Correct only the previous standard release was cut.

Just seen Silent Night. This is a loose remake of Silent Night Bloody Night.
It is quite stylised and love the look of the movie, use of colour is impressive. Almost Argento like.
It has a few nice kills and is gory compared to recent horror. Story wise Im not so sure I liked it, i love the original and would have preferred it to be left like that instead of having the explanation right at the end. I enjoyed it for a slick slasher flick but might need another viewing to see how the story sits with me.

Panic Beats
Eyes of Fire
The Loreley's Grasp

The Loreley's Grasp is probably my favourite Spanish film.

The Keep (1983) Although the premise is a good one and the creature and effects passable for 1983, the film is somewhat ruined by the musical score and the disjointed story! Left to many questions unanswered.

In Time (2012) Bonnie & Clyde with a dose of Robin Hood!

Strip Nude For Your Killer (1975) 70's slasher movie with nudity.....Whats not to enjoy! :nod:

Dracula (1979) In my opinion one of the best Dracula interpretations, the psychedelic scene between Dracula and Lucy and Mina coming at Harker are outstanding and certainly better than Coppolas attempt!

Hi guys, watched two blu's this weekend:
Demoni - not really for me. Had a few nice scenes, the plot was cool and the gore effects were good but I kept getting pulled out of the film by the below average performances, and don't mention the silly motorcycle scene. Still, will be watching part 2 soon;)

House of the Devil - really enjoyed this one. Watched The Innkeepers recently, and was keen to see this earlier Ti West effort asap. I have VHS in my Zaavi cart, waiting for me to pull the trigger.

Off to see Skyfall tonight.

Another pictorial record of what I've seen from last Monday-Sunday:

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What's The Task like Nos? I always see the bluray in That's Entertainment in their 2 For £5 offer but never bother with it. Is it worth it?

It's okay, and certainly worth picking up for that price as that's how I bought my copy! It has an interesting concept, with a reality TV show in which the environment can be manipulated in the same way as in The Cabin in the Woods. However, you don't know whether events begin to spiral out of control or whether it's part of a master plan. The performances aren't anything to write home about, but it's something you'll watch and then, once you know how it pans out, watch it again – easily worth £2.50!

The Woods: 1960's horror about a girl who is sent to an isolated boarding house where strange things happen connected to an ominous secret in the school's surrounding woods. Lucky McKee's second feature clearly takes an inspiration from Suspiria with little nods to The Evil Dead which extend beyond a small performance by Bruce Campbell. It starts off really interesting but loses it's way halfway through where plot points and turns seem underdeveloped and the whole ending seems a bit confusing and rushed. It's like the last half of the film was supervised and edited by a completely different person which is a real shame. It's still an enjoyable watch but frustrating as it could have been so much better.


I'm about to sort out some horror Christmas viewing for me and my girlfriend - The 12 Slays of Christmas I'm nerdily referring to it. There's all 5 Silent night, Deadly Night films, the remake, Christmas Evil, Black Christmas (and maybe the remake too...urgh) a couple of shoddy-looking DV horrors. Can anyone think of anything else to add? The slasherier (?!) the better

Caught John Carpenter's The Thing on ITV4 last night, even though it's only a couple of weeks since I watched it on BD, I still couldn't resist watching it again, same thing usually happens everytime Shawshank or the first two Die Hard films are on TV.
While anticipating the delivery of my 2 ZFE BD's I decided to watch another favourite Italian zombie film of mine-Nights of Terror. Only my second time watching it in HD and still think it looks great, as for the film itself what's not to like, we have bad acting, bad dubbing, crazy dialogue and Peter Bark! Love it :)

Recent viewings:1)Silent French film,simple story,beautiful scenes!2)3)4)Repast,Sound Of The Mountain,Flowing,three movies by Mikio Naruse about life of everyday people in post war Japan,focusing more on the female character,5)6)Lady From Shanghai was a rewatch but Touch Of Evil was something new for me,wow!! every shot from this movie was perfect!7)indie movie ,it's a
90-minute interview with a black hustler who ''spills his guts'' 8)this looks perfect in Hi-def,9)Workprint version,a bit different music and narration,10)11)12)just a revisit to this great Korean trilogy,13)not great,the message is there though!14)Russian film about a junkie in a mental institution,with many wtf scenes ,I don't know what was real or not! 15)nothing new here, it gives some answers ok but creates a lot more questions ,they should have let some scenes they deleted ,16)very good movie but not a James Bond film,maybe a spin off, Jarvier Bardem was excellent
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Nos what did you make of Dean Spanley?

I loved it, a quircky, little gem of a film with fine performances.

I had no idea what to expect as I recorded it when it was on Sky Premiere a year or two ago (there was a trailer for the 'upcoming new series' of 24 before the film!), so watched it with a completely open mind.

Quirky is definitely the right word to describe it as the film is about getting a priest drunk so you can listen to him talk about his past life as a dog whilst Peter O'Toole is avoiding coming to terms with his son's death in the Boer War.

The performances are all really good and it's funny, touching and moving – I really enjoyed it so I'm really glad I recorded it when I did.

Where's that Sorcerer from Nos??? Is it the old 4:3 one?? (shudders)

I have just watched Fulci's "Manhattan Baby", and all I can do is quote from the back of the DVD box:

Exactly. What have I just watched?

Also, what is the music that was used? It sounded very familiar. My fiancee said that she thought it was from 'Suspiria', but I laughed at her, and said that I thought it came from 'The Beyond'

The Task is worth watching, and if you enjoy it it's worth seeking out a film called GHOST GAME, Ghost Game [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Sarawut Wichiensarn: Film & TV I'm not sure if the task is meant to be a remake or not but it borrows A LOT from this film.

I caught this last week, unbelievably good film... I wondered what the hell I was doing there for the first hour, but somehow couldn't take my eyes off the screen by the end. challenging to say the least!

December 2nd.

Offspring (2009)

Yet another take on the legend of Sawney Bean. The offspring of a clan of cave dwelling mutants attack coastal homes to satisfy thier hunger. This Jack Ketchum penned film was potentially a good watch knowing what his stories are like. Unfortunately it wasn't to be. Having children as the killers could have been interesting however the usual modern horror drawbacks soon took hold. The film was mainly shot in pitch black with only the reds and oranges of a flickering fire as lighting and any gore was offscreen or too fast or dark to make out. Even at 76 minutes including end credits this film felt overlong.

Due Date (2010)

The prescence of Robert Downey Jr had me hoping for a fun film despite its negative reviews on release. Critics know nothing i always think when they hammer a film i enjoyed. Alas, sometimes said critics are spot on.

After a potentially amusing set up during the first twenty minutes i was ready to enjoy this, however the story became more and more ridiculous and although Downey Jr was thankfully at least watchable his co-star Zack Galifianakis was painful to the eyes. Unfunny and lacking any sort of charisma. He was excruciating to watch. I don't really think the film would have worked with another actor either though, a comedy relies on its script and in this case after twenty minutes there wasn't a single scene or gag to make me even smile never mind laugh. Even the dog was unfunny.

Avoid at all costs.

I completely agree with you about Due Date. I recorded it when it was on Sky Movies and thought it was terrible, overstaying its welcome after 30 to 40 minutes.

I really liked 'Due Date'. Then again, I think I've liked every comedy film reviewed on here that everyone else disliked.

As has been said before, it would be very boring if we all felt exactly the same about every film.

I thought this was excellent. Though admittedly The Woman is one of those rare sequels better than the first.

Oddly enough, I watched The Woods the other night and spent the first half hour thinking "oh this is the one with the feral people in that's a prequel to The Woman".

I really liked The Woods but the Channel 5 broadcast seemed...odd. Like it was zoomed in slightly? I don't know if I was imagining it or not...either way I should buy it and replace the recording.

I didn't know The Woman was a sequel. I have it but never watched it as of yet. I did think Pollyanna Mcintosh in Offspring looked like she does on the cover of The Woman though. :lol:

Inbred - 2011 UK d: Alex Chandon

There is a decent horror film here underneath the shite. Unfortunately for everyone involved that horror film is Eden Lake which all ready exists and resides in a league Chandon et al can only dream of attaining.

There is some excellent acting by the "non locals" and some moments of genuine stress and tension. But this all comes to nought as a barrage of infantile, unfunny comedy blooms and undermines any promise the film may have.

It also falls into the "Tarantino Trap" of being so heavily and obviously derivative of things it comes across as the dreary wet dream of an unimaginative fanboy dickhead. OK, sure there can be some fun to be had at going "Oooh, The Wicker Man! Ohhh Deliverance! Oooh The League Of Gentlemen!" etc but when you realise you have been doing this for every scene for a solid 40 minutes the paucity of imagination and ideas comes crashing to the fore. The whole "dirty, bad teeth, scruffy clothes" cliché is massively irritating too. You end up begging that something different will happen.But it sticks strictly to its tired formula.

Impossible to recommend, even for the few good aspects early on. Watch Eden Lake or Straw Dogs instead.

EDEN LAKE is a superb film, really unsettling.

I thought INBRED was one of those films that tries desperately to be hip but comes across as a bit reaching instead, I did think it was okay though.

EDEN LAKE is excellent.

Watched the new Spider-Man I quite enjoyed this thought it was pretty decent,
Tbh I'm surprised they haven't turned it into a tv series ....not cartoon animated,
Like smallvile is for superman, never actually watched smallvile really,

Hell Night, 1981 Linda Blair, Slasher:
At the stroke of midnight a crowd of rowdy college students dressed in an assortment of costumes, gather around the gates of the ominous, Garth Manor. They listen intently as the president of sorority, Alpha Sigma Rho, Peter Bennett (Kevin Brophy), recounts the sordid history of the cursed house, a twisted tale of murder and suicide.

Twelve years prior to this night, the lord of the house, Raymond Garth savagely strangled his wife Lillian, along with murdering their three children, who were psychically afflicted with an assortment of terrible deformities. With his rampage complete, Raymond hung himself in a last act of violence, however the story doesn't end there. When the police arrived they found that one of the children was missing, the youngest of the three, Andrew. Who as the story goes, witnessed the savagery of his father’s heinous acts. Filled with terrible anger, he is now said to roam the grounds waiting for any that trespass in his domain, waiting for his next victim. Now four pledges, Marti, Jeff, Seth, and Denise, must survive a night in this god forsaken place, as part their fraternity hazing. Is the legend true? and can they survive till dawn?

So begins the 1981 slasher, ‘Hell Night’ a competent little throwback to the spook house days of William Castle, and the monster filled features of the ‘50s and '60s. While the movie does contain the required lashing of head twisting/ripping carnage, and some mild 'T & A', it could easily have been released in this B movie heyday. Starring cult ‘80s favourite Linda Blair - who seems oddly bored throughout - as 'Final Girl' Marti and future ‘Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter' star Peter Barton as Jeff. The real star however, is the wonderfully Gothic mansion where most of the film takes place. Bathed in the eerie glow of hundreds of dripping candles, the house is filled with a classic assortment of booby traps, secret passages and hidden doors.
While nowhere near as accomplished as its champions proclaim, ‘Hell Night’ is still a charming and stylish slasher. Thanks mostly to its inventive setting, a couple of committed performance and the ink black cinematography throughout, which help set it apart from the numerous ‘Friday the 13th’ rip-offs of the time. There are also a number of welcome playful nods to past slashers, such as the characters wearing fancy dress - 'Terror Train' (19800 - and the moment the killer emerges from the floor draped in a rug - the sheet over Micheal Myers scene from 'Halloween' (1978).

Admittedly the pace does start out quite slow, thankfully things pick up considerably in the second half, particularly the effective gate scaling sequence, which offers a genuine moment of tension. Another standout is the stealing of a shotgun from a police station by Seth (Vincent V Patten). Who then spends the last half of the movie pretty much running his ass off the entire time, before getting into a fight with a big, deformed killer. Nice.

There may be some who will be anaesthetised by the whole affair, most slice n'dice fans should find plenty to enjoy. If your tastes lean more towards gore, maybe give this miss, everyone else should find an entertaining, if modest little slasher gem.

Watched Scanners earlier, a film I had not seen in years. I always considered this a minor Cronenberg work and while I enjoyed revisting the film, for me this must remain a lesser film in the director's cannon. I think Cronenberg was making a strategic move towards the mainstream with Scanners - there's less of the rawness of the earlier films, and it all feels less personal than The Brood and Videodrome. Cronenberg was obviously playing with a bigger budget and the film has some big production set pieces - a van crashing into a record store, and some explosive pyrotechnics, but they feel strangely out of place. Having said all that, the film remains an enjoyable if occasionally ludicrous thriller, it moves at a fair lick with some muscular action and the scanner grudge match at the climax is well done...

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Second film of the day: The Public Enemy or the film in which James Cagney shoves a grapefruit in Joan Blondell's face... This is one of the great Warner gangster films, perhaps the archetypal Warner gangster film with Cagney playing one of Cinema's earliest psychopaths, a tough punk who grows up fast on the mean streets of Chicago to become a major racketeer during the Prohibition era. Made in 1931, just slipping out before the studios became ringfenced by the Production Code, The Public Enemy still impresses with its violence, and Cagney puts the booth in with considerable relish. Directed with style and a palpable sense of realism by William Wellman, the finale in which Cagney performs a hit on a rival boss during a driving rainstorm has rarely been bettered. Highly recommended.

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Allegedly...this was unscripted, and Blondell had no idea what was going to happen until Cagney slapped her with the fruit!

There could be some truth to story Suzi, she looks genuinely shocked and the scene remains memorable for being so mean...

Finally watched my Blu-ray of The Night Porter which I think is a remarkable piece of film making.

This together with Visions of ecstasy arrived in the post together a couple of months ago. Unfortunately due to the value of the package the local customs office decided they wanted to inspect the contents of the package. Cue a couple of minutes of me squirming whilst the German customs officer inspected the sleeves of the Blu-Rays, one featuring naked concentration camp victims being abused by Dirk Bogarde dressed as an SS officer the other nearly naked lesbian nuns. In the end he just gave me a strange look and sent me on my way.

James Cagney is fantastic he can be so intimidating in his gangster rolls an amazing actor.

DARK KNIGHT RISES.

Not a lot more to add to this, a fine send off for nolans take on the bat. With DC keen to rake in the sort of dough marvel have with the avengers expect to see another bat 'reboot' in the not too distant future. Will it be as iconic as the DARK KNIGHT? who knows, perhaps it will be a little more faithful to the source material but as a stand alone trilogy its hard to beat nolans version. (though curiously I often found myself more interested in the films he was making between batman movies)


OUTRAGE.

I've been yearning to see Takeshi kitano return to the yakuza terretory he covered in classics like sonatine, boiling point and brother and here he certainly dosent dissapoint. A senior Yakuza whose been seen moonlighting with a rival family seeks to avoid any suspicion by orchastrating an incident with the rival family he can be seen to respond to and show his loyalty, unfortunately it spins out of control and things get bloody. The film is full of kitano's trademark mixture of sudden brutal violence mixed with jet black comedy that made me enjoy his other yakuza films so much. Going by the plot, it feels like he has returned to the crime film to make a statement about modern japan, as honour is left by the wayside as greed, ambition and deceit take centre stage as characters manipulate and double cross each other with bloody results all to gain personal advantage and the code of family seems hollow and meaningless.

If you like kitano's work like I do (and I even think merry christmas mr lawrence is underrated) both as an actor and director then this is highly reccomended. If your not so keen on his style of filmmaking I doubt it will change your mind very much.

Room 237:
'Room 237' tries to unravel the myriad of mysteries, embedded by genius filmmaker Stanley Kubrick within his masterful horror classic 'The Shinning'.

Made using various clips from Kubrick’s cinematic endeavors and an assortment of other filmic sources, as diverse as lamberto bava's flesh munching 'Demons', and mainstream Hollywood fare like 'Schindler's List'. Hobbling these clips together director Rodney Ascher assembles a patchwork of images to plead his speculative case that is dived into 9 parts. In these sections a whole host of wild and woolly concepts smash, mixing fact and fiction in an explosion of speculations, rants and sheer paranoia, in this wondrous deluge of rambling debate.

In his unorthodox approach Ascher allows a number of individuals to theorise their ideas, from 'The Shinning’ being a thinly veiled damnation about the holocaust horrors of World War 2, to the mass genocide of Native Americans. In the most thought provoking argument, one narrator suggests 'The Shinning' is in fact just one long cathartic confessional by Kubrick, about his involvement with the US government in faking the 1969 Apollo moon landing. Laid out nice and thick, this head spinning tale is accompanied by a number of spine tingling facts.

If you look at the scene where Danny is playing with his toys around the oddly patterned carpet you can see a hexagonal shape. The same shape as the launch pad area of Apollo 11. The scene continues with Danny rising from his game, to reveal emblazoned across his jumper a rocket with the lettering Apollo 11. Next Danny makes his way to room 237, which according to text books of that period was thought to be the exact distance from the Earth to the Moon, 237,000 miles. Is this a hidden visual confession by Kubrick? or is it merely a series of strange coincidences?

Like few other directors Kubrick and his films attracts fevered amounts of speculation from fans. While you may have others who draw similar wild theories, like the mind bending cinema of David lynch, there’s just something about Kubrick's method. His sense of pre-planned sneakiness, of adding layers and meaning into frames and sequences that appear to have none. While Lynch floods your brain with backwards speaking dwarfs and cryptic blue boxes, Kubrick just gives you an image, sometime static, like there’s no mystery, no intent. It's only when you stare at it long enough does the true meaning shine forth. The equivalent of a cinematic magic eye.

While I was taken aback by the unconventional narrative storytelling presented in this doc, its ideas are so rich, so wonderfully expansive that whatever short comings it may have are easily forgiven. It now stands as an essential partner both for furthering the very movie it exams and cinematic analysis as a whole. For once you delve into the delicious delights of 'Room 237', you will never watch be able to watch 'The Shinning' as you have before. Instead your head will now swim with objects transforming into phallic appendages, Nazi type writers, Minotaur’s and moon landings. 'Room 237' gloriously twists your perceptions, making it a must see for movie and Kubrick fans alike.

Cradle Of Fear - 2001 UK d: Alex Chandon

Piss-poor amateur home movie anthology flick that tries far beyond its capabilities; notable only for the presence of Emily Booth in the first story and the genuinely inspired fourth tale (which is nonetheless utterly predictable even whilst weaving a effectively sickly skin-crawling atmosphere).

The lighting and production design is half-arsed throughout and the dialogue perfunctory. The acting is almost uniformly atrocious but special slaps on the wrist must go to the laughably inept Dani Filth, David McEwen (who makes Brian Blessed look subtle and restrained) and Edmund Dehn who delivers all his lines in such a stilted and stumbling way that you can tell how angry he is with himself for appearing in such rubbish. The film runs for two whole hours for no good reason: sequences go on and on which could have been reduced quite happily (people walking streets or driving etc). A good 20 or 30 minutes could and should have been removed from this glacial running time.

The fourth story would have made a superb short film separate from the linking story and Dani Filth's stupid character. If anything this part alone makes the film worth enduring.

A special word about the sound design. There is not a nano second of silence in this film. There is constant music, sound effects, whispered voices, often at the same time and often when there is dialogue. I cannot remember a worse audio track to a film. The mid frequencies are a muddy mess of sound information, and it becomes wearying on the ears very soon into the film. Oh, and the music is rubbish throughout, not just Cradle Of Filth's dire juvenile contributions, but all the cod drum & bass incidental music and swirly cheap-sounding Casioesque synth sweeps.