What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

A title and concept which is probably works far better in your head than what we actually get on screen.

Yes the 8th Friday the 13th film is a bit of a let down. The idea of our favourite masked serial killer stalking the folks of Times Square is an idea of pure genius but we only get to see it for a minute at most, in fact Jason Vorhees only reaches the city that never sleeps in the final half hour and even then spends his time skulking round the docks. The only memorable sequences involve Jason and some punk kids with their ghetto blaster and the maniac on a subway train.

I'm sure you've all seen this a number of times and don't need me to go into much detail, only that Jason spends the majority of the film stalking high school graduates on a ship on passage to New York. One or two of the kills are nicely done - shower girl for one - but the rest are largely tame and uninspired.

I do like the film but in the long running series it surely ranks quite low down in the thrills stakes due to it's by the number direction which fails to create much suspense and the lack of the 'chi chi chi ka ka ka' motif as Jason stalks his victims.

Average at best yet still quite watchable.

[Demoncrat]

Dark Star (1974, John Carpenter)
Best I've seen it look anyhow......nice contrasts in the darker scenes where they always looked murky before etc. not perfect, but an improvement indeed. Don't know this one?
Well, before Red Dwarf there were these 4 idiots travelling through the galaxy (plus a "guest" ) in a smellier Nostromo protoype. Enjoy!!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Witchcraft (1964)

When her grave is disturbed by land developers, a 300-year-old witch is accidentally resurrected and terrorizes the descendants of those who destroyed her coven and buried her alive.

Starring the great Lon Chaney Jr as modern day warlock Morgan Whitlock and Colditz star Jack Hedley as the head of the development company, the film has a lot of potential, however a less than legendary performance from Chaney, who director Don Sharp says could only film in a morning due to his daily consumption of a bottle or two of vodka whilst filming, means it's all a bit of a minor piece when it could have been so much better.

Yvette Rees who plays the resurrected witch, Vanessa Whitlock, gives quite a memorable if wordless performance, her icy presence giving her scenes a lovely tinge of Gothic horror especially when appearing in the bedroom of Hedley's daughter. The film has a couple of terrific set pieces including a couple of possessed or spellbound car journeys that result in tragedy but overall Witchcraft is let down by the script and Sharpe's direction that generates little in the way of overall suspense.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Syndicate (1968)

William Sylvester, Robert Urquhart, June Ritchie and Christian Doermer are an ill assorted group who form a syndicate to search for uranium deposits in the Kenyan bush. As their four week digging window begins to come to an end sinister accidents occur and it becomes obvious the syndicate is being sabotaged.

Well this was an oddball film. Made by British Pathe and filmed on location in East Africa, it appears that the four actors were left on the plains for a few days with a few plot pointers and told to add lib the rest and make it up as they go along. The uranium idea seems to flit to the background mostly as the group bicker amongst themselves without much idea of a coherent story. During the final twenty minutes John Bennett shows up with a couple of heavies (and a script) and we suddenly have a story outline which makes the viewing experience even stranger as the film becomes a different beast and quite compelling viewing.

A real oddity but the class of actors involved always kept it watchable.

[Buboven]

Watched Pete Walkers Frightmare from 1974 on the beta version of the UK Shudder.

One of the most twisted and *@ up films I have ever seen, especially that downer of an ending. 8/10.

[Frankie Teardrop]

HEX – Early eighties HK version of 'Les Diaboliques' in which a downtrodden wife enters into a plot against her abusive husband when a newcomer arrives in the household. The inevitable murder happens, the scheme derails and it all seems to go a bit supernatural (or does it?). Many of those old Shaw Bothers horror films remind me of their Italian counterparts from around the same time in that they were often technically and aesthetically impressive in their delivery of cheap thrills, but really quite lacking in other ways, namely anything to do with nuanced plot, character, narrative etc etc. This is pretty much where 'Hex' is at. It looks great, but seems as wooden as hell. But, it's those 'cheap thrills' that are main draw for most of those watching 'Hex' these days, so how does it perform? Well, it's no 'Boxer's Omen', but, after a slightly sluggish first half hour, it gets pretty wild and before long there are rotting corpses running around and giggling severed heads and so on. It also goes a bit weird tonally in that it starts out as quite sombre but then reaches a point where it feels it can casually dip into low brow humour vis a vis a cross eyed man doing a massive piss amongst other examples. Although that 'humour' thing (yes, I am that miserable) has on occasion ruined other similar HK weirdos for me in the past, here it doesn't do too badly and just kind of adds to the randomness of it all. Good stuff which will appeal to anyone into bizarro horror from yesteryear.

[Cinematic Shocks]

Videodrome (1983)

****1/2 out of *****

Eaten Alive (1976)

*** out of *****

[trebor8273]

American werewolf in London. 9.4/10



Miss Pergrine's home for peculiar children. 7.2/10



Headhunter. 4.8/10

The prophecy. 7.5/10



The Prophecy 2. 7.5/10

[Cinematic Shocks]

Scanners (1981)

**** out of *****

Event Horizon (1997)

***1/2 out of *****

[Rik]

Lights Out 1/5 yet another shitefest along with most recent "horrors", don't waste your time!