What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

Day Of The Dead: Bloodline (2017)
It must be the curse of films with this sub title ... liked the opening, but dearie me this is just witless.
!

I absolutely detested this film.

[Cinematic Shocks]

Originally Posted by keirarts

I absolutely detested this film.

Worse than the Steve Miner remake?

[keirarts]

Violence in a woman's prison.

Takeaway and movie night once more and my mate fancied something 'trashy'. Since the kiddies were out at the cinema and the puppy seems uninterested in sleazy garbage I decided to bring round some Bruno Mattei flicks.
Started with this one as I'd picked it up on Vipco disc for 10p at a cash converters. Can't resist the insanity that is the women in prison genre and with Mattei at the helm how could it fail?
The synopsis is pretty much the standard formula. An investigative reporter goes under cover at a women's prison to expose corruption and brutality behind bars. Naturally its got the usual covered, lesbianism, brutal dyke wardens, vendettas, randy male inmates at a neighbouring prison, corrupt governor. It mixes it in with Mattei's love of rat attacks where one inmates legs are savaged with the prison doctor insisting the inmate gets taken to hospital. The warden insisting they are 'self inflicted'.
Apparently it was shot back to back with Emannuel in prison. We get the traditional Euro sleaze casting with Laura Gemser and Lorraine De Selle as the governor. Its all 'seen it all before' stuff and if your not a Mattei fan you might struggle but for me it was all good sleazy fun.

violence.jpg

[keirarts]

The other hell

Bruno Mattei doing his take on The Devil's? Count me in. Sadly its a little...well, dull. If your a hardcore Mattei fan there's stuff to like and even a few scenes that actually manage to be creepy. Sadly though there's not enough masturbating nuns or other such general nuttiness to push it into the delirious garbage category of film-making. Its still worth a go though.


Last Hunter

Moving from Mattei to Antonio Margheriti and a bit of namspolitation. Here we get the low budget, grindhouse take on Deer hunter. This might be an improvement for some as we don't get an hour or so of people at a wedding. Instead the film throws us straight into the mix with David Warbeck as a jaded veteran in Saigon sent on 'one last mission' so far so Apocalypse now, another clear inspiration on the film. This takes our protagonist deep in country to meet up with a team that includes Tony King and Demons star Bobby Rhodes. They are accompanies by a journalist played by Tisa Farrow (who gets her tits out) and go in search of a vietcong radio station broadcasting propaganda to American troops. On the way they encounter a group of half crazed American troops led by Joh Steiner. The base has a lovely bar that plays disco music before it took off and became a craze (Last year of vietnam was about 1975, Disco started taking off 75 but gained popularity up to the early 80's, when this film was shot).
As nuts as it all is, and as derivative of other bigger pictures as it is. Last hunter is all kinds of fun. Margheriti really knows how to shoot action scenes and there's absolutely loads of it crammed into the 99 minute run-time. We also get plenty of claret and some unintentional humour along the way but frankly its a film that's hard to fault.

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Cinematic Shocks

Worse than the Steve Miner remake?

For me yes.

The Steve Miner remake has bugger all to do with Romero's day of the dead. If you took the title off and added a different one you would have difficulty telling it was intended as a remake at all. Its a terrible film but easy enough to write off as yet another bog-standard zombie flick.

The new one however clearly tries to remake the Romero film. They even have 'bub' but roll all the other scientist characters into one. So instead of Howard Sherman's genuinely brilliant performance as a ghoul who is slowly remembering who he once was we get a rapist who can track people by scent. Its stupid, in comics when they tried to make books more 'edgy' the really bad writers would add rape plots because it was an easy way to make the material dark without actually having to focus on deeper storytelling. To me thats whats happened here. Some idiot must have decided to add the rape plot into the film to try and make it edgy and contemporary. But Its bad writing and it just makes the film distasteful and not in a good way.

So while with the Miner film I could shut off the part of my brain that was aware it was supposed to be Day of the dead and watch the film on its own terms. This new one just made me appreciate how intelligent and nuanced the Romero film was. It's garbage and its key mistake is being garbage thats actively trying to be a much better film.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

I didn't mind the Steve Miner film at first. As has been pointed out it's no relation whatsoever to the source film but i quite enjoyed it for a standard zombie film.

Then when i watched it again last year (third time) i absolutely hated it from about half way through.

[Cinematic Shocks]

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

***1/2 out of *****

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Cinematic Shocks

The first was mediocre, so I'm not surprised this is terrible. It's a shame because I think Ferrell and Marky Mark make for a great comic double act - The Other Guys is comedy gold.

I at least laughed during the first. True The Other Guys is a hoot (the night out montage ) but this? Crivvens as we say up north

[Demoncrat]

Hope & Glory (1987, John Boorman)
Cor blimey it's the bleedin' jerries!! Taking one family to represent the spirit of the times is sometimes a bit of a stretch (Where The Heart Is ... cough) but this is just right. I highly recommend Queen & Country ... the sequel of sorts.

[Demoncrat]

Undefeatable (Godfrey Hall, 1993)

Cynthia Rothrock is a troubled soul with a duty of care her driving force. Surmounting seemingly impossible odds, she triumphs over adversity on many fronts.
All whilst kicking folk about. Nasty taste with a repellent (and luckily hilarious) villain. Just as mad as the last one ....