What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Justin101]

Holy shit... I just got back from watching Logan and I'm blown away. Let's face it, X-Men has been shit for years and we wont talk about the Wolverine movies but... Seriously, as Ant said earlier - this film is spot on. It's adult, not cheesy, well acted, good story, good colourful script - it's worth going just to hear Patrick Stewart saying F*** and the violence... the special effects are great.

[Nordicdusk]

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1965 Los Angeles and a struggling widowed mother and her two daughters run a séance scam business trying to pay the bills. While at a friends one of the daughters messes around with a Ouija board she convinces her mother to try it out at their next scam session to freshen things up a bit. Its not too long before this new prop becomes the real deal.

I started watching this with rock bottom expectations and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was i was expecting bad acting bad cgi and constant cheap jump scares but instead it kept it simple and creepy. The spirit/demon was kept out of sight which just ramped up the tension but the last 20 minutes just fell into the modern ghost story trap where we see too much and all suspense is thrown out the window it's a real shame because like i said i was really enjoying it up until that point. It didnt totally ruin the film but it did take away from it.

Apparently this is a prequel to the 2014 film Ouija which i have never seen and i don't think i will ever have the desire to do so anytime soon.

Ouija Origins Of Evil gets a

5/10

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Lady From Shanghai (1948)

Orson Welles writes, directs and stars in this murky noirish tale about an out of work seaman who becomes infatuated with a famed lawyers wife and joins them on a bizarre yachting cruise, before ending up being charged with murder in a complex plot of distortion.

Welles once again show what a fine director he is, Welles makes strange faux-pars by getting leading lady Rita Hayworth to cut her flowing red hair and dye it blonde, whilst giving himself a frankly weird Irish accent.

None the less, this is still a magnificent film with an almost Hitchcockian second half, where Everett Sloane proves himself a better actor than he did in Citizen Kane as Hayworth's disabled husband and Hayworth shimmers with effervescent sex appeal especially in her swimsuit. The early yachting scenes certainly seemed odd and sleazy enough to have influenced the Italians in the late 60's early 70's in films like Waves of Lust (1975) and Top Sensation (1969) with mind games aplenty. Whilst the finale at the carnival hall of mirrors is superbly executed, quite rightly famed and amazingly influential.

Highly recommended.

[bleakshaun]

just watched puppet master 3 toulon's revenge.
prequel to the 1st 2 films this one focuses on toulon being noticed by the nazis due to him animating puppets to life without the use of strings. The nazis fo to his theatre and end up killing his wife. so toulon decides to go for revenge.
great little film, but it seemed to me that it felt as though it was rather rushed, especially considering that you only see the origination of 2 of the puppets. apart from that gripe it was an enjoyable movie, the puppets stole the show.
6/10 not my favourite in the series but still a great flick

[Frankie Teardrop]

BEYOND THE DARKNESS – Venerable Italian hack Joe D'Amato probably only made three or four good movies, maybe fewer if you insist on discounting 'Anthropophagous'. Out of that vanishingly rare bunch, this one is perhaps his 'masterpiece'. 'Beyond the Darkness' is gutter-lurking slime in celluloid form, but it's effective, and still manages to get under the skin after all these years. For anyone who hasn't had the pleasure, it's about a grief stricken taxidermist who can't handle the (black magic related?) death of his beloved fiance, so he runs off with her corpse and prepares the slab back at his mansion. He also finds time for a bit of pseudo-incest with his housekeeper and some slashing of young women. 'Beyond The Darkness' has the dumb, trashy quality of much bargain basement Italo rip-off cinema of its era, but somehow manages to attain quite a grim, sordid atmosphere, leaving any cheap laughs (like perhaps those at the expense of its awful small town nightclub scene) ringing pretty hollow in the end. The twisted, obsessive elements are really out in front – when lover boy does his DIY autopsy on his dearly departed, he bites deep into her engorged heart. Even more indelible are scenes like the one where taxidermy guy, whimpering, sucks the breast of his gaunt looking maid. 'Beyond The Darkness's universe is narrow, bleak and squalid, inhabited by completely unlikeable characters who are pathetic at the same time as they're hideous. Thinking about it now, although I mentioned it shares a lot with B movies made in Italy at the time, there really isn't a lot to compare it to. It doesn't exactly feel personal, but it's certainly unique. Foetid and vile without being particularly explicit, 'Beyond the Darkness' gets a full-on recommendation from me.

ABSURD – Another good JD'A flick, 'Absurd' is basically 'Anthropophagous part 2'. A lot of people seem to dislike the first 'Anthro...'. I can sort of see why, it's a pretty dumb flick and could potentially come across as quite dull, being one of the ultimate 'characters wandering around in the dark' type affairs. For some reason its atmosphere just clicks with me though, and I'm not ashamed to say that it's definitely somewhere in my Euro-grot top ten. 'Absurd' is a very different kind of movie. D'Amato seems to have been going for a more 'American' feel, and tries to import the basic elements of the original into a small-town slasher type framework. He also tightens up the pace and ladles on the gore. It works. E Purdom is some kind of vicar-assassin who's been charged with tracking down lumbering killer George Eastman in a trans-continental manhunt that's ended in Nowheresville USA. Eastman is apparently the outcome of some weird experiment, maybe involving the Vatican, which has resulted in him gaining superhuman powers of regeneration. He goes on a killing spree and ends up the house of a little girl with knackered legs. 'Absurd' is pretty great. Early European attempts to turn the screw and do imitation slashers rather than Gialli are always fun and slightly (or very) weird – see the likes of 'Bloody Moon' et al. 'Absurd' can be viewed along these lines. Effort has been made to make it fit with a 'Halloween'-ish template, but it's steeped in that far stranger, Euro-atmosphere. The soundtrack has a lot to do with 'Abusrd's basic 'feel', being a classic Italo-prog nightmare which seems perpetually on the brink of a cathedral orgasm. There are silly bits such as the scene where Purdom reveals his dog collar and the local detective blurts “turns out you're a priest!”, but 'Absurd' also makes room for the sheer dreaminess of the sequence where the little girl with knackered legs crawls and cowers whilst a blind George Eastman flails around after her in a house full of booming Messiaen-type organ music. And who could top the climax, where the girl decaps the beast and proudly brandishes Eastman's blood spattered mug? See it if you haven't already.

[Cinematic Shocks]

Moonlight (2016)

**** out of *****

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Saw LOGAN this afternoon. This is the movie Wolverine (and the fans) deserved. Bloody, violent, moving and sad. The fight scenes are brutal. The momet in the red band trailer where Logan put his claws though a bad guys chin and up through the top of his head is actually one of the tamest things in the whole film. Jackman & Stewart have never been better, especially Stewart as a 90 year old Charles Xavier suffering from dementia and now classed as a WMD due to being unable to control his powers without daily injections. And Dafne Keen as X-23/Laura, even with saying nothing for 3/4 of the film, is a star in the making.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

Saw LOGAN this afternoon. This is the movie Wolverine (and the fans) deserved. Bloody, violent, moving and sad. The fight scenes are brutal. The momet in the red band trailer where Logan put his claws though a bad guys chin and up through the top of his head is actually one of the tamest things in the whole film. Jackman & Stewart have never been better, especially Stewart as a 90 year old Charles Xavier suffering from dementia and now classed as a WMD due to being unable to control his powers without daily injections. And Dafne Keen as X-23/Laura, even with saying nothing for 3/4 of the film, is a star in the making.

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I enjoyed the second film a lot, but this from the trailer and your response (as well as what others have said too) sounds absolutely fantastic.

What a shame they get it right for the third and final film. Should have been like this all along.

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I enjoyed the second film a lot, but this from the trailer and your response (as well as what others have said too) sounds absolutely fantastic.



What a shame they get it right for the third and final film. Should have been like this all along.

Yeah, I actually like The Wolverine as well. I know this one has had a pretty good opening couple of days in the States, but there were only 6 people (including myself and my cousin) in the cinema this afternoon. I'm hoping that was only because it was a Friday afternoon, and most people were still at work. Be a shame if this wasn't a big hit over here, because it's one of the best comic book/superhero movies ever (in my humble opinion), and certainly the best X-Men or Wolverine movie.

[The Reaper Man@Cult Labs]

Dogging work to go to the pictures......