What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Martin is truly terrific.

Go watch it ten more times and you may love it as much as I do!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

Martin is truly terrific.

Go watch it ten more times and you may love it as much as I do!

Odd isn't it.

Martin and Witch improve with each viewing. Dawn of the Dead regresses.

[J Harker]

Maybe i need to give Martin another go, i watched it once about ten years so and was so underwhelmed I've never had any interest in trying again. Never seen Season of the Witch.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Heroic Purgatory (Rengoku eroica) (1970)





84/100

[Cinematic Shocks]

The Big Gundown (1966)

**** out of ****

Black Mass (2015)

*** out of ****

[Frankie Teardrop]

THE HIDDEN FACE – Pretty good thriller in which the director of an orchestra has a tough time convincing the cops that he isn't up to no good after his gf disappears. After all, he's having an affair with a local waitress and seems like he might be a bit sinister. Spooky things go in in his palatial house, and his new beau thinks the pipes are haunted. You won't see the 'twists' coming as they involve a bit of plot interjection, but the fact that they're contrived doesn't spoil the tension or the pay-off. Worth watching, a little slow to warm up, but a good example of one of those blind buys which more than redeem the entrance fee (ie cheap random purchase on Amazon).

THE EXECUTIONER PART 2 – Paired up with another obscuro flick courtesy of the recent Vinegar Syndrome double bill, 'The Executioner Part 2' invites a certain volume of snarkiness from the outset as it's not even a sequel – there is no part one. “Well, actually there IS,” moans the director, but when that director turns out to be James Bryan of the notorious 'Don't Go In The Woods', are you really going to hear him out? Well, I'll lay my cards on the table and admit that I'm a big fan of Bryan and DGITW, but only on the basis that the latter is marvellous because it is ludicrous, therefore I wouldn't expect its creator to impart too much in the way of sense. I'm being unfair because he's a perfectly eloquent guy judging by the interview herein, but I would then say I'd at least expect 'The Executioner 2' to be as mind damaged as DGITW – is it? Sort of, but I didn't like it as much. It's got the same fragmentary feel, bad edits, cheap devices like the explosion stock footage which recurs throughout whenever a grenade blows up, a misplaced voice over, characters who seem terminally dissociated from their lines, characters who just seem terminally dissociated period, and a meandering sense of trundling along until someone slaps on an ending. All of this I'm cool with, but it's just not as compulsive or even as schlocky here as it is elsewhere in James's very special ouevre. The plot is some bollocks about a post-'Nam vigilante and a drug and prostitution gang, but it's not going anywhere. Before I saw it, I was rather hoping for something made from the same DNA as maybe 'Samurai Cop', but the 'Executioner Part 2', whilst still a bad, bad film, falls far short of that kind of enigmatic madness. For those into vintage cine-slime it will still be worth checking out though.

DOLLS – Although I've never been a massive Stuart Gordon fan, I always enjoy revisiting 'Dolls'. Put it next to 'Reanimator' or 'From Beyond' and I'll go for 'Dolls' every time. Sacrilege I know, but there's just something about it that never fails to draw me in. I don't know what it is. There's an off-handedness, a kind of throwaway sensibility about it embodied by its brevity and its minimal set up, but it all falls into place wonderfully in the graceful manner of something knocked together overnight by guys who know they're winning and are on a roll, which is essentially the case here as 'Dolls' was a stop-gap feature shoved in between two of Gordon's better regarded efforts. You'll all know the story, which is basically about a not very likeable family and some unconvincing British punks who end up stranded overnight in the house of a doll making couple – cue sinister doll action. I still think it's great after all these years.

KNOCK KNOCK – Of all the movies Eli Roth could've remade, 'Death Game' aka 'The Seducers' strikes me as an interesting choice. It doesn't have much cache or reputation, and seems obscure today in a way that many of its grindhouse compadres aren't. I really like 'Death Game' – it's a weird little movie, by turns unsettling, hysterical and just odd, and it has an amazing feminist Chas 'n' Dave 'f*ck-the-patriarchy-in-a-way-that-might-be-creepily-incestuous-I-can't-really-tell-?' type them tune. I won't go into much more detail as I reviewed 'Death Game' at length back in the summer, but 'Knock Knock' could sorely do with some of that strangeness. Instead, it plays like a standard thriller, with K Reeves as a domesticated family guy in the foothills of middle age, who, home alone one night and wondering where the best years have gone, finds his long repressed fantasies of bachelorhood realised in the flesh when two saucy young women knock on his door and proceed to take over his life, first in a sexy way, then in a slightly murderous way. It's engaging enough, but I wasn't exactly riveted, and I have to say I spent much of the run time waiting for it to get nastier. In the end I thought it was well rendered but disappointing, and rather mealy mouthed in both the (slightly antithetical) exploitation and progressive gender politics stakes.

PRIMAL – Australian horror movie with a few standard and quite unlikeable college students dithering about in a forest next to some cave paintings. One of them gets bitten by a leech and turns into a crazed savage with scary teeth. 'Primal' feels really ordinary at first, with a well worn set up carrying a predictable chain of events. I really warmed to it though – once the action starts, it's pretty relentless, with some savage gore and a closed in, desperate feel. The ending, set in the furthest recesses of that cave-with-the-cave-painting, is audacious and fairly icky. Well worth a shot.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Great reviews as always, Frankie. I really like Dolls too.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

PRIMAL – Australian horror movie with a few standard and quite unlikeable college students dithering about in a forest next to some cave paintings. One of them gets bitten by a leech and turns into a crazed savage with scary teeth. 'Primal' feels really ordinary at first, with a well worn set up carrying a predictable chain of events. I really warmed to it though – once the action starts, it's pretty relentless, with some savage gore and a closed in, desperate feel. The ending, set in the furthest recesses of that cave-with-the-cave-painting, is audacious and fairly icky. Well worth a shot.

Spot on Frankie.

Films like Primal seem a bit thin on the ground these last couple of years.

[Cinematic Shocks]

Straight Outta Compton (2015)

**** out of ****

[trebor8273]

Tonight's viewings

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