What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Dave Boy]

REWRC_INTL_QUAD_FNL_Ensemble1_r-1.jpg
RESIDENT EVIL WELCOME TO RACOON CITY

Mmm.. okay.. This is a quite slow moving adaptation of RE 1 and RE2, sort of!
A lot of work has been put in to make a lot of what happens here a mirror image of the video games and I have to give it credit for that. I think this is very much aimed at the video game fandom rather than a casual viewer and some may get a kick out of looking for the herbs in the background etc..
The movie does has it's moments but there is a lot of slow build up and too much back story about Chris and Claire. Also they made Leon Kennedy a complete idiot for some reason.. just for laughs I expect. By the time the movie sorts itself out it comes to an ubrupt end. There was a teaser in the end credits but I doubt another movie will be made?
It's just a popcorn movie and if you just go along for the ride it's enjoyable enough.

[MrBarlow]

The Crazies. 1973.

A toxin called "Project Trixie" is released over a small town polluting the main water and turning those infected psychotic and the military are sent in to contain it.

This was George A. Romero's attempt on mixing a toxin virus and a battle of survival and is able to do it on a budget and it pays off well, with some decent acting. Do often think who is crazy, the towns people for trying to escape or the military giving out orders to contain and eliminate those infected with a so-called cure that may not even work or the right time to administer it. Right from the start we are basically thrown into the madness and paranoia on who to trust with some tense moments.

the-crazies-1973-poster.jpg

[Frankie Teardrop]

DOCTOR SLEEP – The Overlook gets a revisit in this Mike Flannagan adaption, which I guess nods as much to Kubrik as it does to King’s sequel. Ewan McGregor plays Danny, who has grown up to be a barfly but finds his special powers calling him to assist super-shiner Kyleigh Curran in her struggles with creepy Rose The Hat. I found ‘Doctor Sleep’ to be lengthy but engaging, immersive enough to lull me into being able to Overlook the fact that it feels (and aesthetically resembles) a big Netflix series squashed into one handy feature; also, although it contained some surprisingly dark scenes, I couldn’t detect the disturbing atmosphere of, say ‘Occulus’ or ‘Absentia’. But – a good film.

SIREN – A group of stag-do guys go off to find the last-chance strip-club of their dreams… but is it the strip-club of their nightmares? Maybe it’s not even a strip-club really, there’s an awful lot of occult stuff happening. I checked this out on Netflix at the end of a long Friday and basically wondered if I might just yawn and fall asleep, but ‘Siren’ is oddly nightmarish and surprisingly creative in its little horror tableaus, with wormy-haired medusas and soul-to-soul memory transplants via off-brand tequila or something like that. Hannah Fierman, the titular Siren, has wide, creepy eyes and runs around naked. Based on a segment of ‘VHS’ that I have no recollection of.

HITCH HIKE TO HELL – Post- Norman Bates type drives a truck and strangles (with a coat hanger – he delivers laundry!) young runaways who remind him of his errant sister. ‘Hitch Hike to Hell’ was made in the late seventies but feels at least five years older than that. It has the creaky, grainy charm of knackered drive-in reels about it, and all the threadbare limitations of that kind of filmmaking – off-beam performances, minimal staging, a feeling of vast cheapness. Also, as is the case with many of those films seen in the cold light of day, its bark is worse than its bite. But you could retort by saying that a lot of those obscure drive-in movies had a very definite atmosphere, and that’s true here. There are only three or four sets in it, each appearing one after the other in pretty rigid repetition, and it conjures a peculiar claustrophobia which is very much in keeping with its subject matter. Also, there are classically ‘off’ grindhouse touches, like sudden outpourings of surreal music on the soundtrack, and the obvious comedy of Norm when he fiddles with his glasses before doing a brutal assault. And despite all I’ve said, there’s something fairly well-made about it, it doesn’t lurch around or drag. I saw this maybe thirteen or so years ago and found it slight but haunting – that’s pretty much what I thought of it after watching the Arrow blu ray.

SURF 2 – Sunny Californ-i-a type dudes hang out and surf (2) whilst an embittered nerd seeks vengeance against the Beautiful People via his brand of toxic cola, which happens to induce zombie mutation. If you’ve got this far without screaming “this obviously resembles something from Troma’s reject bin and I should avoid it at all costs,” well, good luck to you. I actively despise a certain kind of broad, T&A fuelled eighties teen comedy – mostly because I tend to watch movies whilst playing a harpsichord, smoothing the creases in my velvet smoking jacket and trying to look like Vincent Price – and this is basically one of those, made badly and spliced with what I guess are supposed to be nods towards horror; “The feeling is bad, the feeling is bad,” as Eddie Grant once said. Even low-brow hopes for gore are scuppered by zombies who do absolutely feck all, leaving me with jack shit to hang onto apart from the look / feel of eighties ripeness, a sense of giddy incoherence and a handful of weird bits. Do I think that those latter three qualities are worth the price of admission? No. For fans of the excruciating only, although at least you could say that it predates a couple of films with similar themes and has a good soundtrack.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

– mostly because I tend to watch movies whilst playing a harpsichord, smoothing the creases in my velvet smoking jacket and trying to look like Vincent Price

[Demoncrat]

The King's Man (2021, Matthew Vaughn)

I loved the first film. Thought the second was overblown and not as exciting. This? Woke drivel that looks worse than the first film. A fantasy set in the early part of the 20th century, with all the due care and attention shown to that era

Demon says AVOID.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

DOCTOR SLEEP – The Overlook gets a revisit in this Mike Flannagan adaption, which I guess nods as much to Kubrik as it does to King’s sequel. Ewan McGregor plays Danny, who has grown up to be a barfly but finds his special powers calling him to assist super-shiner Kyleigh Curran in her struggles with creepy Rose The Hat. I found ‘Doctor Sleep’ to be lengthy but engaging, immersive enough to lull me into being able to Overlook the fact that it feels (and aesthetically resembles) a big Netflix series squashed into one handy feature; also, although it contained some surprisingly dark scenes, I couldn’t detect the disturbing atmosphere of, say ‘Occulus’ or ‘Absentia’. But – a good film.

SIREN – A group of stag-do guys go off to find the last-chance strip-club of their dreams… but is it the strip-club of their nightmares? Maybe it’s not even a strip-club really, there’s an awful lot of occult stuff happening. I checked this out on Netflix at the end of a long Friday and basically wondered if I might just yawn and fall asleep, but ‘Siren’ is oddly nightmarish and surprisingly creative in its little horror tableaus, with wormy-haired medusas and soul-to-soul memory transplants via off-brand tequila or something like that. Hannah Fierman, the titular Siren, has wide, creepy eyes and runs around naked. Based on a segment of ‘VHS’ that I have no recollection of.

HITCH HIKE TO HELL – Post- Norman Bates type drives a truck and strangles (with a coat hanger – he delivers laundry!) young runaways who remind him of his errant sister. ‘Hitch Hike to Hell’ was made in the late seventies but feels at least five years older than that. It has the creaky, grainy charm of knackered drive-in reels about it, and all the threadbare limitations of that kind of filmmaking – off-beam performances, minimal staging, a feeling of vast cheapness. Also, as is the case with many of those films seen in the cold light of day, its bark is worse than its bite. But you could retort by saying that a lot of those obscure drive-in movies had a very definite atmosphere, and that’s true here. There are only three or four sets in it, each appearing one after the other in pretty rigid repetition, and it conjures a peculiar claustrophobia which is very much in keeping with its subject matter. Also, there are classically ‘off’ grindhouse touches, like sudden outpourings of surreal music on the soundtrack, and the obvious comedy of Norm when he fiddles with his glasses before doing a brutal assault. And despite all I’ve said, there’s something fairly well-made about it, it doesn’t lurch around or drag. I saw this maybe thirteen or so years ago and found it slight but haunting – that’s pretty much what I thought of it after watching the Arrow blu ray.

SURF 2 – Sunny Californ-i-a type dudes hang out and surf (2) whilst an embittered nerd seeks vengeance against the Beautiful People via his brand of toxic cola, which happens to induce zombie mutation. If you’ve got this far without screaming “this obviously resembles something from Troma’s reject bin and I should avoid it at all costs,” well, good luck to you. I actively despise a certain kind of broad, T&A fuelled eighties teen comedy – mostly because I tend to watch movies whilst playing a harpsichord, smoothing the creases in my velvet smoking jacket and trying to look like Vincent Price – and this is basically one of those, made badly and spliced with what I guess are supposed to be nods towards horror; “The feeling is bad, the feeling is bad,” as Eddie Grant once said. Even low-brow hopes for gore are scuppered by zombies who do absolutely feck all, leaving me with jack shit to hang onto apart from the look / feel of eighties ripeness, a sense of giddy incoherence and a handful of weird bits. Do I think that those latter three qualities are worth the price of admission? No. For fans of the excruciating only, although at least you could say that it predates a couple of films with similar themes and has a good soundtrack.

[nicholasrope]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

The King's Man (2021, Matthew Vaughn)

I loved the first film. Thought the second was overblown and not as exciting. This? Woke drivel that looks worse than the first film. A fantasy set in the early part of the 20th century, with all the due care and attention shown to that era

Demon says AVOID.

Yep, I agree. Other than the last scene, there was no way it was a Kingsmen Movie.

It was more like a Vipco special where they take a random Film and change the title so it'll be a sequel.

[nicholasrope]

Eddie

Really fun Whoopi Goldberg Film in which she becomes the Head Coach of the struggling New York Knicks Basketball Team. Whilst it follows all the usual clichés, it does them really well.

Bloodsucking Freaks

A Theatre Show Producer and his assistant basically torture Women in ways that are quite creative.

Remember first coming across this whilst it was being shown on The Horror Channel and couldn't believe what I was watching. Got the Troma DVD of this and whilst I'm not sure if it got released for Rental and if it did I'm surprised that it didn't end up on the Video Nasty List or that 88 Films got released for Blu-Ray.

Salo

What to say about this one other than if The Fun House got banned, then based on the content, it's a no brainer that if it was around on Video during the Video Nasty Era, then it should have had it's own feature on Nucleaus's Video Nasty Definitive Guide inbetween Nightmares In A Damaged Brain And Snuff.

I do know how it managed to avoid being banned and it's quite ludicrous and I watched it with the English dubbing. I'll give it that it did lead to a crescendo at the end and that there was no happy ending.

Dragnet

Wanted a nice palate cleanser and after Mrbarlow's recent review, this got the call as it was a favorite of mine when younger (Watched it many times after taping it when it was shown on BBC 1) and it's easy to forget that Tom Hanks starred in Comedy Films in the 80's. Still really enjoyable with good performances from Christopher Plumber and the Actress who played The Police Commissioner.

[nosferatu42]

Bloodsucking freaks is a unsung masterpiece.
Salo is also a F*cked up Sadean nightmare...guess which i prefer.

Salo is an arthouse classic, but i'd rather defend freaks in court.
Story of my life...

[Demoncrat]

Once showed a mate Salo, with the dub, and he laughed all the way through it
Takes all sorts.