What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Frankie Teardrop]

HELLIONS – A pregnant teen is menaced by some otherwordly trick-or-treaters in this freakish entry from the director of 'Pontypool'. That latter film had some real conceptual verve, being a quasi- William Burroughs descent into linguistic madness which still managed hold it together as a B-movie siege NOTLD style horror flick. 'Hellions' is even less linear in some sense, although it is more traditionally 'dream-like' in its depiction of a delirious Hallowe'en fantasia. After the tipping point, there's a near constant barrage of filtered visuals, nightmarish disjointedness, rock video carnivalesque. I really liked it. It was let down a little by the too tidy ending, but, up to that point, was a pretty crazy ride. The hour may have passed, but I thoroughly recommend 'Hellions' for anyone who likes it messed up and weird.

HUMAN CENTIPEDE 3 – I take my hat off to that Six dude and his sickie franchise, which I'm totally in awe of. I know they're all a tad marmite, but you can't exactly make a case for any of the centipede movies being typical genre fare, can you? The first one was close to being straight beneath its frosty, Euro-art demeanour, the second was a plunge into claustrophobic mono-nightmare and now this, the final chapter, is a high camp blow-out. HC3 is a cavalcade of bad taste and it serves up castrations, surgical mutilation and dessicated clitori with gusto. It's also wince inducingly self reflexive, right down to the obligatory Tom Six guest appearance as himself. All this madness aside, it really belongs to Dieter Laser, who gives us a performance pushing beyond hysteria. He really is quite something to behold, raving his way through every scene like a rubbish dictator with a head injury and a problem with amphetamines. That guy from the second one is also at hand as Dieter's sidekick, a sort of character who'd be a kind of fat comedy nazi in a long forgotten Two Ronnies xmas special that never really existed. HC3 is a nasty dollop of histrionic anti-fun and comes totally recommended.

DARD DIVORCE – You more or less know what you're getting with Olaf Ittenbach, namely a bad film with a load of gore in it. That's certainly the case here. 'Dard Divorce' is about divorcee who tangles with some gang members in the aftermath of a drug-deal-gone-wrong. Could her estranged husband be somewhere behind all the the carnage? Ittenbach's direction is as drab and flat as ever, but if you're going to watch 'Dard Divorce', chances are you'll be in it for one reason alone, and yes, the violence is pretty ferocious in places, if not entirely convincing. I don't think Ittenbach really had 'convincing' on his mind when he set about making scenes such as the transvestite fetish dungeon meat rending. Although the dullness and the cardboard acting grate, 'Dard Divorce' still manages to entertain at the level of cheapshit exploitation, but my fave moment has to be the inexplicable, crazy montage of fast food joints which crops up in the first ten minutes – ten out of ten for avant garde product placement Olaf, maybe a bit less out of ten for the rest of it.

MUM AND DAD – Memorably icky Brit exploitation horror from a few years ago, 'Mum and Dad' follows a young woman's abduction at the hands of a nauseating English family who practice torture and a number of other foul abominations. I remember being surprised by it when I first saw it – it was released at the height of all that torture porn stuff, and you could argue that there's not a whole lot going on here besides that kind of thing, but 'Mum and Dad' feels quite disturbing, and, like TCM, actually seems a lot more explicit than it actually is. A lot of its power maybe comes from seeing TV regulars like Perry Benson and Dido Miles in such depraved circumstances, and at times it really does come across like a badly toxic sit-com or soap. Any film which introduces Perry Benson by showing him wanking into a piece of meat is going to have a pretty rank atmosphere, and, well, it does, although the scene which probably best sums up 'Mum and Dad' is the one where they're all sat gathered at the kitchen table for breakfast, casually watching porn. The film gets much bleaker than this however, and the climactic xmas party is one of the biggest downers I've witnessed this side of 'Threads'. Worryingly, the film is not without humour, and its very last scene has Perry in bad drag stumbling around like a rubbish panto dame... maybe a case of too little, too late guys. Creepy, nasty – I liked it.

[MacBlayne]

Okay, you may already be consigning this to the "worst film ever made" list, but it's nowhere as bad as you expect.

Yes, the direction is horrendous. Most of the actors wouldn't be fit for a Fast & Furious film. And the characterisation is beyond insane.

But, there is a decent script buried in this mess (although it is "borrowing" heavily from Child's Play). The deaths are hysterical (the sleigh especially), there are some witty barbs such as...

Sam: Marla, I want you to call around, and get a hold of Jill Metzner. Oh, call the FBI in Denver, too. Some asshole named Manners.

[Sam sees Agent Manners in the office]

Sam: Who are you?

Agent Manners: I'm the asshole.

... and Jack Frost's one-liners are cheesier than a Frenchman's pantry

Tommy: I said, who's there?

[Jack Frost hits Tommy, and enters the house]

Jack Frost: Well it ain't ****ing Frosty!

Overall, I had a ball watching this crap. And if you don't believe me when I say that this is nowhere as bad as it looks, let me put it this way: Shannon Elizabeth gets raped to death with a carrot, and she still thinks Tomcats is worse.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

JOHN WICK.

Ultra streamlined revenge flick with Keanu Reeves killing off the Russian Mafia after they steal his car and kill his puppy! Reeves is fantastic as a blank slate for the audience to project all their violent fantasies upon as he mixes up judo, jujitsu and gun play in his rampage across New York. Shit blows up. Recommended.

"You did what??"

I laughed a lot, then showed it to someone else, who laughed a lot. I second this recommendation.

[Demoncrat]

Love Jack Frost

"I can see your house from here!"


Watched or re watched Event Horizon (1995, Paul Anderson).
It's really noticeable where they sliced the mi8ddle section out of it NOW. Shame as it's far more entertaining than the ponderous Nolan film of late.



Werewolves On Wheels (1971, Michel Levesque)
A hairy hoot and a half, as some bikers dance with the devil.....

[MacBlayne]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

Love Jack Frost

"I can see your house from here!"


Watched or re watched Event Horizon (1995, Paul Anderson).
It's really noticeable where they sliced the mi8ddle section out of it NOW. Shame as it's far more entertaining than the ponderous Nolan film of late.



Werewolves On Wheels (1971, Michel Levesque)
A hairy hoot and a half, as some bikers dance with the devil.....

I have not seen Interstellar but a friend of mine described it as "Event Horizon with all the scares, fun or personality scrubbed out."

So, basically the average Nolan film.

[keirarts]

Hellraiser 3: hell on earth

Hellraiser 3 is a good film, its just not a good hellraiser film. emerging from the wreckage of new world pictures like some kind of undead thing, Hellraiser is the point the series finally went all the way across the Atlantic and morphs into a bloody, crude but ultimately entertaining cheeseburger horror that manages to be both disappointing to fans, yet entertaining at the same time.
It starts with a totally not gay club owner who heads to a gallery to buy some Art from his club and ends up buying the pillar from the end of Hellbound 2 of some greasy hobo. Sadly it isn't the locust eating hipster from the first film who was conveniently forgotten in part 2 and should have probably been out collecting all those boxes chanard left about the place. Most likely he was too busy running pop up gin bars or overpriced locust eateries to be bothered doing any real work. Sad as this might have tied the series together a little better. Meanwhile, sexy star trek siren Terri Farrell is a struggling reporter hanging out at the local hospital waiting on something to report when a bloke is brought in with chains hanging from his bits. The chains tear him apart explosively but poor Terri is advised that if it wasn't on Camera it never happened which is a shame considering all the witnesses and the CCTV and all. Still she has a tip about the boiler room where she finds the sexy goth chick that was at the hospital who reveals it was something to do with the puzzle box they nicked from the club. Terry decides to look into things further in-between nightmares about her dead father in Vietnam. Meanwhile club owner JP has accidentally fed some whore to the statue and it looks like pinheads back. He decides to lure his sexy goth back to feed her to pinhead but she gets the upper hand and JP gets turned into a poundland cenobite releasing pinhead from his prison. Meanwhile Captain Elliot Spencer returns and enters Terri's dreams to warn her that Pinhead is on the loose and on a rampage, and that she needs to return him to hell. The whole film then descends into a gory bloodbath as Pinhead and his gang of poundland cenobites, that he must have bought cheap from a chinese drop shipper go on a rampage.
Hellraiser 3 is a poor Hellraiser film but still quite a bit of fun. Thanks mainly to director Anthony Hickox who a director who knows how to deliver an entertaining slice of schlock. the film is well paced and structured, the dialogue it aint bad. Aside from the lack of atmosphere the worst thing about the film is that it was sold to dimension who proceeded to rape the series straight to the DTV market.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Skin I Live In. (2011)

Essentially Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's reworking of the classic Frankenstein story or more specifically Hammer's Frankenstein Created Woman.

Teaming up once again with his former leading man Antonio Banderas, after over twenty years since their last venture, the excellent Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down. The Skin I live In is something quite unique in today's movie climate.

I won't go into or spoil the story as it's a film that gradually unfolds and explains itself in a non-linear way throughout. Banderas, who is superb i might add, plays the Frankenstein character Robert Ledgard, a doctor trying to create the perfect synthetic skin....well that's all you need to know.

Almodovar directs with his usual flair but this time adding a clinical brutality to the mix, It's beautifully shot with some impressive camera work and gorgeous set design.

I'm sure many on here have seen this excellent film before, but for those who haven't just sit back and enjoy the ride that these two giants of Spanish cinema take you on.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

American Ninja (1985)

Too many films are saddled with the words 'So bad it's good!' but somehow they seem a perfect fit for American Ninja. There's nothing remotely original about it in any way and the dialogue and plot contrivances are at times laughable. Oddly enough it's also instantly forgettable.

It is however wildly entertaining with some spectacular action sequences which thankfully hit the screen every five minutes or so. Star Micheal Dudikoff isn't someone i'd ever come across before even though i love 80's action movies. His squeeky voice in comparison to the Chuck's and Dolph's of this world was slightly off putting to begin with but eventually added to the whacky (yes i said whacky!) charm of this movie.

[Justin101]

I've watched a few things over the last couple of days;

I continued my Lynch odyssey with The Elephant Man which was great, it was interesting to look at this post Eraserhead as there is a lot of similar abstract imagery to an otherwise straight film. It was quite difficult to watch at points, especially scenes of John Merrick being exploited or terrorised! The little kid from the freak show, I saw his face and thought i know him as an adult who is he... Dexter Fletcher from channel 4's Press Gang

Halloween: H20 was next, I decided to skip 3 through 6 and jump straight to Dimension cashing in on Scream. It was OK, a fun romp of a horror film with no scares but a decent script in a Dawson's Creek kinda way. The cold opening is the best part of the movie and I feel it could have been better if Josh and Joseph switched roles... LL Cool J was great though. Fun.

Next I watched Cronos for the first time and I really enjoyed it apart from one sticking point, Ron Pearlman. Don't get me wrong I love Ron and he's good in this film, to a point, and I like the way he goes in and out of Spanish as an American in Mexico would do. I just don't feel that his character is fleshed out, I'm wondering if GdT had pressure from producers to edit the film down to 90 minutes and in the process of doing so has lost a bit of what motivates the character...

Finally I decided to watch a film I haven't seen for a while, Sixteen Candles and aside from some dodgy date rate message and a very out-of-date almost racist Chinese stereotyping it's a very successful comedy and directorial debut from Hughes. I'll probably watch Ferris when I have a spare evening!

[Dave Boy]

THE MAD MONSTER (PRC 1942)

Another low budget horror.
George Zucco experiments with a serum taken from animals that when injected into a human takes the form of a wolfbeast. The beast seems invincible to gun fire and Zucco's idea is to create an army of transformed men for warfare...
The film gets off to a good start as the first transformation take place at the beginning of the film. The atmospheric foggy swamp scenes with wolves howling are great, with the beast (Glen Strange) lurking around, and make this an enjoyable romp.