What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Ghoulies II (1988)

A massive improvement on the rather insipid first film. This time the Ghoulies manage to make themselves at home in a traveling carnival house of horrors that's under the threat of closure from the new unscrupulous owner of the carnival as it isn't pulling in the business. However when the five little demons become the attraction the punters find that charging an arm and a leg isn't just a figure of speech.

Whilst it never creates an atmosphere of apprehension that the best fun fair horrors have, in fact you actually fancy having a look round the attractions in this carnival, so for atmosphere it's an abject failure, but the rest of the film does a lot right. The Ghoulies are far more creative and indeed ever so slightly scarier. Even to the point of killing folk in inventive and gory fashion, meaning the whole film is a hell of a lot more fun and the giant Ghoulie killing creature during the finale is cheesy to the point of ridicule. Then again we are talking about a film called Ghoulies II so it seems pointless to laugh at the overgrown Ghoulie when it appears. I mean, we all want giant Ghoulies don't we?

Well written, decent acting, laugh out loud violence and an actual semblance of a story as well as massive improvements in the Ghoulies puppets make this sequel a far more enjoyable proposition than the lame original from four years earlier and one i could certainly watch again.

[gag]

Originally Posted by Nordicdusk

Taught you were trying to sound like a redneck

Might have been some redneck from the deep south who losing his identity and slowly becoming a cockney because i live in london and getting the twang thats why my accent was shite.

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by J Harker

This is the only forum I'm on. A lot of them seem to be populated by angry argumentative little twats.

Try being part of a drag queen forum!

If you don't have thick skin, you are lucky to get out alive!!

[keirarts]

Never apologise

A one man stand-up show with Malcom McDowell discussing the life and times of director Lindsay Anderson. Its genuinely entertaining to hear McDowell talk about his friend and I ended up wanting it to be longer.

Cannibal terror

A group of kidnappers head out into darkest south of france/spain and fall afoul of Cannibals. The father & mother of the child they have kidnapped have to head out and stage a rescue. Rather dull but sleazy enough to be watch-able.

Devil Hunter

Al Cliver must head into darkest spain/portugal to rescue a model from a cannibal cult who worship a man with ping pong ball eyes. Full bore Franco sleaziness struggles to save this from feeling like one of Francos lesser efforts thanks to terrible pacing. Double-billed with cannibal terror they make a lengthy but reasonably entertaining afternoon for the patient.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

I love Jason X, for me its the strongest Jason films I've seen. Though I've not seen many. Never heard of the other movie.

Jason X (for me) is certainly the most entertaining of the bunch.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Ghoulies II (1988)

Glad to hear that this one wasn't a 'number 2' after all!

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

The weekend's viewings:

Mysterious Skin (2004)



84/100


What's the Matter with Helen? (1971)



61/100


Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971)



60/100


Naked (1993)



89/100

[Justin101]

Nice, a bit of Mike Leigh. I'll need to re-watch Mysterious Skin at some point, not seen it since the cinema release.

[Justin101]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

The Double (Richard Ayoade, 2013)
Now this I recommend. Yet again, like Ex Machina, something I wish I had watched earlier. Jesse Eisenberg has a crush on a fellow office worker, but is socially awkward. Luckily since this is based on a Doesteovsky story, it is not yr average love story. Visually quite different from Submarine, it does have echoes of Brazil (and Joe Versus The Volcano...underrated film btw). Spiffing cameo from a certain C Morris as well.

I've been meaning to catch this for a long time. I'm going to try harder this weekend.

[Frankie Teardrop]

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY – From Takashi Miike. It follows the theatrical production of a classical Japanese ghost story about love, betrayal and revenge. Only, what happens on stage seems to be happening off stage, too. The main actor is a love rat who gets off with the actress who plays his wife's substitute in the production, and much angst falls upon all those involved as things boil up to a hallucinogenic and sometimes gory denouement. Despite all this turmoil, 'Over Your Dead Body' (which, as a title, is at odds with the grave tone evident throughout the film) moves quite slowly, with the deliberation and poise of a cruel executioner. Performances too are muted and nuanced, the characters either glacial or seething, and this paralells the frosty, formal elegance of 'Over Your Dead Body's look. Perhaps more central to what Miike's getting it is the scrambled reality suggested here – the boundaries between the events of the play and the events in the film are loose and blurred, but even more so the contents of the characters' minds and their unfolding fates become indistinguishable, lending 'Over Your Dead Body' a 'Videodrome'-esque quality to some degree. Fans expecting another 'Audition' or 'Ichi', or something a bit more wham-bam might be left scratching their heads and wanting more, but 'Over Your Dead Body'' is highly recommended for those who would like to be disturbed and confused.

MURDERDROME – 'Monster Pictures' can be relied upon for getting really interesting bargain basement indie and underground horror into the high street. 'Murderdrome' is certainly a highly quirky shoestring independent and, I'm sure, a pretty worthy addition to the 'Monster Pictures' stable. It's set in Australia's punk rock Roller Derby underground, where some kind of weird bondage clad skate demoness is going around killing people and a sinister caretaker is involved in magick. Maybe it all has something to do with 'The Murderdrome', a former roller derby rink where something awful happened? I say 'maybe' because, by the time 'The Murderdrome' made its first appearance in 'Murderdrome', my ability to concentrate had already been whittled down to a mere broken twig by a sandstorm of awful sub-Troma gags, rubbish editing and badly formed sequences. So it all just became a bit of a blur, which feels quite appropriate really as the makers of 'Murderdrome' clearly did not set up their camera(s) to film 'The Ten Commandments'. I didn't quite take to 'Murderdrome'. It wasn't the scattershot, crude approach of the filmmaking – I applaud that – it was the humour, which was just too broad for my taste. Having said that, what other kind of tone befits such gonzo production values? Maybe that's the challenge. Anyway, my take on 'Murderdrome' is that it's something I respect, something I don't really 'get', but which I'm glad exists – a bit like Roller Derby itself. And while those looking for an insight into that particular sub-culture might be better off with 'Whip It', those in search of trashed out, punked up badly made indie comedy horror should look no further.

CHARLIE'S FARM – Two guys and two gals – some of whom are really quite annoying – set out into the countryside to find 'Charlie's Farm', rumoured to be the site of bad things that happened back in the eighties. They want to go camping, and the place of a former massacre obviously makes for great tent pitching ground in a slasher flick. You couldn't really get more generic if you tried, could you? 'Charlie's Farm' takes a while to get going. It's tolerable at first, with its inevitable excursions into stock territory – for example, the bar full of unwelcoming locals who won't talk about 'what happened back then' but turn out to be necessary plot devices. This kind of thing does provide a slightly better alternative to yet more shots of a car going along a road in the middle of nowhere, but, midway through the run time, it all becomes a bit of a trudge. Thankfully, things are enlivened by some crazier interludes, with bits of gore and flashbacks showing the cruel farm owners and their tormented son, who seems to spend his time on a rocking horse next to soon-to-be murder victims. These latter scenes are actually quite grim, and foreshadow 'Charlie's Farm's final act, which blossoms into gory violence and claustrophobic hopelessness as dicks are cut off and shoved in mouths, throats are slit in leering close up and jaws are wrenched savagely from pleading faces, all courtesy of a giant with a knackered mug and a huge weapon. It's a pay-off worth sticking around for if you like these kind of twisted vibes. 'Charlie's Farm' acquits itself as a worthwhile piece of DTV dreck, and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes to pick up cheap bits of plastic from Supermarkets, Poundland and Cex (a kind of trinity which marks out the spiritual homeland of trash like the film under discussion). Had it been keener on the vile stuff before the end and a little sharper round the edges generally, then it could've been an anti-classic – as it stands, it's a well put together, slightly flawed diversion, but one which bodes well for the future of its makers.