for my liking these days, but it is still respectable. A ripe film. I still like it. What more can I say, really? By the way, this isn't a whinge along the lines of “everything's rubbish now it's not on a VHS tape that's been puked on”, because I'm full of admiration for the likes of Arrow for continuing to put this kind of thing out (and 'Nekromantik', too! Wouldn't have bet on that one, even a couple of years ago). Just weird how things change. S'all.

All solid reviews Mr T, I too have an odd fascination for Cozzi's film....

[Demoncrat]

Watched We Are Monster (2014, Antony Petrou).
More British "horror", well if like me you class Nil By Mouth a horror film that is. Based on a true story, that i'm nae going to mention haha, this was quite gripping until remembered the actual story, then a feeling of dread started to creep in. Recommended.

Down Terrace (2010, Ben Wheatley)
Watched this on BBC2 last night, and all I can say is sold. Whilst not as accomplished as his later works, this contains many seeds that were to flower more convincingly.

[trebor8273]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1442951671.469785.jpg

Excellent always loved this film, a great mix film noir and Lovecraft. Crying out for a DVD or blu Ray release. 8.5/0

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1442951788.356287.jpg

Average 5.5/10

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1442951817.416640.jpg

Fantastic, well acted tense and funny. 9.5/10

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1442951877.279398.jpg
7/10

[trebor8273]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1443033335.959632.jpg

Well acted but some how lacking. story loosely based on people and events of the Roswell crash. 6/10

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1443033459.549330.jpg
Creepy nature runs amok tale with cockroaches as the creature this time. Let down by an slightly boring and unlikable lead and some poor effects. But on the whole enjoyable and worth more than one watch. 7/10

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1443033655.190153.jpg

Excellent. Thanks to likeable characters, some great kills and creepy back woods killers. Will be interesting to see how good the rest of the movies are in the series 8/10

[keirarts]

Currently going through most of Kubrick's filmography (reviews to follow) however curry night at my mates we watched

White god

After her father abandons her dog Hagen, a young Hungarian girl begins looking for him through the city before ultimately giving up. Hagen meanwhile begins his own dark adventure through the cities underbelly experiencing the worst of human cruelty towards animals including confrontations with brutal dog wardens and some incredibly nasty (and thankfully fake) dog fighting. Brutalised and traumatised Hagen is transformed into angry ball of Furry rage and at the dog pound, as he is due for extermination he leads his fellow mutts in a revolution against the humans.

While the film is a somewhat 'artier' affair than titles like Day of the Animals, The pack or Dogs, there is still a streak of exploitation running through the film. It is essentially another nature Amok film, with broader subtexts throughout the film beyond man's inhumanity to his four legged friend. The fixation on Hagen's mixed breed suggests some level of parable about racism within Hungarian society. The title itself 'white god' suggests some nod towards this idea as it alludes to a dubious theory of ancient races being visited by Caucasian 'gods' that were actually visitors from Europe. The Spanish conquistadores were worshipped as gods on first contact by the Aztecs and a lot of fringe theorists expanded that. In white god then, the aggression and destruction wrought by the dogs in the final act is violence taught by their masters, their 'gods'. Given the recent scenes in Hungary between refugees and the state this reading may hold some weight (or I may be talking out my arse)

The film is striking to look at, and really should be seen in HD. Sadly the American blu-ray is region locked and we only get a DVD here in the UK. I would still urge people to at least check the film out however as its a really fine piece of cinema with a great score and some amazing visuals including scenes with dogs that must have been a pain to shoot.

[Sam]

Gambling City - the blurb on the back of the Noshame DVD makes this sound slightly light and whimsical but, whilst there are some humorous elements to this, I found it to be more aligned with the grittier crime thrillers of the time and all the better for it! This follows the exploits of Luca, a card shark operating in the Milanese underworld who finds himself mixed up with the local 'Mr Big' and embarks on an affair with 'Mr Big junior's' girlfriend and predictably runs into trouble. The plot is fairly generic but quite compelling with well drawn characters and an excellent central performance from Luca Merda, whose character could have been smug and irritating but is played with a commendable amount of light and shade. There are also some great action sequences, which are superbly directed by Sergio Martino and are surprisingly violent in parts and a memorably bleak ending. Well recommended if you can get hold of the Noshame DVD for a half decent price.