Decemberdike # 8
 

Train to Busan (2016)

Not sure what all the fuss was about with this movie. Nothing new is added to zombie film making, unless being both gore free and scare free counts as something new and it being overlong at two hours in length.

I found it all quite generic and a bit boring to be honest.

Tenet (2020, Christopher Nolan)

See how they always say that empty vessels make the most noise?
Welcome to a very bland looking landscape.
Pretty, yes. But hollow
Portentousness abounds.
Just like Interstellar, this seems to hold weight and have depth. But that is a forced perspective.
Admittedly the best I've seen from Branagh. But that's it.

Now for a 9 hour FF marathon (1 thing). :xmaslol:

NEXT.

Marble Hornets

FF. When a young man looks through some old rehearsal tapes for a film project, he doesn't just find some bloopers ....
I'm about 2 hours into this thing, and it's a tad amateurish in places, so the scares aren't really working. Did it "inspire" this Slender Man phenomena?? Regardless, I do sort of want to see how they spin it out (web series originally?) to such a length. Hmmm.
At least it's not as stoopid as Tenet. :xmaslol:

Decemberdike # 9
 

We Summon the Darkness (2019)

For it's first forty minutes i loved this. Set in the late 80's it trailed three girls on their way to a metal gig (It showed the performance...some band miming to Mercyful Fate's Black Funeral) who meet up with three guys doing likewise.

Cue much chat about Def Leppard, Dave Mustaine and Cliff Burton, together with drugs and drinking before the girls take the guys back to their place in the country, tie the guys up then begin to torture them as if they were a satanic cult.

And then things really go downhill as it becomes a wearisome game of cat and mouse, girls vs boys, in a fight to the death, or mainly hiding behind locked doors shouting at one another.

Johnny Knoxville who features prominently on the dvd cover, appears as a metal hating tv preacher until the final reel in what is nothing more than a cameo. A pity as the movie could have done with more of him and less of the contrived second half plot cliches.

I agree whole-heartedly. I was quite disappointed, especially after the first half being pretty cool!

Marble Hornets .... part two.
 

Now I'm about 4 hours into this thing, and the overarching feeling is it must have been a series surely? (not looking into it in case I find spoilers :xmaslol:)
The timeline seems a tad jumbled. Could it all be a scam?
Our intrepid protagonist finds more tapes with "clues" sprinkled in amongst them.
An ex cast member suddenly reappears with no visible marks, and some more bloody tapes.
At the very least, I'll finally get to use that turkey emoji if it all craps out on me ....

Hornets 3: The never ending story ...
 

6 hours in and it's picking up. It WAS a series (DUH).
I think I can guess that final image, but will be happy to be surprised.
After this, it's a few Merton Park flicks for me hahaha ahem.

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THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1939)

Basil Rathbone starts the first of 14 movies as Sherlock Holmes.
Great stuff. Atmospheric, with good sets and painted backdrops. You would have thought that this was a Universal film by the look of it, but the first two movies were actually released by 20th Century Fox.

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MURDER IN THE BLUE ROOM (1944)

Rare Universal mystery/comedy. A sort of remake of Universal's Secret Of The Blue Room (1933).
Once again, the story surrounds a mysterious death in the Blue Room of the 'haunted house' and anyone staying in the room dissapears. The guests at a party are suspected.
This one though has a string of song and dance numbers thrown in as well.
It's actually quite funny with most of the wise cracks coming from the song and dance act 'The Jazzy Belles'.

Decemberdike # 10
 

Monster on the Campus (1958)

Another creature feature directed by Jack Arnold about an extinct fish which turns everything it comes into contact with into raving monsters, be it a dragonfly, a pet dog (with ludicrous teeth) or people.

There's a reasonable amount of tension, one or two scares and some pretty strong violence for it's time - one unlucky fella gets a hatchet in the face, a woman is dragged around by her hair - but as with many films of this ilk there's also too much time taken with people in lab coats sat around discussing things, not to mention random acts of dumbness by people who should know better, rather than getting to the nitty gritty of Neanderthal mutations running round killing folk.