What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demoncrat]

Watched the Madness film Take It Or Leave It (1981, Dave Robinson) on VHS. An odd wee film, what with the band Madness essentially playing themselves. Very "fly-on-the-wall" in nature, I half expected Attenborough to pop out and start pontificating about the natural habitat of the Londoner....

Watched this in conjunction with the Kevin Turvey "film" The Man Behind The Green Door in which our intrepid reporter shows us around Redditch and sings "Downtown". ahem.

[trebor8273]

When Mark Preston (william shatner) goes missing after the murder of his father and mother by Satanist Johnathan Corbis ( Ernest Borgnine) who is looking for a satantic book that the family have hidden away for 200 hundred years, his brother Tom ( Tom skerrit) and his wife Julie go to confront Corbis, queue spooky going on's,creepy eyeless faces and melting body's. Not particularly scary but has a creepy atmosphere. Lots of familiar faces and watch out for a young john travolta in his first film roll. Never going to be considered a classic but enjoyable and didn't deserve the poor reviews it got. Mind i dont understand why its an 18. 7/10

Tonights viewings

Dolls
Absurd

[Frankie Teardrop]

VAMPYRES – From J Larraz, who had a bit of a posthumous comeback last year with the restoration of the brilliant 'Symptoms'. 'Symptoms', a mildewed shroud of a film, is a mood piece par excellence. 'Vampyres' on the other hand sees Larraz moving into grittier territory, with two vampires doing a siren routine and luring men from country lanes back to their pad for booze, sex games and blood letting. Coarser stuff in some ways, but Larraz's signature is still visible. There's a similar looking setting, rural south UK with derelict mansion, as witnessed through a gothic haze, although 'Vampyres' has slightly less of a claustrophobic feel to it. The inclusion of a couple on a caravan holiday puts us straight into the seventies and marks 'Vampyres' as British beyond redemption (in a good way). The world of 'Vampyres' may in part derive from Hammer and Euro-goth, but it's also from the same place Peter Walker and Norman J Warren were coming from, filmmakers who took the tat and tawdriness of grey post-war England and made it glow with something sinister and unwholesome. Doesn't really measure up to 'Symptoms', which is a truly great flick up there with the likes of 'Repulsion', but 'Vampyres' is still highly recommended.

VENUS FLY TRAP – Grungy shot on video flick from the late eighties which basically retreads 'House on the Edge of the Park', except that this time it's yuppies versus punks rather than yuppies versus sociopathic car mechanics. 'Venus Fly Trap' is, among other things, more likeable and less sleazy than its inspiration, and less boring too for that matter (or maybe just thirty minutes shorter). It doesn't have that crazy moment at the end where D Hess goes slow motion, but has a lot more 'eightiesness' about it (whatever that means). It's always nice to see stuff like this, a true indie labour of love which hasn't quite been forgotten.

HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE – Paul Naschy stars in this Spanish flick about a hunchback with a dead girlfriend problem. It's a bit of a stretch to call said hunchback a loveable loser, but he's certainly not a winner, and just about everyone around him is a total shit so he kind of lucks out by comparison. Well, Naschy the hunchback falls in with a crazy scientist who offers to bring his gf back from the dead, and it all turns into something to do with a pile of guts in a tank and a foul and feculent slime monster who unfortunately we don't see enough of. That last bit sums up 'HOTM's basic failing – it's got good stuff in it, bits of gore here and there, a good creature, some weird aspects – but it's sprinkled across a less than lively terrain of overlong, incredibly dull conversations and a really cloying, over sentimental musical score. There's also a bit of live rat burning, so points off there too.

SATAN'S SLAVE – Norman J Warren's first foray into grimy Brit horror. I prefer his other flicks in this domain – 'Prey', 'The Terror', even 'Inseminoid'. Actually, come to think of it, 'Bloody New Year', too. They're a weird bunch to varying degrees, particularly that last one, whereas 'Satan's Slave' is relatively 'normal' in that it's a straightforward cash-in on the ultimate seventies British horror trope, that whole witchcraft-occult-satanism-thing-presented-as-entertainment-for-the-masses, and just goes ahead and delivers a tale of a woman being held captive for ritual purposes in Michael Gough's gloomy mansion. This was made at a time when UK horror was shifting gears from stately gothic and heading towards a more exploitative realm, so there's some blood and some nudity and some classic moments like Michael Craze getting mashed after he falls from the top of a bleak looking tower block. Cool stuff goes down, like the incredibly sinister Baphomet guy at the beginning. Recommended viewing.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

VAMPYRES – two vampires doing a siren routine and luring men from country lanes back to their pad for booze, sex games and blood letting.

Why does this never happen to me?

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

SATAN'S SLAVE – Norman J Warren's first foray into grimy Brit horror. I prefer his other flicks in this domain – 'Prey', 'The Terror', even 'Inseminoid'. Actually, come to think of it, 'Bloody New Year', too. They're a weird bunch to varying degrees, particularly that last one, whereas 'Satan's Slave' is relatively 'normal' in that it's a straightforward cash-in on the ultimate seventies British horror trope, that whole witchcraft-occult-satanism-thing-presented-as-entertainment-for-the-masses, and just goes ahead and delivers a tale of a woman being held captive for ritual purposes in Michael Gough's gloomy mansion. This was made at a time when UK horror was shifting gears from stately gothic and heading towards a more exploitative realm, so there's some blood and some nudity and some classic moments like Michael Craze getting mashed after he falls from the top of a bleak looking tower block. Cool stuff goes down, like the incredibly sinister Baphomet guy at the beginning. Recommended viewing.

Nice to see some Warren love. Unlike yourself i think Satan's Slave is his best film. It looks at the Occult films from earlier years and says '**** you! This is what an Occult ritual should be like - blood, sex and death and if you don't like it we'll stab you in the eye'.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Why does this never happen to me?




Nice to see some Warren love. Unlike yourself i think Satan's Slave is his best film. It looks at the Occult films from earlier years and says '**** you! This is what an Occult ritual should be like - blood, sex and death and if you don't like it we'll stab you in the eye'.

Well, nothing beats death by canned laughter.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

Well, nothing beats death by canned laughter.

That's a reference to 'Bloody New Year', not necessarily the notion of you being shagged to ribbons on mud paths by a pair of death-sirens, Dem...

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

That's a reference to 'Bloody New Year', not necessarily the notion of you being shagged to ribbons on mud paths by a pair of death-sirens, Dem...

Never seen Bloody New Year. Is it any good?

Doesn't seem like i'm ever likely to either.

Still i'm sure Arrow can release the same Argento films over and over again instead.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Never seen Bloody New Year. Is it any good?

Doesn't seem like i'm ever likely to either.

Still i'm sure Arrow can release the same Argento films over and over again instead.

Not sure about 'any good'... it's certainly very odd. A few months ago there was talk of a new release on Blu-ray, but nothing has transpired.
I can't imagine Arrow would see much market value in it.

[Nordicdusk]

Hatred for Friday the 13th franchise and people violating each other with cacti nice to see its business as usual around these parts.

[Deadite]

The Awakening. Thought i'd seen this before. Turns out i've only ever seen the first hour - weird. Anyway, the delectable Rebecca Hall plays a debunker of mystics, mediums and fake bumpers in the night who is called to a boys boarding school by the rather curt Dominic West to investigate 'ghostly' goings on after the death of a student. Once she gets there, we meet the third wheel that keeps the movie going, the always dependable Imelda Staunton as Maude the matron of the school. Well, there's bebunking (hey, a boarding school joke. I'm here all night folks), followed by an 'Awakening' if you like and it's then that the picture really gets going. There are some nice chilly set-pieces involving a dolls-house that seems to move around the school depicting what is going on, went on, or what might have been going on, and a satisfactorily unsatisfactory ending that can certainly be taken in more than one way.

The three central performances are all excellent, but this is Hall's film for me. Mind you, i'd watch her reading the phone directory as the slightly altered saying goes.