What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[keirarts]

Lodgers

Rachel and Edward play twins who live in seclusion in a crumbling old mansion. They believe they are under a family curse that means they must be in their rooms before midnight and must not allow any strangers into the house. Any breach of these rules will release a sinister presence in the house. As one would expect, the twins life is interrupted by various problems that threaten to bring things to a head.
From the director of Let us prey, this one is very different from that film. Its very much a period Gothic, with crumbling old mansions, incest, ghosts and a slow burning plot that focuses on character development and mood rather than cheap shocks. If you have patience its worth your time. Well acted and shot.

[keirarts]

Another wolfcop

Lou Garoux returns as the alcoholic werewolf. He's become something of a local legend and things seem to be going smoothly until an invasion of changelings linked to a local brewery producing chicken milk stout.
Its more of the same. If you liked Wolfcop you should find this one entertaining. However it's not revolutionising the concept or trying anything too new. But then again, this isn't really that sort of franchise.

Dead shack

A 14 year old boy, his best friend and his friends family head out to a cabin in the woods for some heavy drinking. While there they run into the local crazy woman (Lauren Holly) and her family of Zombies who feed of hapless idiots she lures back to her cabin. When the kids witness her feeding the family with two drunken idots they get spotted and the crazy woman goes hunting. The kids must turn the tables on her to survive.
This one's tons of fun. Its got a very witty script and genuinely made me laugh. The gore effects are mostly great and its a well paced and structured film that refuses to become boring. Its also great to see Holly in one of the best roles she's been given in recent years. Definitely check this one out.

[Cinematic Shocks]

Death Wish (1974)

**** out of *****

Death Wish II (1982)

Unrated version.

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

Death Wish 3 (1985)

*** out of *****

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)

*** out of *****

Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)

*** out of *****

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by trebor8273

did you mean nightmare at noon and me? if yes i loved it, bonkers and over the top, Brion James who is some cut price bond villain/albino who poisons the water supply of a small town turning the townsfolk into crazed manics who turn green and bleed green. its up to George Kennedy as the sheriff and a few others to figure out what is going on these are his daughter(who he brings to the slaughter) a married couple that a travelling (Wings Hauser and Kimberly Beck Friday the 13th the final chapter) and a mysterious stranger they give a lift too(Bo Hopkins) as i said bonkers but highly enjoyable and runs along at a fast pace, the story is just a excuse to get us from one action scene to the next 7/10

next viewing which will probably be tomorrow now.

APOLOGIES. Yes, ahem. A cast to DIE for and the absolute disregard for convention, what's not to like??? . Glad you dug it TREBOR

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by keirarts

Another wolfcop

Lou Garoux returns as the alcoholic werewolf. He's become something of a local legend and things seem to be going smoothly until an invasion of changelings linked to a local brewery producing chicken milk stout.
Its more of the same. If you liked Wolfcop you should find this one entertaining. However it's not revolutionising the concept or trying anything too new. But then again, this isn't really that sort of franchise.

Dead shack

A 14 year old boy, his best friend and his friends family head out to a cabin in the woods for some heavy drinking. While there they run into the local crazy woman (Lauren Holly) and her family of Zombies who feed of hapless idiots she lures back to her cabin. When the kids witness her feeding the family with two drunken idots they get spotted and the crazy woman goes hunting. The kids must turn the tables on her to survive.
This one's tons of fun. Its got a very witty script and genuinely made me laugh. The gore effects are mostly great and its a well paced and structured film that refuses to become boring. Its also great to see Holly in one of the best roles she's been given in recent years. Definitely check this one out.

Yes, I rather approved of Wolfcop . Noted etc etc

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)

Probably Herschell Gordon Lewis' most successful and mainstream film... however it's still not very good.

Whilst the gory deaths are impressive, the rest of the film less so. Especially the many scenes which require the 'maniacs' to act, most come across terribly amateurish. Jeffrey Allen, who plays the mayor buffoons across the screen like some sort of hysterical idiot.

For the most part the film is just about watchable, however it has a great denouement which might surprise first time viewers.

I must credit Lewis for coming up with the terrific song - Robert E. Lee Broke His Musket On His Knee - and it's insanely catchy chorus 'The South's gonna rise again'. It's so good i always thought it was an actual traditional song of the south.

[MrBarlow]

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage 1970.

An american staying in Rome witnesses an attack, becomes the attackers attention of being stalked.

This is a decent murder-mystery style movie from Argento, mixed with blood and violence, with his previous movies like Tenebre, The Card Player, Deep Red, there is a twist to his movies as to who the killer is and the reason.

The film starts off fairly good, then the start of cat and mouse suspense builds up and never gets dull with games. Ennio Morricone provides the soundtrack thats haunting and fearful as the movie goes on.

Tony Musante (actor i havent heard of) portrays Sam in this movie, his acting may seem to be a bit wooden at times but dont let that put you off the classic Argento movie. 8 out of 10.

[trebor8273]

never seen or heard of this one before, glad i decided to give it a watch as its an excellent little chiller about a man wrongly convicted with the death of his mother, after being released from a mental institute he goes about killing those responsible for his mothers death and being sent to the asylum with the help of an amulet that lets him kill people psychically. a detective suspects whats going on but how can he prove it and stop someone who has the perfect alibi? an university professor who deals in psychic pheromone is brought in to help, decently acted and directed and moves along at a nice brisk pace and never found myself to be bored.

another nice transfer from vinegar syndrome (watched on prime video). 8/10

next up, another which not seen.

[keirarts]

A friend of mine has only seen the dollars trilogy and Django so I decided to double bill a couple of westerns I thought he should see.

Death rides a horse

I'll be honest, I sort of wanted to show him Django kill!. However I hadn't seen the blu-ray for this so My motivation for starting with this was a little selfish.
Not that this is a bad film. Far from it. It starts with the rape/murder of a family by a gang of bandits. The crime is witnessed by the son, Bill who is hidden from the bandits by his sister. He memorises key details of the bandits. Some years later he grows up into John Phillip Law and from the introductory scene we discover he's been spending the years in-between practising with his guns. We then cut to Ryan, played by Lee Van Cleef who is being released from a fifteen year prison stretch. He's got a grudge against the same gang who perpetrated the killing of Bills family and sets off to get revenge. Trailed by two gang members, he heads into the town where Bill lives and ambushes the hoods in his hotel room. The Sheriff rules it as a clean killing but recognises the dead men's spurs. He takes them to Bill who matches them to a single spur found at the scene of his families murder. Bill confronts Ryan who confirms he's after the same men but tells Bill in no uncertain terms he wants first crack at the gang. Bill is obviously not happy with this and follows Ryan out of town. Ryan ambushes him and takes his horse to slow him down before heading to the next town to confront the first of the gang members. What follows is Ryan and Bill trying to one up each other before teaming up to bring down the gang.
Death rides a horse is a beautifully shot western that uses the Spanish scenery to its best effect. The framing of shots and editing are excellent and it looks far more expensive than it probably was. Morricone's score, pinched by Quentin Tarantino for Kill bill volume 1 will stick in your head for days after. It's got some of the cynicism and politics that would separate the Italian western from its American progenitor.


The great silence

If your showing someone great examples of the Italian western then you HAVE to show this one. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Silence, a mute gunslinger who never draws first but always shoots first. He has a habit of shooting off his enemies thumbs so they can never brandish a gun again. At the beginning of the film we see him kill a gang of bounty killers to protect a gang of bandits living in the hills. The gang are all men driven to crime or simply unjustly had bounties put on their heads by the crooked justice of the peace Henry Pollicut played by Luigi Pistilli, a recognisable face in the Italian western, he also appeared in death rides a horse the year before. Silence heads to town and meets the Sheriff played by Frank Wolff and Tigrero played by Klaus Kinski, one of the most ruthless bounty killers in the area who is heading to town to collect a bounty. Silence is offered $1000 by the widow of one of Tigrero's victims to kill the bounty killer. Silence attempts to provoke Tigrero but the bounty killer is too smart and refuses to draw on him. He knows that if Silence draws first it becomes murder so instead he responds with a fist fight which he ultimately loses. The Sheriff doesn't like Tigrero either and is deeply suspicious of his methods. He arrests the bounty killer and escorts him to prison, however Tigrero is Wiley and escapes killing the sherriff. He heads to his gangs hideout and gets them to join him in heading back into town to kill the bandits who are heading to town for supplies.
It's weird to think The great silence was made a year after Death rides a horse (or was it? some places claim the film was made 68, but IMDB and other sources say 69). Its such a radically different style of film. While Death is more brutal, cynical and political than the traditional American western, its structure is fairly similare. Black hats, white hats, the good guys ultimately win and evil is punished. Silence is far more bleak and depressing. The villain is smarter and more controlled than the hero. He's actively prepared to cheat and for the most part he's within the law with everything he does. The good guys are righteous but ultimately its meaningless in the face of corrupt authority and a society that is prepared to tolerate acts of evil in the name of justice. The good die for their beliefs, the bad end up rich. Its a film that somehow manages to be bleaker, darker and more nihilistic than Corbucci's breakout film Django.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Tourist Trap (1979)

Veteran actor Chuck Connors stars in this horror that focuses on a group of young people who become stranded in the desert when their jeep breaks down. Unluckily for them it's near to a run down town, home to a museum full of creepy mannequins, run by Connors.

Tension is a rare commodity, although there is one truly grim scene where a girl is strapped to a table, her face slowly covered with plaster of Paris until she stops breathing or her 'heart explodes'. Whilst Connors is okay and the lovely Tanya Roberts adds glamour, it soon becomes apparent that the dummies give the best performances.

Despite all that, Tourist Trap is still a very watchable film and a lot of fun. The 2005 House of Wax remake is basically a big budget reworking of Tourist Trap.