What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[iluvdvds@Cult Labs]

Went to see The Crazies tonight and really really enjoyed it. Whilst there were quite a few terrible cliches overall the film was brilliant and kept the pace up all the way through (kicking off VERY early on). A superb remake with many many memorable moments! I'd highly recommend this.

[nekromantik]

Originally Posted by Gojirosan

Ah, not the splendid Zulawski film then!

nope
The long delayed movie from 2008 I think. No wonder they were not in a hurry to release it.

[LineSix]

I also went to watch The Crazies tonight and thought it was superb, the best modern remake I have seen so far of any Horror film. Bits and pieces of it were a bit ridiculous but it was just a wholy enjoyable experience, it wasn't too gory to be honest but it didn't need it, it had a lot of suspense and tension and was well directed with some nice shots.

Well worth a watch, both if your a fan of the original or even if you haven't seen it.

9/10

[Aurora75]

last film seen at the cinema was 'Avatar'. Visually stunning with a heavy handed predictable story and shallow characters (as i would expect from James Cameron).. To be honest I was just interested in checking out the 3D. Although funnily enough the most 3D part of the experience was the trailer for 'Shrek' haha...

[vincenzo]

Originally Posted by Gojirosan

Ah, not the splendid Zulawski film then!

Zulawski's Possession is one of my favourites of the video nasties. Brilliant stuff.

[James Morton]

Originally Posted by DeadAlive

Tokyo Gore Police - This is OK if not a touch overlong at 109 minutes. There are some interesting set pieces that stand out but they can't hide the fact that this is a film made by an effects man who has gone out of control. Gallons of spurting blood and some nightmare images throughout make this twisted fun to a point , but it's not half as much fun as The Machine Girl was.

The Sendhal Syndrome - The best thing about this film is the score by Ennio Morricone. Asia Argento is far from convincing in the lead, while a few neat camera tricks can't save this from being another disappointing effort from the one time horror miestro Dario Argento. Incidentally, Lovefilm have the cover art for the Arrow release up for this rental when the version they are renting is obviously from another distributer.

I disagree
TOKYO GORE POLICE is a great film and rightly timed as well as being better than MACHINE GIRL. TGP is brilliant
THE STENDAHL SYNDROME is an underrated horror from the best horror director, yes he's directed a few not-so-good horrors in the past, but TSS is excellent

[eNoize]

Just finished Altered. Surprisingly entertaining independent picture with good special effects/gore being the highlights.

Also watched Red Sands a couple of nights ago, which was okay but expected something better.

[42ndStreetFreak]

Originally Posted by Gojirosan

Triangle

Not what I expected! This is a superior head-scratcher of a horror film

Now I like Smith's other films and fancied this, but I'm not sure it's going to make sense.

You can **** with my head as much as you like...knock yourself out...for 88 minutes. But you better explain yourself during the final 2 minutes. I'm simple like that.
Which is why I LOVE "Wild at Heart" but hate "Lost Highway".

So will I be enlightened at the end...or left scratching my scalp in confusion and annoyance?

[42ndStreetFreak]

"Danto 01"

It's French. It's Sci-Fi, it's a French Sci-Fi film...and that's just not a good thing for all the obvious cliche's that are actually true.
Barely coherent nonsense that shoe-horns Hell, God, Jesus, Biblical terminology and religious iconography into a basic 'prison in space' set-up.

Mysterious experiments carried out on the inmates are given much flashy visual time...and are then completely ignored as we never learn what they are for, what they do, or what happens after.
Oh well.
'Weird new arrival guy with alien stuff in him who eats all our octopus monsters' turns into Jesus Christ and puts out the universe's biggest fire, people get bashed and stabbed and nothing makes any real sense and makes no sense by using wildly over the top CGI visual effects that seem like the makers were all tripping at the time.

Looks good, has a couple of nice violence moments...nothing else worthwhile at all and at the end of the day it's a right load of up its own arse French poncy nonsense! Yes!
Avoid.



"Iron Angels"

AHHHH...........Great stuff.
Still holds up and quite frankly, truthfully, sadly...Hong Kong cinema simply doesn't make films like this any more, instead even action films nowadays are not really 'fun' and all seemed aimed at festival awards ceremonies and broadsheet newspaper reviews. BAH!

This is from another time, when the most outrageous, over the top, wild, violent, bloody, masses of extras dying all over the place set-pieces were the norm and at least one sequence in "Iron Angels" (aka "Angel") pushes all these essential buttons.
An attack by the Angels (including the ever lovely Moon Lee) on a house is a thing to behold!

Tons of extras and stuntmen get machine-gunned down with blood spattered abandon, good looking men and women leap through windows, hang off helicopters, slide down stairs and dive through the air with guns-a-blazing, everyone fires millions of bullets, legs and fists slam into body parts with delightfully gymtastic skill, explosions blow whole groups of stuntmen through windows at the same time (with the explosion blasting over their bodies as they fly out) and all the walls get a crimson paint job.

But we have lots of other set-pieces too;
We open with an extra, explosion filled attack by the army on poppy fields, then go into some nicely bloody and violent assassination scenes, then a few martal arts smackdowns, before we get to the babe on babe finale where Elaine Lui and Moon Lee take on the amazingly nasty and sadistic Yukari Ôshima with explosive earrings, explosive buttons, planks of wood, fuel hoses and pointy poles.
Moon Lee shines here next to the amazing legs goddess Oshima.

We will forget the awful 'comedy freeze frame' ending and the fact that the (otherwise great) R3 DVD is missing The Osh's stunt breast scene, and instead simply concentrate on the sheer good times offered with its wildly over the top violence, crazy and dangerous looking stunts, blazing guns, blood spatters, utterly unique HK action staging and energy and sexy looking fighting femmes...and relish the days when 'critics awards' were the last thing on a Hong Kong action movie's mind.

[buggenhagen]

Alright, so I was at Frightfest here in Glasgow last weekend so I've seen quite a few horror films of late! I won't go into too much detail but here's a quick rundown of what I thought of what I saw (no spoilers)...

Frozen

I really enjoyed this. The fact that you never get bored even though you're watching people stuck on a ski lift is a pretty big feat. Would certainly recommend giving it a view.

2001 Maniacs: Field Of Screams

Terrible. Woefully bad. I just don't have the tolerance for zero budget, shot on video stuff anymore. It's dull, nowhere near as gory as a lot of people would have you believe and nowhere near as outrageously un-PC as it would like to think. It's just too badly shot and acted to have any impact on any level. I'm sure I'll get shot down for saying all that but I'll stand my ground. It's a shame because Tim Sullivan, the director, came on first to introduce the film and he was a riot. After his introduction I was looking forward to the film so it came as a massive disappointment to see the final product. He said after the film that it cost $400,000 to shoot over 10 days. Well, it's obvious that it only took 10 days but I've no idea where the hell the money went cos it looks like it was shot for a fraction of that.

Stag Night

Certainly better than the film that preceded it, this was merely ok. Didn't do anything unexpected, had one interesting death (which received a cheer from the crowd) and was well enough made. Even though the film is set in the underground (and this will sound weird) the image was too dark for me and I kept losing interest because I couldn't really tell exactly what was going on. There are a few great little sequences in it, especially towards the end, but none of the characters are likeable so ultimately I didn't care what happened. Didn't really go for the ending either.

It's also worth noting that a fist fight broke out in the cinema during this screening - not sure the exact story but it seems like a couple of drunken neds were niggling a couple sat next to them and it ended up in a few punches being thrown and the police getting called. Certainly livened up the start of the movie.

Lizard In A Woman's Skin

Loved it. This was only the second time I'd seen the film but it was a completely different experience this time round. First time was at Dead By Dawn and the print was worn out and the subtitles were being typed live by a translator. It was a great, and rare, opportunity to see it back then but this screening blew that one away. We were informed before the screening that all the restored elements hadn't been completed in time for the event so we watched a print made up from all the different source elements being used in the upcoming dvd release - which meant that the picture quality fluctuated at points. I think that the film looked, and sounded, amazing. Can't wait for the dvd to come out - just a shame they aren't doing a blu-ray transfer (I don't think they are anyway).

Amer

Can't really comment, fell asleep after about 10 minutes and didn't wake up until about 10 minutes from the end. Sorry. Didn't particularly enjoy what I did see - I started to bore of the lack of dialogue though.

REC 2

Not as good as the first movie but still enjoyed it. The only problem really is that once you've seen the first film you know what to expect so you can see the scares coming a mile off. Really liked the way they got round not having the tv camera in there this time and managed to have a couple of different camera choices to follow the action around. Def worth a watch.

Splice

I had no idea what this was about, had seen no promotional material at all, and thoroughly enjoyed what I saw. Great, simple little movie. Not really a horror film as such but definitely fits in the category. The digital effects are amazing and I had no problem in completely believing what I was watching. Quite surprisingly disturbing in points (one scene in particular had the audience in disbelief) I'd be interested in seeing this one with a normal cinema going crowd to see what some of their reactions are. Will definitely be going to check this out again.

Harpoon: Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre

Was pretty smashed by this point, and wasn't expecting much, but this was fun too. Def one to watch with a stack of booze and your mates round. Only quite hazy recollections so I won't try and recount the film.

So that was that. A pretty good weekend all in.