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HARSH LIGHT OF DAY - Combines revenge and vampire subgenres. I quite liked it without being particularly gripped. An author is left paralysed in the aftermath of a house invasion which sees his wife murdered by a trio of snuff movie making thugs (!). A contact from the 'occult underground' introduces him to a vampire who turns him for obvious revenge related narrative reasons. Despite the potential for ridiculousness the tone is sombre and melancholy, and works well. I, ZOMBIE - Another film dealing with a transition from humanity to creaturedom, Andrew Parkinson's debut takes us on a journey to a lonely place, the place people go when something about them changes and removes them from life, their former selves and the people around them. In this case, zombie is just a metaphor for the slow burn shut down of physical or mental illness, and I was reminded of Cronenberg's 'The Fly' more than the usual flesh rippers. 'I, Zombie' manages to evoke an emotion quite alien to most horror - sadness, building to grief. This is in spite of the initial woodeness of the acting and set up, which quickly give way to a quite suffocating sense of existential malaise. Basically a movie which is ironically enough (given the living dead premise) about someone dying slowly, 'I, Zombie' deserves plenty of credit for its austere originality and depressing vision, although maybe the genre trappings end up being a bit confusing and almost arbitrary... in another life it would've been an arthouse drama about the isolation and misery of illness. Actually though, maybe that arbitrariness is what's good about it. Whatever, Andrew Parkinson is one of the great undersung talents of contemporary UK horror cinema and I really wish someone would release his 'Venus Drowning' on DVD just so I could see it. |
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Cobbled together a nifty double bill of Berberian Sound Studio (thanks to Curzon on demand), followed by Death Laid an Egg. Berberian was everything I hoped it would be. Despite moments of nutty brilliance, I found DLAE pretty dull on the whole :shocked: . . . |
Visitor Q After watching this im amazed at how many people have said this is sick and disturbing. Unless you have a phobia of breast milk that is. I enjoyed it anyway and there are some moments that are very funny. The first scene is a bit twisted when you realise whats going on. But after that its not as bad as is made out. |
Last film of the w/end, Kenji Mizoguchi's 1941 masterpiece The Loyal 47 Ronin, all four hours on it in one setting - it's that good. All of it courtesy of the R4 Madman 2-DVD, which is a not a perfect presentation but decent enough. A film well deserving of the Criterion or MOC treatment... http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/CoverAr...fied/28189.jpg |
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The American Astronaut Now this was a pleasant surprise. I'm trying to clear up bits that have been sitting on my shelf for years and unwrapped this. I even forgot why I bought it, so rather than google it, I chucked it in the player with curiosity. What we have is a perfect midnight movie. A low budget space western with music numbers. Think a micro-budget, sci-fi Rocky Horror meets Eraserhead, and a whole lot of fun. Writer/director Cory McAbee also stars as the lead in a plot almost too bonkers to outline (basically some space trader delivering various odd shipments to different planets, while pursued by an arch nemesis). He's the lead singer of a band, The Billy Nayer Show, who provide the soundtrack - and what wonderfully offbeat numbers they are too (there's even a song called 'the Girl With The Vagina Made of Glass') But it's quirky in a very, very good way, the poppy/rockabilly soundtrack genuinely catchy, and I was really quite taken with it. After showing the missus some highlights, she's decided she'd like to sit down and watch it too, so another viewing is on the cards. I don't usually post youtube clips, but this scene was a highlight and sums up the loopy style of the film: Hey Boy! - YouTube http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CWMGTMWHL.jpg |
The American Astronaut is a fantastic film! |
Took the opportunity to see Looper at the local Cinemaxx following the largely positive feedback aorund the web. Got to say I was disappointed. WHile the central ideas are certainly interesting I found that the film was a bit on the dull side. |
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Yeah, I know what you mean - although sometimes that improvised stuff really works, like in 'Naked', where you can believe they threw out the script and just wired David Thewlis's brain to some kind of amphetamine electrode attached to Mark E Smith's gob. Just seen the exact opposite of a Mike Leigh film - DETENTION. What's with all this crazy post modern bollocks going on in horror at the moment? If you thought 'Cabin in the Woods' was grating, you wouldn't want to go within spitting distance of this one. It's just an insane barrage of pop culture references delivered in a whirlwind of the cinematic equivalent of text-speak. I can't begin to describe the 'plot' without using a string of unrelated words and phrases along the lines of "American high school, random slasher, nineties references, time travelling bear, C&C Music Factory, Cronenberg's 'The Fly' a la jock, nineties references, film within a film within a film within a (slasher) film, UFO, nineties references, keyboard guitar, 1992, grody etc etc etc". Can't decide whether I quite liked it or f*cking hated it, and I'm not sure whether I could be arsed to watch it again to find out, but I suppose I'm quite heartened by the fact that studios are putting this deliriously non-mainstream kind of thing out. |
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I just watched the trailer and it doesn't look my sort of thing at all. Then again, I thought that with Danny Dyer and ghost films but I'm loving them both at the moment. To be honest I'm willing to give anything a go at the moment as my 'to watch pile' fills me with loathing each time I look at it. I never thought I'd get bored of SWV and bullet bras. |
The Boxer's Omen Looper Below Zero The Barrens |
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'Detention' really is objectively irritating, I think. I have to admire the fact that its makers were twisted enough (or maybe just stupid enough) to drag it into existence, but it's not without precendents ie the equally annoying 'Scott Pilgrim'. Afterwards I had to watch 'The Mutilation Man' to restore sanity, although the bit with a naked Jim VanBebber covered in entrails screaming 'There's something wrong with this' over and over did actually remind me of how it was to watch 'Detention'. I can relate to this thing about the 'to watch' pile inspiring feelings of loathing. For me personally it generally happens when I burn out on too much horror and weirdness and get sick of it all. There's a lot of stuff I don't do when I'm on a movie binge ie I'll neglect the music and my art projects, so I tend to just try to get back into that sort of thing... it's either that or Mike Leigh, after all. |
Grabbers. Liked this cheeky wee romp, trailer tells you all you need to know etc, unannoying fx etc. Recommended! But not to James hahaha ahem. Storage 24 Noel Clarke's "monster movie" is a bit toothless, due to the avalanche of cliches that it is, regardless I enjoyed it's unpretentious diet of groo & relationship meltdown ahem. Plus Laura Haddock is quite fetching cough cough.;) |
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Its quite creepy i thought. I seem to be in a minority though. |
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Cold Fish is incredible |
Neither the Sea nor the Sand is very good, if spare psychological drama. Well worth watching, I have the Odeon disc. |
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Thanks for the replies Paul and Bizarre_eye. :) |
You're welcome, mate. |
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Recent viewings http://i49.tinypic.com/35a42dw.jpg |
Watched my German Bluray of Hard Candy tonight. Its every bit as leg crossingly great as I remember. |
Horror House on Highway Five Eat The School Girl |
Another Grimmfest over, watched a lot of great movies. COMEDOWN: An urban 'yoof' movie which morphs into a bloody slasher film when a group of teens head to the top of an abandoned tower block to put up an antennae for a pirate radio station. Good solid no-nonsense slasher that's well directed and well shot. Avoids the mistake made with attack the block and actually gives the audience characters that we can sympathise with. COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES: Delivers exactly what it promises in great style. Very funny and great audience reaction. A quick paced comedy-horror with plenty of blood and a great cast including RICHARD BRIARS!! and Alan Ford (who attended the screening and is a genuinely nice bloke!) SOME GUY WHO KILLS PEOPLE: An introverted guy who works in an ice cream parlour is killing off the men who tormented him at school....or is he? Well written, funny and has lots of pathos and likeable characters this has been shown in previous years but was at grimm again to promote their new label. Definately one i'm picking up on day of release. GRABBERS: A small island of the cost of ireland is terrorised by blood sucking tentacle monsters from space. Think an Irish Tremors and your in the right area. Funny and entertaining with a well designed creature and lots of jokes about drinking. NIGHTBREED: THE CABAL CUT: A genuine revalation, at the minute all the footage is from a VHS tape of the rough cut, but hopefully if enough people can get to the OCCUPY MIDIAN website Occupy Midian - Home or go onto the facebook page and sign the petition then the process of tracking down the footage and putting together a print suitable for a HD release can begin! WAKE UP AND DIE: A woman wakes up in a strange house with a strange man, when she tries to leave he kills her, then she wakes up in the strange house again and begins to realise this is happening over and over again a la groundhog day. Not the best thing screened but certainly interesting this is one still worth checking out. THE OTHER SIDE: Short slasher film with shades of switchblade romance, a fun little short that hopefully may one day become a feature! THE DEVIL RIDES OUT: I was very apprehensive about this, given before I left for Grimm the internet rumour-mill was going full swing about the added effects. For the record its about a second of blue flame behind the angel of death and a flash of light as he enters...thats it. It actually improves the sequence greatly. A lot of whats online seems exaggeration and hyperbole in retrospect. The film looks fantastic and i'm definately buying it. Patrick mower was in attendance and my mate won his autobiography. A nice bloke, he ended up nicking my seat for the next screening but I can forgive him (got to sit next to him for the film) :lol: BEFORE DAWN: Supurb low-key zombie film made by and starring Paddy from emmerdale (dominic brunt) a genuine enthusiast of the genre who runs the leeds zombie festival. Very serious (though some humour in places) its a grimm and tragic movie and well worth seeing. ATTACK OF THE WEREWOLVES (LOBOS DE ARGA): Brilliant homage to classic werewolf cinema, had the audience laughing and cheering in the right places, great wolf-man style prosthetics and plenty of blood. Fun Q+A with the director afterwards and I won a soundtrack CD :woot: CRAWLSPACE: Fun little aussie sc-fi/horror with a team sent to secure a top secret millitary installation only to find things inside have gone horrible wrong. Its great trashy fun from beginning to end and a supurb midnight movie. CURSED BASTARDS: A somewhat overlong but decent argentine anthology film. I would have liked it more if it had been shorter as the individual stories have a tendency to drag on far too long. TWISTED: A hong kong horror antholgy with lots of humour. A much better prospect than cursed even though its almost as long. Lives up to its title! Best story is the third and final one with a fake exorcist forced to deal with the real thing! BASKET CASE: The most exciting prospect of the whole festival for me was to see this projected on a cinema screen. The HD transfer looks 'great' (genuinely good, but as good as this film will ever look) and the film got a great audience reaction, there were even a few people who hadn't seen the film before! :shocked: BELOW ZERO: Supurbly written and directed and starring Edward Furlong and Michael Berryman. The film is about a writer (furlong) who locks himself in a meat locker for a week in order to write a new screenplay, pretty soon the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur... RITES OF SPRING: Mostly great with a very abrubt and unsatisfying ending, this is still reccomended viewing as the film is mostly fantastic. Two stories, one about a kidnapping gone wrong, the other about a nutty farmer sacrificing women to the creature in his cellar, collide and things get bloody. Tense, well directed and written this is worth a look. HIM INDOORS: A very funny short with Reece shearsmith as an agoraphobic serial killer and Pollyanna Mcintosh as his neighbour. (pollyanna was there for a q+a) if you get the chance seek this out. STITCHES: BEST AUDIENCE REACTION OF THE FESTIVAL! Ross Noble plays a seedy clown who comes back from the dead for revenge! Very funny and some great gore effects this film was a total blast. Even better Ross Noble himself was there for a Q+A and was on top form! |
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Fantastic stuff Keirarts, thanks.... In terms of tone and mood, does the film play better ? |
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