What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[keirarts]

Phantasm

To help remember the career of Angus Scrimm I decided to have a bit of a marathon of one of my favourite horror franchises.
Phantasm sees precocious Mike (A. Michael Baldwin) and his older brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) get tangled up in mysterious events at morningside cemetery after their friends death. They believe that it was an accident at first, in spite of the film starting with a scene showing him being murdered by a hot woman he was screwing that Alarmingly turns into the local undertaker. The Tall man (Angus Scrimm) seems pretty damned sinister and when Mike sees him removing a coffin single handedly he decides to investigate. Eventually his brother and their friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister) get involved and they discover that the undertaker is really not at all what he seems. The funeral home seems to be a front for inter-dimensional corpse smuggling, to a planet where the bodies are shrunk into dwarves who serve as muscle. The Tall man also has a pregtty nasty guard dog in the shape of a flying sphere that stabs peoples skulls and drills their brains out.
Its a tribute to Don Cosarelli as a writer/director that the above plot avoide becoming silly. Some of it feels a little disjointed at times perhaps but it all adds to the feeling the film creates of walking through a waking nightmare. It could be seen on one level as an attempt by Mike, a young boy in the prime of life, as an attempt to resolve the terror at realising sudden death may be around the corner and dealing with issues like grief and mortality. The film is pretty bloody but rarely gratuitous and for a low budget feature Coscarelli really pulls it off with what he has. Given that he was an independent film-maker as a teenager and this is his second film this is an incredible achievement that's still as entertaining as it ever was.

Phantasm 2

Given the initial success of Phantasm, Hollywood came a knocking. Given tinsletowns inability to leave well enough alone with what works they decided to re-cast Mike with James Le Gros. He's not a bad actor to be fair but A. Michael Baldwin is better and its the one thing in the film that really grates. The action takes place 10 years after the first and Mike is in the nut house. He's released after telling the shrink what he wants to hear and heads straight back to Morningside. Reggie, who in the opening has to blow his dwarf infested house up trying to save Mike seems to want to forget about it. Taking him home Reggie and Mike see Reggies family get blown to smithereens by the Tall man so they decide to head off for revenge. Mike has also been having dreams about a girl who might have some kind of psychic connection and may be in deep trouble with the Tall man. Aiming to save the girl as well our heroes tool up and head across county discovering lots of decimated small towns and it appears that the tall man is pulling a Wal mart and destroying each small town he settles in.
While the casting of James LeGros is occasionally off putting, the cretins managed to not re-cast Reggie or Angus so it still works. It's a fast paced, more contemporary horror than its predecessor with some winks to films like Evil dead (sam raimi's name turns up on a bag of ashes.) Its some fans favourite film and its easy to see why. Its also cut for an R-rating and being Hollywood they seem to have destroyed the cut footage. Ah well, the film still rocks!

Phantasm 3

Back squarely in the hands of Don Coscarelli, Phantasm 3 see's the return of A Michael Baldwin as Mike. Continuity from the previous films is somewhat f***ed from the previous film as we see the return of the 4 barrel shotgun but its all forgiven as Mike is retrieved then re-captured by The Tall man and Reggie must team up with a kid with a penchant for deadly traps and a nunchuck wielding ex-soldier to save him and kill the tall man. Reggie also gets assisted by Jody, who it turns out is one of the spheres. It seems the devices are powered by human brains. There's a nice line gore here that's intact and we get to learn more about what the Tall man is up to. It suffers in places from a diminished budget but it still works.

Phantasm 4

The one that divides the fans. This one was made on a shoestring budget mixing in a lot of deleted footage from the original Phantasm. The film has Mike heading out into the desert for a final confrontation with the Tall man and Reggie heading out to save him. The blending in of the deleted footage actually works quite well and manages to tie things from previous films together well. We also get more about the tall man's origins and we even see him cross the barrier for the first time and come back as something else. In a real head wrecking moment near the end we see him come through the barrier and retrieve the sphere from inside Mike that the tall man is seen clutching the first time he comes back through the gate suggesting that the Tall man's origins actually have something to do with mike himself and that the tall man's plans may not be operating in the logical progression we would assume. Its a shame the series suffered from decreasing budgets. The series is more consistently enjoyable than any of the other franchises and it would be nice to see more. However aside from Ravager sadly that now seems like it wont be possible/

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Great stuff, keirarts. It's been a long time since I saw the Phantasm films, so this coming week should be a good opportunity to revisit the franchise and, like you have done, watch them in order over a fairly short period of time.

At the moment, that's what I'm doing – and have done – with the Hellraiser films and am going through the extra features in the Arrow Video boxset, with Leviathan to watch tomorrow.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

You clearly need to see Happy Gilmore then.

I wouldn't even inflict that one on my worst enemy!

Originally Posted by Nordicdusk

There is only one Disney animated classic

Attachment 174277

My favourite too.

I even like the songs!

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Nuts in May (1976)





76/100

[Nordicdusk]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

I wouldn't even inflict that one on my worst enemy!



My favourite too.

I even like the songs!

I used to rent out Robin Hood every weekend when I was a kid with my cousin not seen it in years might pick up the blu ray soon and revisit it might be in tears throughout

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nordicdusk

I used to rent out Robin Hood every weekend when I was a kid with my cousin not seen it in years might pick up the blu ray soon and revisit it might be in tears throughout

Whilst the rest of us were renting out nasties.

[Justin101]

Two films for me over the weekend inbetween studying for my assignments;

First up was a rental from Amazon - Dressed As A Girl (2015) a documentary about the East London alternative drag scene!



It started off a little ropey with scenes of pure hedonism and copious amount of drug taking - but it was just throwing the viewer in at the deep end, we soon got to know the characters behind the costumes and soon it was quite clear that they are all damaged in their own ways and using drag as an escape. after I got past the first 10-15 minutes I really started to enjoy the film and got quite emotional by the end!

Next up was some French New Wave on bluray, Vivre Sa Vie (1962) by Godard.



I've never seen this one, it was a blind buy but it was only £10.99 and I took a chance after having seen Breathless (Á Bout de Souffle) a few years back and I loved it. This one is very much in a different tone, a woman in her early twenties trying to come to terms with growing older and her steady decline into prostitution in order to get by. The story is fairly slim but the performances and the direction are outstanding. Some of the camera work was dizzying and I loved it especially the staccato editing of the scene with the gun shots. Great!

[Demoncrat]

Showed mate The Duke Of Burgundy...which he liked. Result!

[anythinggoes78]

Originally Posted by Sam

Ant-Man - after the noisy, overblown 'Avengers - Age of Ultron', 'Ant-man' was a refreshing return to what I think comic-book films should be ... fun! A nice straightforward narrative of a loser-made-good means that the characters can really breathe and as a result, I found myself caring about the plight of the main protagonists much more than in other films in the genre. The CGI is seamless and there is a genuine creativity and flair in some of the set-pieces, making great use of the, frankly ludicrous, premise. On paper, this should be a mere footnote in the Marvel canon but, for me, this is best comic-book adaptation since the Sam Raimi 'Spiderman' films. Recommended!

i was impressed with the CGI age reduction on Micheal Douglas, good film too.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Final Girl (2015)

An enjoyable if slight horror thriller that plays out like a cross between La Femme Nikita and The Most Dangerous Game.

Abigail Breslin plays a young woman trained as a killer by Wes Bentley and then sent out on a mission to stop a gang of lads who murder blonde girls out in the forest by drugging them, freeing them then hunting them down.

Although generally a bit of fun the film is quite low budget and the whole hunt scenario with Breslin is drawn out a bit too long, so much so that the 'training' first part of the movie with Bentley is the more interesting. However for an undemanding ninety minutes Final Girl is worth a look.