Just watched Martyrs........not sure on this one. I couldn't stop watching it but all the time it left me feeling a little flat.:confused:

Not a film or horror for that matter but started watching hell on wheels and really enjoying it, what to others think of it?

Looks like an Avatar fight is on the horizon :lol:

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Jim Caviezel plays a recently paroled fraudster on the road with his wife and kids for a weekends camping in an attempt to repair the family unit, damaged by his crime and time in prison. Stopping at a truck stop for a break, a group of armed robbers hide their loot on his luggage rack in order to get through police roadblocks. It works, unfortunately as these things go however the plan soon falls apart and the rest of the film becomes a cat-and-mouse game between the family and the gang of robbers.
An after dark thriller, Transit is probably one of the better non-horror titles to come out from the label. Its a fairly gripping no nonsense crime thriller with planety of twists and turns and well established suspense. I thouroughly enjoyed this one!

I enjoyed this also. Quite brutal in places. James Frain made a cool villain, just ask Diora Baird.

Exactly, and it's proper visceral horror too. It packs a fair old punch.

The almost entirely empty seats are a shame, especially when it's such an impressively made piece of modern exploitation. The screenings are at unsociable times too, so it seems the chains were simply reluctant to take a chance with it.

Perhaps those couples figured it couldn't be that tough since Frodo is in it. :tongue1:

Watching Dracula now all I can say what a fantastic job has been done restoring this masterpiece :pop2:

It arrived today and you're watching it already?? This is what I'm watching...

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Doubt I'll get it in the player for days yet.

I'm dreadfully sorry. I've been watching this...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...leteSeries.jpg

Please, before you pass judgement let me explain...

Mine is a sad story, a tale of half remembered happiness viewed through a fog of mind altering substances, mainly Guinness. In the early '80s I used to watch this before going out to get hammered and I liked it, yes, damn it I admit to it!

I recently took a couple of students to see the children's author, Andrew Norriss, I had a good chat with him but I hadn't done my homework. If I had just Googled him I would have found that he was the genius who came up with Tom Chance and his girlfriend, Alison (played by newcomers at the time, Simon Callow and Brenda Blethyn). Tom is so plagued by coincidence that the local police have ordered that he is never to be arrested no matter how guilty he appears to be!

I found the whole collection on Amazon and bought it. It was very cheap for a collection of 18 episodes. Of course there are some pretty rough episodes but on the whole they stand the test of time and are still laugh-out-loud funny today. I don't mind heartily recommending them to you, in fact if you want to call round we can have a marathon viewing session. You can bring the Guinness... :nod:

I'm taking a short break in the watching of Die Nibelungen. I' ve had this to watch since Xmas but have put it off - the thought of a 5 hour German silent from 1924 can seemed a daunting prospect - more fool me, this is Fritz Lang after all, a genuine genius in a world of false idols, and this film is magnificent. As anyone who's seen the early Mabuse films knows Lang was the ultimate entertainer - crime, sci-fi, borderline horror (I always think of M as a horror for some reason), film noir and here, fantasy, he did it all. What unites all his movies is an eye for a killer image, whether it be faces, landscapes or architecture, virtually every shot is freezeframable. Pace too, I've never come across a director who can burn up time like Lang. If you were in doubt about picking this up rest assured you will be royally entertained and for me anyway, the lack of spoken dialogue in a fantasy epic is a blessed relief - images, music and subtitles - perfect!

A Lonely Place To Die (2011)

I'm not going to spoil this for anybody, storywise. I'll just say that i was completely gripped by this thriller. Superb cinematography from a director who puts his money where his mouth is (See the extras). The cast are uniformly excellent in a story in no way did i find predictable.

Its everything you would hope for from this type of film. Great action, ruthless killers, a twisty plot and above all nerve shredding outdoors terror.

Anyone who likes their outdoors horror films, if they haven't seen it should check this out imminently.

I was listening to one of the old Kermode film review podcasts today when this was reviewed and it sounds like something I'd enjoy. I'm on a mega budget at the minute though so I hope it turns up in Thats Entertainments 2 For £5 deals which have a high turnover of titles

Dario Argento's Dracula.

What a load of rubbish. Theres some good sets and locations but thats it, its a flatly made, dull, anemic piece of crap with little to reccomend aside from some nice tits on some of the female cast members, the performances are lifeless the score is dull and uninspired, absolutley no suspense or atmosphere and some of the worst computer generated effects I have seen. You'd be better served not even bothering to seek it out and watch subspecies instead, not even giallo was THIS bad. :mmph:

I haven't watched this yet, but judging by the views of members here and the reviews I've read, it's hard to believe that this film comes from the guy that gave us Suspiria, Tenebre and Deep Red. I'm still going to watch it out of curiosity, even if it means losing out on 2 hours of my life that could be better spent counting grains of sand in my kids' sand pit!

From 1931:

Monkey Business
M
Cimarron
Night Nurse

http://www.cult-labs.com/forums/memb...tml#post329376

Its a f*****g dreadful artless mess. At one point Dracula appears as a giant poorly animated CGI preying mantis that looks like it came from a psone era horror game, I watched it with a friend who kept picking up the remote to check the running time, and this is a lad who still tries to defend Giallo, phantom of the opera and stendahl syundrome... its pretty much his worst film.

I bet it's still better than The Card Player :lol:

It sounds more interesting.

Compliance

Not a horror film, but a damn disturbing one. Based on true events, Compliance examines the blind lengths some people will go to when confronted with authority - in this case a true life incident in which a young, female employee of a fast food chain is detained and subjected to abuse after a crank caller, pretending to be a cop, phones the store manager and claims the girl is under investigation for theft.

It left me incredulous, but even more so when a google revealed the film's more unbelievable moments to be true. You'd think alarm bells would be ringing with these people way before it goes to the places it goes, but no. Utterly jaw dropping and infuriating in equal measure, but a fascinating watch all the same.

Stick em' up! I'll fight you ya' cur!

Series 7 the contenders,
Different and highly amusing a dark comedy satire about reality tv and the boundries it'll go to, contenders have to hunt and kill each other for real anyway possible.

It's honestly not. The Card Player, at worst, looks like a TV movie. Dracula looks like a wannabe straight to DVD cheap student Digital Video mess. It's one of those cheap looking DV films where everything is in focus (a result of the genius idea to film it in 3D apparently) so there's just nothing cinematic about it at all. I thought the sets looked pretty tacky myself and its all shot very close up so it feels claustrophobic which is probably less of an artistic decision and more to do with not having enough sets or locations which would look good on camera.

Plus the story is plodding and tedious and not in any way engaging. The mantis bit is the best part though. Reminded me of Resident Evil 2

HELP: Can someone tell me if they have the UK DVD of Midnight Movie and if there DVD has jerky picture.

I really, really like Series 7. I saw it at the cinema years ago when it had a low key release, and have always been a huge fan since. Hugely underrated, it's one of the more successful satires on reality TV, the media and televised murder, with some great characters. Terrific ending too.

I even have the soundtrack, but then I'm a Girls Against Boys fan and have seen them live before.

Just finished the evening up with TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION. The canadian release thats actually 'complete' and not the re-edited uk release.

Renee Zelwegger plays a wallflower who dresses down because her step father (one in a long line) keeps hitting on her. On her prom night her and her stoner buddy end up getting an inadvertant lift off two fellow students, one the archetypal sex-obsessed jock and his insecure and somwhat dumb debutant girlfriend. For some reason never clearly explained they end up in a random inexplicable car wreck out in the sticks and fall afoul of the lastest leatherface family, including a robotic-legged matthew mcconaghey in full fledged killer joe mode! The film plods along almost as if some kind of parody of this now (at that time) well worn genre until midway through the obligotory dinner scene a stretch limo pulls up and a well dressed business man enters and apologises for everything up to now...

"you were supposed to show them horror"

Whoever he is, the family seems terrified of him, after he leaves things start going dark again, zelwegger eventually escapes and in another retread is being chased in the open in full daylight. A random plane swoops down and takes out mconoghay's character and then the limo turns up again and gives Zelwegger a lift to the nearest hospital...

once more the well dressed businessman apologises, apparently the whole thing was supposed to be a spirittual experience for her character...


I'd almost forgotten how f*****g weird this film is, not as weird as perhaps skinned deep but part of me suspects half the probelms I have with the film are put deliberately there by writer/director kim henkel in an attempt to say something about the saw franchise itself. Certainly Henkel has something to say about femininity in horror with the film, but I'm still not sure exactly how META this film is supposed to be. I supspect its a film i'll have to see some more times, and I still don't think its especially great. I do however think its TRYING to say something more.

I thought it was a really well made, engrossing thriller and the disc is packed with extra features. If you're interested, this is my review A Lonely Place to Die | Film 365.

Yesterday, I watched Ron Fricke's amazing documentary Samsara which is every bit as good as Baraka: beautifully filmed and scored and the picture quality – from the 70 mm film stock – is incredible. I also watched The Master, which I saw at the cinema and thought was brilliant and my mind hasn't changed after a second viewing. As they were both rentals, they are now near the top of my wish list and I'll buy them sooner rather than later.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - Typically I hate musicals, and seeing as every word of dialogue in the film is sung, you might think I'd hate this film. Au contraire. It took me awhile to get into the film because of the singing, but I was already admiring the beautiful use of colors by the time the meat of the story arrived. It's quite the sad story too. Though I do believe we should see the ending as optimistic as we go through the door that opened when the first door closed.

Saw this years ago and totally forgot all about it until quite recently.

Bit of a mixed bag this week, quality wise.
Started with 'Maniac Cop'. Really didn't like this at all, had forgotten all about it five minutes after finishing. In a word - dull.

'Return of the Living Dead'. One of my favourites, when I was a teen and it was first released. Must have watched it 10 times! My taste has obviously changed, and I couldn't even finish it. Horror-comedy is just not my thing anymore.

'From Beyond'. Another of my old favourites, and I enjoyed this a lot more than ROTLD. Still found it a bit dissapointing though. For me, nostalgia value only.

'City of the Living Dead'. This is more like it! My first time, and I've now seen the Gates of Hell trilogy. I was super impressed by this. I've only seen four Fulci films, and they have all surprised me - in a positive way. I did think 'The Beyond' and 'House by...' were better, but this was still great. So many WTF moments!
What I don't understand is this - almost everything I've read about these films always mentions the 'lack of plot', or how 'incoherent' they are, how they only work when you apply 'dream logic'. To me, the plots are coherent, and easy enough to follow. Is it because not everything is spelt out? What do you guys make of the plots?

I watched it for a second time (having seen it at Frightfest), and it still left me really conflicted. It's brilliantly made, but the acting and dialogue are pretty iffy, and some of the situations are just dumb. I wish it could have been more psychologically convincing rather than succumbing to the usual slasher cliches. It leaves me cold but it's still a pretty powerful, provocative experience that I'd recommend - my (female) friend that I was with felt pretty much the same, although I was worried at points that she wasn't 'appreciating' the violence. Still can't believe House By The Edge Of The Park is cut and this wasn't . . .

Here's my review: Maniac (2012) Movie Review from Eye for Film

Probably my favourite film last year, truly disturbing and provocative - more so than Maniac for me in alot of ways. The Youtube video with the real interviews (which are just like the one at the end) is horribly compelling, even if the journalists are just horrible themselves.

Up there with The Woman and Snowtown among my favourite ****ed-up films of the last few years, rewards repeat viewing too.

Compliance (2012) Movie Review from Eye for Film

I still love From Beyond, it's almost as incoherent as Fulci in a way - I love Fulci flicks but usually on a first watch people just have to let the wonky logic wash over them, then it usually clicks more on subsequent watches. I don't think it's a problem since they're supernatural stories anyway, but I can see how it might turn some people off. But yeah, I think when you say they're coherent - they are in context of how anything can and should be able to happen when you have teleporting zombie priests gouging out brains.

The bits that make them seem most incoherent usually involve secondary characters who're dispatched pretty randomly - Giancarlo in City, the blind girl in The Beyond. The New York Ripper is another good example of Fulci seeming incoherent but actually deliberately misleading audiences - in retrospect and on repeat viewing it all makes some kind of sense. Still quite silly though!

Dracula 3D - As has already been stated it's an absolutely terrible film. Cheap-looking, dire performances, plodding plot and with oddly bright cinematography (presumably an attempt to counter-balance the light loss of the 3D). Without a doubt the worst thing Argento has done.

The Bay - A surprisingly good found footage film. Who'd have thought it? Various inhabitants of the titular bay become hosts for a mutant parasite and the result is seen through various video sources like investigative reports, cameraphone footage etc. It works surprisingly well and I was pleasantly surprised by it. I suppose the issue with found footage films is that they're so accessible for people to make and so the bad inevitably outweigh the good but having an experienced director like Barry Levinson behind it really makes it stand out and the found footage delivery genuinely seems like the best way of doing the film, rather than a cost-cutting exercise.

Nighthawks,
Got some good actors its entertaining well made good action it's got all the right ingrediance to make this a highly enjoyable recommended watch,
This is just one Film out off a line of many that proves they just don't quite make films as good as they use to and proves that old films are simply the best,

I see it slightly differently. It's a remake of a 80's slasher film, so cliché is going to be somewhat inherent; but instead of making a bland, by numbers slasher, Khalfoun injected it with 80's chic and made for an absolutely intense, visceral viewing experience - a successful modern day exploitation film, rather than just a by numbers horror film. And I felt it handled the reasoning behind the killer's psychosis well - again, baring in mind it's an exploitation film not an in-depth character study. When I described the aesthetic to a friend the other day, I said it oddly reminded me of a grubbier, serial killer version of Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive regards what Khalfoun has done with it, which is high praise indeed, but deserved IMO. As for the acting, I saw no flaws there either. In fact I thought the cast were very good - human, charismatic - not the usual wafer thin fodder that peppers slasher films. It made the kills more extreme. Even the victims we don't get to know have a certain naturalism to them.

I attended a few films at the Frightfest (I pick and choose these days, rather than watch all the dreck), and skipped Maniac as I didn't expect much from it. I'm actually glad I did, as I despise the way the FF audience feel the need to cheer and applaud at kill scenes - it's inappropriate for a film like this (something like Hatchet, or Wrong Turn I get). Maniac is a harder film that needs to be seen in a quieter, more contemplative environment.

I agree about certain classics still being on the banned/cut list, and was surprised and impressed at the intensity of the violence. But although it's at the harder end of onscreen violence, it's actually not all that graphic - a few, clever CGI scalp removals and other bits (that ending!) aside. But again, it's the unflinching intensity to the scenes that works so.

That was a longer response than I intended it to be, but this film really resonated with me. And I'm usually quite cynical and hard to please when it comes to modern horror - usually looking to the French or British these days to inject the genre with some much needed lifeblood. So it's no surprise it took some French talent to not only successfully reboot an old American exploitation flick I have a soft spot for, but turn it into among one of the best horror films I've personally seen in years.

Thanks for the youtube tip, didn't know the interviews were on there so will check them out. Don't think I could rewatch it though. Too fidgety. My girlfriend was practically screaming at the TV (a good sign that it was working).

Had the TV to myself quite a bit recently, so took the chance to look at some stuff the wife wouldn't care for.

Saw SLAUGHTER HOUSE FIVE for the first time, really liked it. Caught BAFFLED! again for the first time since seeing it on telly as a kid. It's a seventies TV pilot starring Leonard Nimoy and Susan Hamshire - not a bad film but not great either.

Also watched SIGHTSEERS which I loved and finally watched ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ for the first time and loved that too.

MANIAC - The remake, which I saw last night at 'The Vue' in Leeds city centre of all places. I quite enjoyed it, although it didn't seem as harsh as I was anticipating it to be. This is because I'd allowed my expectations to build to an unrealistic degree, so a re-watch in a more neutral frame of mind is due at some point. There are plenty of points in its favour - a bleak atmosphere, well captured sense of urban grime, violence pretty full-on for a multiplexer, good synth score, nicely handled POV structure and well acted. The cardboard psychology was a let down, and I think this is where the remake disappointed, because, and this is where I let my expectations get the better of me, I couldn't shake Joe Spinell's utterly intense potrayal of psychotic desperation from my mind - this was the driving force behind the orginal, and I have to say that the latter day version lacks any such power. However, I always think that remakes should be taken on their own terms ultimately, and in this respect, 'Maniac' is a successful attempt to make a serious, uncompromising mainstream horror film.

I think the one thing I failed to mention, most importantly, was the difference between Spinell and Wood. While I thought Wood was terrific, no one could capture the delirium and madness of Spinell's performance. And he just has the look, doesn't he? Wood is a nice looking guy, but he has that mad elvish, slightly odd look that they worked wonders with, so I didn't have a problem buying him as a nutbag.

I think I was drawn into its aesthetic, and generally bought into it a lot more though.

I watched Corman's Pit and the Pendulum last night, it was a giddy psychedelic colourful mess, but highly enjoyable - nobody makes movies like Corman did!