Duly noted.


Well for Boxing Day this year I kept it light.
A Christmas Horror Story
Knight Of Cups
Both were received well enough.
I also perused the "sequel" to King Of Kong entitled Man Vs Snake, which is a must to KOK fans (cough), if only to see two of the main characters from that appear as normal human beings ahem.
Though the highlight of the period would have to have been Exterminator 2 (1984, Mark Buntzman). Looked lovely, and seems to exist in an alternate universe, which was nice haha. Mostly it reminded me of an Italian "sequel"......which is never a bad thing in my book.

While I’m not an avid comic book reader, ‘Judge Dredd’ (not ‘2000 AD’ as a whole) is one of the titles I’ve read over the years. The ’95 film is awful; it’s a disgrace to the source material. ‘Dredd’ nails it.

A Monster Calls.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Xbo-irtBA
Not going to give away the plot etc or any details as it will spoil the film. Just say it was fanastiic with great acting all round especially from Lewis MacDougall as Connor, who was outstanding. Word of warning take a hanky. Only downside was nothing to do with the film but some woman and her awful chav spawn that spent the whole movie running around, laughing and making silly noises. Which had nothing to to with there age as there was some other children who were a little younger but were very well behaved,but was down to upbringing. 9/10


Now watching the hobbit which will be the beginning of my middle earth marathon.

The Black Room (1935)

Boris Karloff shows his acting mettle in this film where he has a dual role as two identical brothers, one good and one evil as sin. Naturally we root for the decent and sympathetic brother but Karloff plays Mr. nasty with glee.

The Black Room is a delightful macabre Gothic romp featuring murder and secret torture chambers. The black room in question is a deep pit with spikes at the bottom where the evil brother throws his victims, never to be seen again.

It must be noted that the special effects in this film are excellent. Karloff is frequently on screen in both roles and the picture is seamless.

The Shallows

This 2016 survival horror follows Nancy, an American medical student who is on a surfing holiday in Tijuana where her mother, who has recently passed away, went when she was pregnant with her. When she is out on the water for 'one more go', this time without the company of the two local men who were also enjoying the waves, a giant shark, attracted by the decaying carcass of a whale, attacks her surfboard leaves her stranded on a rock with a bite wound in her leg, gangrene and hypothermia setting in, and the tide rising.

Blake Lively is very good as the protagonist and the shark, as the antagonist, is seen enough to ratchet up the tension, but not too much to overstretch the CGI budget or use too much stock footage. In that sense, director Jaume Collet-Serra, his work hasn't really impressed me in the past, has learned a lot from Steven Spielberg's approach in Jaws (less is most certainly more, with the silhouette of the predatory fish more than enough to remind you of its presence), an approach that pays off very well.

At about 80 minutes, with the extra time for credits, it doesn't outstay its welcome or drag in any way – the sense of urgency conveyed through Nancy's watch, the slowly disappearing rock and changing skin colour makes the time fly by. There are some very well orchestrated jumps which do not feel in any way cheap and a lovely relationship between Nancy and an injured seagull, which she charmingly calls Steven.

All in all, I really enjoyed this and recommend it highly to anyone with misgivings about renting it or even picking up the disc as a blind buy.

Glad you enjoyed this, Nos. That's two rave reviews it's had in the space of a couple of days.

One of them beautifully written by you!

It doesn't though - Judge Dredd is meant to be a satirical stab at the worst aspects of the police, but Karl Urban's Dredd is just a respectable good guy.

To be fair, Dredd was a 'respectable good guy' in many of the 2000AD stories. It wasn't always a fascist plotline that was running. That happened in spurts. Perhaps further sequels would have darkened the character more and blurred the lines between right and wrong. I'm sad that there won't be any Dredd sequels, there was a lot of great source material out there and I would have loved to have seen Judge Death and the other dark judges on the big screen. I even own the Stallone film on a German bd, sure it's a letdown but it has a spot-on Mean Machine Angel, a long walk and the block war seen at the start. Oh yeah, and an ABC Warrior. Their Judge McGruder looked pretty good too.

Yep the Angel family and ABC robot were great in that film. Mean Machine actually scared me in that headbutting scene when I was younger.