What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[J Harker]

The Damned. Joseph Losey. 1962.

What a brilliant little film this is. American tourist Simon Wells is vacationing in Weymouth on the south coast of England. After being brutally mugged and beaten by King and his biker gang Wells retreats to his yacht to lick his wounds. Approached by Kings sister Joan, he offers to take her away from the town and her clearly unstable brother and his gang. King tracks her down and the two escape in Wells boat. After reluctantly agreeing to return Joan to shore so she can go back to her brother the pair end up finding themselves trapped in a strange underground research facility beneath the cliffs, home to a group of strange and abnormally cold young children.
Given its sharp ninety-one minutes runtime this film squeezes a bit of everything in, and does it with room to spare. The characters all manage to be more than meets the eye and the bleak dystopian finally is haunting. The film looks wonderful, quite epic is some scenes and while I've heard of it before I'm surprised it's not better known. Also of note are a range of superb performances particularly a mesmerising Oliver Reed as gang leader King who I'll eat my hat if he wasn't some sort of inspiration for Malcolm McDowell's Alex in a Clockwork Orange. Shirley Anne Field is rather lovely if a little nuts as his sister Joan. Brilliant film and at 49p probably one of the best bargains I've ever got.

[Susan Foreman]

'The Last Horror Film' (1982) is the strange title of an entertaining travelogue documentary about the 1981 Cannes Film Festival.

It's fascinating, seeing the advertising hoardings for the Bond film 'For Your Eyes Only' at the entrance to a hotel. It's also a trip down memory lane, seeing the posters for the films that were at the festival - 'Excalibur', 'Possession', 'Diva' - and I'm sure I saw a cinema advertising a showing of 'Cannibal Holocaust'.

In addition to these, the docu also features a number of radio news stories covering such events as the John Hinkley assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II and also events concerning the IRA

There is also footage of a press interview with an actress with weird Elsa Lancaster/'Bride Of Frankenstein' hair, where the subject of violence in films is talked about - bearing in mind the 'Video Recordings Act' (which was concerned with the Video Nasty scandal) wasn't passed until 1984, this is a disturbing piece of foreshadowing

Oh yeah, the film also has a subplot about some fat, sweaty psycho trying to get a horror film actress to appear in a film he is intent on making, and killing anyone who gets in his way - presumably some way of trying to justify the title

[Nordicdusk]

m-traintobusan.jpg

In the middle of a bad separation from his wife Seok Woo an over worked father finds it more and more difficult to spend time with his daughter Soo-an with only his mother to help look after her the stress is starting to tell on Seok Woo. With Soo-ans birthday on the horizon all she want is to go and visit her mother in Busan but with her father's crazy work schedule the trip looks unlikely to happen but his mind is changed after a few words from his heartbroken mother.

On the drive to the train station they are almost run off the road by emergency vehicles heading to the scene of a raging inferno not overly concerned the pair continue on their way to catch their train. Just before departure a homeless looking man sneaks on to the train and hids in the toilet shortly followed on a different carriage by a visible shaken and ill young woman from here what should be a trip ending in a joyful reunion for Soo-an and her mother turns into a living nightmare for everyone on board.

This is a very emotionally driven experience ( i must be getting soft my last review was also emotionally driven too ) The relationship between father and daughter is strained but there is also so much love between the two not only is there a journey for both to repair the damage to their relationship but Seok Woo must also have his own personal journey to discover that he is not the centre of the universe he has responsibility to his daughter and his fellow man. Train to Busan is an infection film not a zombie film just wanted to get that out of the way so there is speed to the infected much like 28 Days Later which makes the film even more frantic having such vicious,aggressive and fast infected in such a small space added to that all stations and cities along the way have been closed off by the military but only Busan has not been infected so their only chance of survival is to make it to the final stop while fending off the infected on board.

There are some really great characters in this film and the kid that plays Soo-an is really fantastic for such a young child. We have everything from the young child to a couple expecting their first child the mother is fragile in her heavily pregnant stage and her husband his doing his best to protect his loving wife and his unborn daughter to a young loved up teenage couple all the way up to a self centered business man who only cares about his own survival and will go to any lengths to make sure he stays alive. You find yourself getting pretty attached to many of these characters and rooting for them to survive while also hoping that one guy would just die already.

With all this emotions and character building there is also a train full of rabid infected something i seem to not have mentioned that much so far The makeup effects look great and i love the contorted movements of the infected and the speed there were a couple of scenes that reminded me a bit too much of World War Z but these were very short but that was the only time there was noticeable CGI.

I loved this one a very moving,touching and frantic experience. You may need a box of tissues but not in a fun way

9/10

[keirarts]

Alien

Alien mixes up elements from 50's & 60's B-movie sci-fi including It! terror from beyond space & Mario Bava's Planet of the vampires,films that inspired writers Dan O'Bannon & Ronald Shusett. It then gets a Hollywood effects budget and a serious director thrown into the mix in the shape of a then young but talented Ridley scott. Scott himself claims inspiration from Texas chainsaw massacre and the film plays more as a straight up horror flick wearing the skin of a sci-fi film. The films opening act taps into some genuine lovecraftian horror as the crew of the nostromo land on an isolated planet to investigate a mysterious signal. On the planet they discover a strange craft with a totally alien design and on board the desiccated remains of its pilot. The alien pilot is never really discussed in the film but it helps to maintain the complete sense of unease in the audience as they explore the craft. When Kane (john hurt) is attacked by a strange parasite and brought back to the craft the film then morphs into a haunted house in space as a creature erupts from Kanes chest and begins to hunt the crew down one by one.
The films strengths are its brilliant set design, the ship being a dank claustrophobic space that allows the creature myriad places to hide. The creature and alien craft designs by H.R Geiger remain unsurpassed and Scott, really on fire at this point in his career, manages to keep everything
consistent and tense.
My personal preference is for the theatrical cut, but there is a reedited version that addresses some pacing issues and adds a bizarre scene where the creature is turning the crew into eggs!

[Deadite]

Godzilla. No, not the shit Mathew Broderick one (although i admit it's a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine - not as much as Street Fighter mind. That's an A1 bone fide guilty pleasure that makes the 1998 Godzilla look like Citizen Kane), but the slightly less shit Gareth Edwards one. That's a bit unfair maybe, as it has some great shots in it and it's an otherwise decent movie, but it has problems, especially for a monster movie and super especially for a Godzilla movie. That stuff comes with expectations.

So, other than being a generally visually disarming movie with a decent amount of emotional heart-string tugging before we get to the action (did i mention you don't get to see Godzilla for nearly an hour? No, well that's problem number 1), for me it is hamstrung by several factors.

2) I already did 1 up there, pay attention. Dark, dark, dark. Presumably money saving on effects, perhaps a misguided attempt at atmosphere. We want to see the monsters properly!

3) Even the bits we see are largely from our tiny human perspective - in the dark. So, we get some Godzilla and MUTO action (finally! but in the dark...) but as it's from a midgets view, as soon as they enter a building, or whatever, the monster action goes!

As you can tell, it annoys me a bit. It's a decent film that leaves me unfulfilled on the monster fighting front. I remember back when District 9 came out, i was amazed that they'd basically made a 'monster movie' (ok, aliens, but they look monstery) that was totally in daylight! We saw the buggers and that was a pretty low budget film!

More daylight in these films please.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Deadite

More daylight in these films please.

This^

Some films are so dark today they are almost unwatchable.

Makes me pine for filtering like they used to do in westerns. Film everything in daylight but darken the filters for night time scenes. The sky looked odd but at least you could see what was going on.

[Rik]

Hammer used to do that as well, I've always liked that look in a film

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Deadite

Godzilla. No, not the shit Mathew Broderick one (although i admit it's a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine - not as much as Street Fighter mind. That's an A1 bone fide guilty pleasure that makes the 1998 Godzilla look like Citizen Kane), but the slightly less shit Gareth Edwards one. That's a bit unfair maybe, as it has some great shots in it and it's an otherwise decent movie, but it has problems, especially for a monster movie and super especially for a Godzilla movie. That stuff comes with expectations.

So, other than being a generally visually disarming movie with a decent amount of emotional heart-string tugging before we get to the action (did i mention you don't get to see Godzilla for nearly an hour? No, well that's problem number 1

Even after that hour hes barely in the film. It's like Godzilla had a cameo in his own movie. We see far more of the big moth things. Hell we see more of Bryan Cranston! Give me the Broderick film any day. And I don't even like Matthew Broderick.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Rik

Hammer used to do that as well, I've always liked that look in a film

Yeah they did. Wonder why i thought of westerns and not Hammer?

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Even after that hour hes barely in the film. It's like Godzilla had a cameo in his own movie. We see far more of the big moth things. Hell we see more of Bryan Cranston! Give me the Broderick film any day. And I don't even like Matthew Broderick.

In fairness, Godzilla is present in this film more than in the original 1954 film, when the titular monster was on screen for 14 minutes. I like the 'less is more' approach (similar to Jaws) and not running the risk of 'battle fatigue' from something like Man of Steel when the incessant fighting just becomes boring.