What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Lords of Chaos (2018)

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Have you seen it, Susan?

Yes I have

The Norwegian Black Metal scene was just starting to gain momentum around the time I stopped listening to music, and I can clearly remember the UK news reports about the church burnings

I think I was probably more interested in the reasoning behind the church burnings and the relationship between Euronymous (and Mayhem) and Varg (and Burzum) rather than actual music, but it was a good film

[Demoncrat]

Ninja Busters (1984, Paul Kyriazi)

Action comedy.
When two misfits join a Karate school ... let the mayhem commence.
Ahem.
The first half is all set up done at a leisurely pace, whilst the second is more or less non stop action, it's just a tad threadbare cough. I enjoyed it, but buyer beware etc.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Prey (1977)

Norman J Warren's sci-fi shocker is an exercise in what you can do with three actors - Barry Stokes, Glory Annen and Sally Faulkner - and barely any budget and still come up with a well made slice of pulp horror.

I've seen this countless times over the years and whilst i do like it i also acknowledge it's not Warren's best film.

Watching the Powerhouse Blu-ray last night was like a breath of fresh air. The image quality is excellent, gorgeously showing off the flowers and plants that grow in and around the girl's property. It all looked so vibrant, i loved it. Especially the gore which looked startlingly realistic.

Unfortunately the sound quality wasn't as good as i'd hoped. Speech often had that 'ssss' hiss at the end of some words and sentences, in particular women's speech. It's an issue that happens on a lot of black and white films that haven't been remastered and restored so was quite surprised to hear it here.

Prey may not be Warren's best film but for something so low budget it's pretty damn impressive.

[Frankie Teardrop]

BLACK ROSES – Eighties silliness that takes on the whole ‘Metal is the tool of Satan’ outrage sparked by the wise minds of said decade. Needless to say, all that shite isn’t exactly dissected with a fine ideological scalpel here, it’s just a launch pad for bad metal interludes and some fairly lousy, but still satisfying and possibly even heart-warming, era-specific prosthetics. Mysterious band plays one-off gig in a small town, teacher worries about his flock… etc. Slightly odd in that it seems to be vouching for the squares in a way, contra to the ‘party-on, dude’ vibe of much light late eighties horror fare. The main draw is its oddness. The style is quite ‘off’, featuring patches of almost noirish lighting and a camera that does too many atmospheric-looking close-ups; all this wonk is amplified by some truly terrible acting and a vaguely curdled uncurrent when the high schoolers get ready to jiggy for Satan, although to be fair most of them look as if they’re in their mid to late thirties. Light on gore, heavy on trash and long on non-event, I somehow hold it in higher esteem than the slicker end of the eighties horror / metal crossover, although it may be too lame and tame for aficionados of that particular niche.

BABY BLOOD – Been so long since I last saw it that I can’t remember whether I’ve reviewed it here or not, but if I’m repeating myself (or completely contradicting myself) then I apologise. ‘Baby Blood’ is an odd French Indie horror from a time when that kind of thing wasn’t exactly commonplace, and presents a rambling picaresque in which an alien-impregnated young woman absconds from the circus, drifts through various down-at-heel slum scenes whilst feeding her squeaky-voiced unborn with the blood of admirers and assailants, then robs a mobile transfusion bank before giving birth on the run to a murderous Lovecraftian shrimp-thing. Tonally it’s all over the shop, veering from brutal to melancholy to wry to silly, sometimes all at once, often whilst bracketed by splashy gore. It’s not exactly that much of a laugh, but I was reminded of the films of Frank Henenlotter in a way, maybe just in terms of the set-up and the stabs at comedic monstrosity. It’s a film I get quite nostalgic about, remembering how Fangoria and Gorezone used to go on about it back in the day, and then it seemed to disappear. A strange slice of yesteryear, worth revisiting.

TREASURE OF THE AMAZON – Having fond memories of the inspired awfulness of ‘Beaks’, I thought it only fitting to try some of Rene Cardona Jr’s other movies, some of which were recently released by VS. TOFT tips its (arguably) ‘Indiana Jones’-derived hat to the eighties jungle adventure movies, although this distinctly low rent variant still has one foot in Italian cannibal cycle adjacents, hence the bits and pieces of bad gore that liven up the long stretches of bumbling questing and wildlife photography. If that’s not enough, there’s Donald Pleasance giving pretty bad Nazi, some bare breasted Amazons and a plethora of stilted, overplayed moments (capped by an awesome crab attack that rips-off to perfection the spider scene in Fulci’s ‘The Beyond’). The inspired bits don’t quite redeem the period sexism and the overall dullness, and it’s definitely not as satisfyingly schlocky as ‘Beaks’, but it’s worth a sit through.

[Demoncrat]

As always F

I've never seen a Cardona Jr I didn't at least admire

[MrBarlow]

Jaws: The Revenge. 1987.

After Sean Brody is killed by a shark, Ellen and Mike head to the Caribbean and Ellen believes they are targeted by a old enemy.

Think I have only seen this one twice before, not as much as the previous films, Jaws was a classic, Jaws two was decent, Jaws 3-D is memorable but for the wrong reasons, who'd da thought a Great White Shark would hold a grudge about it's family being killed by another family.

Lorraine Gary returns from the first two films, obviously to hype it up about the Brody family, was Dennis Quaid and John Putch embarrassed to return as Mike and Sean that they cast two different actors for their parts, don't get me wrong Lance Guest was good. It is mentioned Chief Brody is dead due to a heart attack...sorry spoiler alert.

You have Michael Caine doing the English charm and hoping to score with Ellen, Mario Van Peebles doing a bad Jamaican accent that he sounds like Kofi Kingston from early WWE appearances. The book based on this, does explain a lot about the shark and it's grudge or more like a voodoo doctor causing it to go on revenge and a naff ending that was badly edited and trimmed down that makes it laughable, there is a flash back of Chief Brody and his first kill of Jaws...Long Live Chief Brody...hail.

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[iank]

Night School. The police investigate when a number of students at a local all-female college start getting their heads chopped off. This 1981 flick is more whodunnit than horror or slasher really, despite having a couple of effective deaths, but is very plodding and honestly I correctly identified the killer 40 minutes in - like 35 minutes before the reveal - so I guess it wasn't a very good mystery either. Fairly mediocre.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by iank

Night School. The police investigate when a number of students at a local all-female college start getting their heads chopped off. This 1981 flick is more whodunnit than horror or slasher really, despite having a couple of effective deaths, but is very plodding and honestly I correctly identified the killer 40 minutes in - like 35 minutes before the reveal - so I guess it wasn't a very good mystery either. Fairly mediocre.

I was disappointed by it when i bought the dvd. I preferred it when i watched it as Terror Eyes.

[MrBarlow]

Body Snatchers. 1993.

On a military base in Atlanta a young girl and her scientist father discover humans are being taken over by Aliens.

Another version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, this time Abel Ferrara takes to the director's chair on the story by Jack Finney. I have always wanted to see this version but feel disappointed, Ferrara has always been one of those unpredictable directors yet this is mild compared to his other movies. The 1956 and the 1978 happen round a city where this is confined to one particular area that really doesn't do well, the scenes that are built up for tension happen very slowly and are really not played out well.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969)

Actually released here, it's country of origin as Doppelganger but now better known with the title above. This is a superior slice of science fiction.

The story about the discovery of a planet on the other side of the sun opposite Earth and the manned mission to check it out is beautifully clever if occasionally confusing but still riveting stuff.

It has a strong cast including Roy Thinnes, Patrick Wymark and Ian Hendry, but what makes this stand out for me are the ultra realistic FX and model work from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson in their debut live action production making the film look like a major Hollywood blockbuster rather than what it was - a cheapish British sci-fi thriller.

Archive tv fans might find it fun that Norma Ronald who played Joh Wilder's (Patrick Wymark) secretary throughout classic dramas The Plane Makers and The Power Game also plays his secretary in this.

I've had this on dvd unwatched for a few years and decided to see what it was like last night as a new Blu-ray has recently been released but it doesn't matter as the Universal dvd looks superb anyway.