What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demoncrat]

Kill Zone 2. the Tony Jaa film.

Put on Hard Target 2, then realised it's a Scott Adkins film, so that was that.
Stuck this on, and fisher price Raid that it is, twas entertaining enough to hold my attention. Recommended to the actioners on here.

[MacBlayne]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

[B]
Put on Hard Target 2, then realised it's a Scott Adkins film, so that was that.

What? How dare you!

I'm putting you on the Adkins diet. Eat lead!

Ha, seriously though - I really like his films. He's a great martial artist, and with the right director and script, he can be a decent actor. Undisputed 2 & 3 and Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning are belting films.

[trebor8273]

Salem's lot.

One of the most atmospheric and scary TV series ever made, hell till this day the scenes with the child vampire outside the window still give me a chill till this day. I couldn't sleep for a week when I first saw it as a kid. One of the best adaptation s of kings work and one of Hooper's best films up there with chainsaw. 9.2/10

[Cinematic Shocks]

Halloween (1978) [Extended TV Cut]

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

Halloween II (1981)

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

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Ninth Gate (1999)

Johnny Depp is in my opinion one of the finest actors currently working out of Hollywood. It can be argued that his star has fallen somewhat thanks to numerous films with Tim Burton and the critical if not financial maulings his later Pirates of the Caribbean movies took although last years Black Mass showcased his acting chops making him a critics darling once again.

It's easy to forget that at the turn of the century Depp was taking challenging and also genre roles that people such as me immediately took to as he shook off his earlier teen dream tag in films like Donnie Brasco (1997), Fear and Loathing in Last Vegas (1998), Blow (2001) and the interesting horror triumvirate of Sleepy Hollow (1999), From Hell (2001) and yes, The Ninth Gate.

I love The Ninth Gate. I find it totally engrossing. Roman Polanski is a director with a long and loved career. From Repulsion (1965) to Rosemary's Baby (1968) and Chinatown (1974) to The Pianist (2002), he's a director with a back catalogue of classic film making, but i think The Ninth Gate is his masterpiece.

It's a film that is superbly paced, the viewer is drawn in and gripped from the opening seconds and Polanski never lets go throughout all 133 minutes of it's run time. The music by Wojciech Kilar is outstanding as is the cinematography and indeed all the technical aspects, not to mention a terrific support cast including Emmanuelle Seigner and a seductive Lena Headey.

The story about a rare book dealer (Depp) who is employed for a lot of money by a billionaire collector (Frank Langella) to authenticate his copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, a book that was written in 1666 by the pen of Lucifer himself, and there are only three copies in existence. The quest takes Depp from New York to Portugal and on to Paris as he uncovers more disturbing secrets about the book.

It might help that i love books and i also love Occult movies and The Ninth Gate uses both ideas to make an outstanding psychological horror film. In fact Polanski's use of the Devil is ingenious. Similar in pace to say Chinatown except with a tremendous performance by Depp instead of Jack Nicholson, the film becomes creepier and more chilling as the secrets of the book and it's connections to the Devil unfold. Polanski gets the film under your skin in a way modern horror (The Witch aside) never comes close to doing and it proves all the better for it.

The Ninth Gate probably gets classed as one of both Roman Polanski and Johnny Depp's lesser films but to me both are at the very top of their game and The Ninth Gate is outstanding.

[sjconstable]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

The Ninth Gate (1999)

One of my favourite films, absolutely love it.

[Frankie Teardrop]

ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS 2 – I've reviewed this before, but it seems I can't stay away from late period Fulci for very long. Despite being a bit dismissive of ZFE2 when I first saw it a few years ago, it's grown on me ever since, to the point where it stands as a primo trash classic in my eyes. I prefer it to the original ZFE... that's not me trying to be controversial, it's more a testament to my lack of patience with a movie I consider to be plodding and overrated. ZFE is atmospheric, eventually, and contains a few iconic moments of groundbreaking gore, but whenever I see it I feel as if I'm having to wade through a lot of drag to get to the goods. ZFE2 is just pretty bonkers from the outset. It's a film packed with incident, messed up images, bizarre overacting and scrambled 'plot lines' . ZFE is a 'proper' film, with a narrative, a direction and a resolution. ZFE2 is a load of scenes strung together that just about make sense as a whole, but only just, and even then, maybe not really. It's well known that the reason for this messiness was that Fulci was ill, and couldn't complete it – the reins went over to Bruno Mattei for a few scenes. Looking at it now, the whole film seems way more Mattei than Fulci. It lacks any gothic aspiration, or aspiration to being anything beyond a mad scramble. It throws a bunch of stuff at the viewer and hopes for the best. A severed head flies out of a fridge and bites someone's throat out. A really fast, hard looking zombie flails around scarily with a machete. Some really slow zombies just do their usual thing. There's a bird attack on a bus. There's more dead birds on a road, prompting one character to bleat “that's the saddest thing I've ever seen”. A man wrestles a chicken only to be shot by mean guys in hazmat outfits. A zombie pregnancy culminates in a show stopping moment when an adult sized arm shoots out and rips someone's face off, prompting cries of “huh?” from me at least. The list goes on. Highly recommended for lovers of environmentally fixated low brow cine-scum.

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS 2 – I've reviewed this before, but it seems I can't stay away from late period Fulci for very long. Despite being a bit dismissive of ZFE2 when I first saw it a few years ago, it's grown on me ever since, to the point where it stands as a primo trash classic in my eyes. I prefer it to the original ZFE... that's not me trying to be controversial, it's more a testament to my lack of patience with a movie I consider to be plodding and overrated. ZFE is atmospheric, eventually, and contains a few iconic moments of groundbreaking gore, but whenever I see it I feel as if I'm having to wade through a lot of drag to get to the goods. ZFE2 is just pretty bonkers from the outset. It's a film packed with incident, messed up images, bizarre overacting and scrambled 'plot lines' . ZFE is a 'proper' film, with a narrative, a direction and a resolution. ZFE2 is a load of scenes strung together that just about make sense as a whole, but only just, and even then, maybe not really. It's well known that the reason for this messiness was that Fulci was ill, and couldn't complete it – the reins went over to Bruno Mattei for a few scenes. Looking at it now, the whole film seems way more Mattei than Fulci. It lacks any gothic aspiration, or aspiration to being anything beyond a mad scramble. It throws a bunch of stuff at the viewer and hopes for the best. A severed head flies out of a fridge and bites someone's throat out. A really fast, hard looking zombie flails around scarily with a machete. Some really slow zombies just do their usual thing. There's a bird attack on a bus. There's more dead birds on a road, prompting one character to bleat “that's the saddest thing I've ever seen”. A man wrestles a chicken only to be shot by mean guys in hazmat outfits. A zombie pregnancy culminates in a show stopping moment when an adult sized arm shoots out and rips someone's face off, prompting cries of “huh?” from me at least. The list goes on. Highly recommended for lovers of environmentally fixated low brow cine-scum.

Is there any film you are unable to make sound fantastic??!

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Is there any film you are unable to make sound fantastic??!

Well, anything with a kid who starts rapping is still a pretty hard sell in my experience...

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Is there any film you are unable to make sound fantastic??!

I know what you mean. I watch a film and think 'What is this shit?' and Frankie paints a picture of it like it should hang in the Tate with all the other masterpieces.