What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[bleakshaun]

Originally Posted by Dave Boy

Attachment 193370
DEVIL BAT'S DAUGHTER (PRC 1946)

The daughter of Dr Paul Carruthers has dreams and hallucinations about giant bats. When found at the scene of a death and no memory of how she got there, she believes she has inherited the madness of her father..the Devil Bat!

Sequel to the PRC release THE DEVIL BAT (1940) starring Bela Lugosi.
Some hazy dream scenes from the original film are the only horror on show here. It's really quite slow moving and you know from the start that she is being played, rather like SHE WOLF OF LONDON. The final scenes in which the papers of Paul Carruthers are found and that Paul is innocent of the murders in the original film make no sense at all.

Didn't even know there was a sequel

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by bleakshaun

Didn't even know there was a sequel

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Me neither. Don't think i'll be bothering with it either.

[Dave Boy]

I don't blame you.

[Rik]

Just finished watching Hammer's Curse of the Werewolf on the Horror Channel, first time in about 4 years so I thought I'd share the review I did the last time in the Members Review Thread

Originally Posted by Rik

THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961) Directed by Terence Fisher



The Curse of the Werewolf was Hammer Horror’s only film to include the mythical Lycanthrope, first seen in Universal Pictures’ Werewolf of London in 1935. The film is based on the Werewolf of Paris, a novel from American author Guy Endore in 1933, instead switching the story from 19th century France to 19th century Spain.



Adapted for the screen by Anthony Hinds (The Brides of Dracula, The Evil of Frankenstein), credited here as John Elder, and directed by Hammer favourite Terence Fisher (Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein), the film stars Oliver Reed in his first starring role as Leon Corledo, the bastard son of a jailed beggar (Richard Wordsworth) and the mute daughter of the jailer (Yvonne Romain).



Born on Christmas Day which is considered a curse (look what happened to the most famous guy born that day!), and raised by the man who took his mother in, with his housekeeper, Leon soon grows up into a young man with a taste for blood and a habit of transforming into a wolf, causing chaos in the local town.



The film does take a while to get going, the first glimpse of the titular werewolf doesn’t occur until the hour mark and the films only transformation scene (with makeup man Roy Ashton basing his creation on Jack Pierce’s makeup from Universal’s The Wolfman starring Lon Chaney Jr) appearing around ten minutes before the climax. So for this reason the film sometimes gets negative reviews, and is probably why a series of werewolf films didn’t appear from Hammer, as they did with the 3 other Universal Monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Mummy.



Last night’s viewing, via the DVD from Final Cut Entertainment, rented from Lovefilm, was the first time in probably 20 years that I had seen it and I enjoyed it just as much as I did when I was a fledgling Horror fan in my early teens. I thought some of the performances were great, especially Richard Wordsworth as the beggar, Oliver Reed as Leon (who incidently ends up working in the local vineyard, a precursor to Reeds later battle with alcoholism maybe) and minor roles for Hammer’s favourite pub landlord-Michael Ripper, this time playing a drunken customer instead, a moustached Peter Sallis of Last of the Summer Wine, Wallace & Gromit and Taste the Blood of Dracula fame, as a town official and a young looking Warren Mitchell AKA Alf Garnett as the night watchman who is hired to dispose of the goat-throat-ripping wolf during the films first half hour.



For those interested in buying this DVD then I recommend it, even though it is quite pricey these days, as the picture looked excellent and probably as good as we’re likely to see until a HD upgrade arrives, there were no extras on the disc, however the steelbook edition is a 2 discer, so the extras will most likely be on the second disk.



Not as enjoyable as some of the other werewolf films, such as The Wolfman or more recent efforts like An American Werewolf in London or The Howling (recent? They’re 30 years old!), but still an enjoyable film for fans of Hammer and certainly one I would snap up in an instant if we ever get a Blu Ray release

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Rik

Just finished watching Hammer's Curse of the Werewolf on the Horror Channel, first time in about 4 years so I thought I'd share the review I did the last time in the Members Review Thread

The Cult Labs Members' Review Club

Love the way the review is broken up Rik.

Is that to indicate the dozens of ad breaks on The Horror Channel?

[Rik]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Love the way the review is broken up Rik.



Is that to indicate the dozens of ad breaks on The Horror Channel?

Ha ha, it must be how I set it out on the other thread, I just copied and pasted it here.
TBH there wasn't that many ad breaks and for once, the picture quality was half decent!
I ended up turning the Wrong Turn off the other night and putting the DVD in instead because the picture was ****ing awful looking

[MrBarlow]

The Red Monks 1988

A woman marries a young man and moves in into his family mansion unaware of the past with a secret religious order of satanic monks.

This is a medicore horror produced by Lucia Fulci, although the film was made in 1988 it has a touch of a late 60s early 70s feel to it. The plot sometimes looses sense then claims it back. But does have some good things going for it. 6.5 out of 10.

[keirarts]

Anthropohagus, the beast.

Starting with a young couple getting butchered on the beach of a Greek Island, the film then moves to a group of tourists exploring the Greek islands by boat. They run into Tisa Farrow who asks for a lift and true to form, when you go somewhere with Tisa Farrow in a boat bad things happen.
The film takes its time to get back to the nastiness. A large chunk of the film is the group wandering the seemingly deserted island, finding the one lone survivor and attempting to recover their sailboat which drifted off when they went ashore. Eventually the beast shows up. It's George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori) in crusty faced makeup. His character has gone full cannibal after being stranded on a lifeboat and eating his wife and kid to survive. Once the blood starts flowing its fairly grim, though the scene of a fetus being removed and eaten looks very much like a rabbit smothered in ketchup.
The large gap in the middle of the film, where very little happens can probably be attributed to director Joe D'amato's ( Aristide Massaccesi) cheapness. He was somewhat notorious for scrimping to keep the budgets as low as possible. To his credit though it sort of works. I know a few people who might disagree but the film has a great atmosphere and while it may lack gore it makes up for this by generating a haunted atmosphere and a sense of impending doom. Its ultimately a very slight film in many ways but its one of those films that seems to improve with each viewing. The new 88 release is spiffy and looks great however it seems that the DNR applied to the previous release was masking some noticable print damage in places.

[keirarts]

Future shock: the story of 2000AD

Superb documentary. It's fairly comprehensive including dealing with the Ropy issues they put out in the 90's that caused me to drift over to Vertigo titles along with a lot of their best talent. That said I have a deep fondness for 2000AD as I pretty much grew up reading it.

[keirarts]

Miracle mile.

Harry Washello (Anthony Edwards) has finally met the girl of his dreams. Julie Peters (Mare Winningham) is a waitress, she seems to like Harry as well so the pair agree to meet for a date. Harry's alarm fails to go off and he wakes at some ungodly hour of the night and in a panic he drives to the restaurant. Julie isn't there so Harry orders some food, while waiting he goes out for a smoke and to try and ring Julie on the payphone. The payphone begins ringing and Harry answers thinking Julie is calling back. Its not Julie but someone with a wrong number. The caller is based in a missile silo and is trying to reach his dad to warn him that America is locked in to nuclear war. They are firing all their missiles and can expect full retaliation within the hour. Realising its not a joke he decides to try and get his new Girlfriend to safety as the city begins to descend into chaos.
Miracle mile is one of those long neglected gems that passed me by initially. It's a shame as its an incredible film. Perhaps one that should be shown to the red faced yorkshire men on question time who berated Jeremy Corbyn for his refusal to fire first with Britains nuclear arsenal, its a film that really sells the absolute insanity of firing these weapons. Its a surprisingly dark and tragic film that left me reeling at the end. The pacing feels real-time and the sense of urgency is palpable. I highly recommend picking this up.