What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[MrBarlow]

Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. 2004.

The gang return to take on the monsters from their previous cases who have been resurrected.

The four main actors from the first film return this time teaming up with museum curator Seth Green and believe they are taking on The Black Knight Peter Boyle who seems to enjoy his comedy moments. The CGI for Scooby seems a bit more touched up from the first film and returning characters from the cartoon series. Alicia Silverstone stars as the journalist/news reporter who seems to have a hatred for the Mystery. Inc team.

91SKSTso8iL._RI_.jpg

[Frankie Teardrop]

TITANE – From the maker of ‘Raw’, Julia Ducournau. ‘Titane’ isn’t playing anyone’s game except its own, and I imagine it’ll baffle many. It starts out as an arguable art-slasher movie with this odd, quite blunt JG Ballard-type imagery, then shifts gear and transforms into a relationships drama about righting the wrongs of severed attachments. Unexpected, but that’s not to say the film is aesthetically inconsistent – beneath the sheen of the camerawork there’s this constant grinding physicality that unifies on a tonal level, and a countervailing surreality that comes and goes. Few reviews have mentioned that it’s actually quite funny; a blackly comic undercurrent sets out its stall early on when the lead character basically murders someone by trashing their face with a chair and then finds she’s so knackered that she has to take a quick sit down in it (one of the legs is still implanted in the guy’s eye socket)! Well, I laughed. ‘Titane’ is a demanding film that probably rewards a couple of viewings over just one. Recommended, but don’t expect a standard genre flick or even a re-run of ‘Raw’.

SPECIES 2 – The ‘Species’ series seems interesting now, because in horror these days you don’t really ever see the same kind of collision between a relatively big budget (at least for the first two) and an out-and-out B-movie trash approach (all of ‘em). I thought they were pretty enjoyable then and probably even more so now. ‘Species 2’ simply picks up where the original left off and doles out more of the same, which includes some tasty body morphing special fx and gore. Immaculately disposable cinema and basically a posh direct-to-video flick if ever there was one, but fun, which is obviously the point. The 88 disc looks very good.

TOXIC ZOMBIES – Potheads get sprayed by The Man’s crop-duster and turn into etc. A very low budget offering from the late seventies which makes up in creaky charm for any lack of (insert basic cinematic value of your choice here). It plays like a poor relation of “I Drink Your Blood” – the themes of marginal groups rubbing up against square society, and of poisoning as the mode of zombie production, are similar. ‘Toxic Zombies’, unlike IDYB, is no trash classic, but if you fancy ninety minutes of stumbling around in the woods with a bit of red paint here and there you can check out a nice looking transfer on YT. Shoddy but not dire, with a couple of cheap thrills and a slightly ‘off’ atmosphere. I liked it, but it’s my kind of thing.

[MrBarlow]

Evil Come Evil Go. 1972.

A religious fanatic kills people who are engaging in sex.

Anyone looked at the description of a movie, know it's gonna be cheesy and so bad yet you still wind up putting it on? Yes that is what I have done with this film. At clocking in at almost 70 minutes this felt longer. The acting is more laughable than creepy and half the cast spend most time undressed than dressed, the director thought it be good to put in some sex scenes and full male and female nudity (yep everything is shown and near up close). The kills scenes are not the best and no effort put into it by the actors. I'm sure someone from the 70s would have got their rocks off watching this.

14779-evil-come-evil-go-0-230-0-345-crop.jpg

[MrBarlow]

Project X. 1968.

A spy coming back from the East holding memories of a new weapon, when he looses his memory, scientist use a advance technology to get the answers they need.

William Castle veers away from the horror genre and jumps feet in first with this film dealing with biological warfare, somewhat human manipulation and a deep mystery thriller. Despite this appearing to look low budget Castle does go with what he can with was he is given but manages to get Christopher George, Greta Baldwin and Henry Jones on board. Being filmed in the 60s this was far from being boring, this was interesting and certainly not be the last time it be watched.

220px-Project_X_%281968_film%29.jpg

[Demoncrat]

Butt Boy (2019, Tyler Cornack)

Second time with this oddity. I might take it more seriously but the lead still reminds me of Marcus Brigstocke . A detective who is trying to remain sober begins to realise that his sponsor might just be more than anally retentive.


Witchhunt (1994, Paul Schraeder)

Hopper plays the detective Lovecraft this time (sequel to Cast A Deadly Spell), a bit more noir this time but with plenty of that old black magic to balance it out. DH seems a bit out of sorts and you do miss Fred tbh.


Extraordinary Tales (2013, Raul Garcia)

Animated Poe anthology. Decent enough, even if the Lugosi one was abridged ahem. Some visuals worked better than others imho.


Castle Freak (2020)

Appallingly shit apart from the creature design. Kneejerkingly bad on every level.
AVOID.

[MrBarlow]

Big Trouble In Little China. 1986.

A truck driver Jack Burton and his friend Wang Chi battle a ancient sorcerer in San Francisco's Chinatown.

Kurt Russell and John Carpenter team up again for this Comedy, Science-Fiction, Horror and Action movie, yeah the dialogue is cheesy and daft but when Victor Wong turns up he makes the film a bit more comedic. James Hong plays the old sorcerer Lo Pan who manages to have light coming out of his mouth. Dennis Dun plays the small sidekick and is able to dish out some good kicks. Kim Cattrall plays the somewhat daft heroine who manages to get kidnapped and needs rescuing. Still entertaining.

p9376_p_v8_ah.jpg

[MrBarlow]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

Castle Freak (2020)

Appallingly shit apart from the creature design. Kneejerkingly bad on every level.
AVOID.

Surprised you didn't like this one, I thought it was a good remake, yeah the creature designs were decent

[trebor8273]

6

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

The Bay (2012)

A found footage horror film from the Oscar winning director of Rain Man (1988), Disclosure (1994) and Good Morning Vietnam (1987), Barry Levinson.

The Bay is something truly different. Set at the July 4th celebrations of a small Maryland town in 2009 where people inexplicably become sick with a variety of symptoms including terrible rashes. It's deduced it may have come from toxic sea water caused by excrement from the local chicken industry that's dumped into the waters of the bay.

A prologue states that this documentary style horror film (a mockumentary ?) contains digital footage confiscated by the US Government in an attempt to cover up what happened. Now three years later that footage from various sources from home video, to police car dash cams to CCTV, to actual news reports has been leaked and put together by an upcoming university reporter in an attempt to tell the world what happened.

A cross between Jaws and eco-horror this was a personal film for director Levinson who grew up in Maryland. He was approached to make a documentary about the Chesapeake Bay area's issues with pollution in it's water and it being 40% dead. Finding out such a doc had recently been made he decided to turn his findings into a horror film.

Actually having it as found footage from multiple sources gives the film a proper docudrama feel allowing the viewer a genuine insight into the town, the whole picture, from the hospitals and the CDC to the police and naturally the local townsfolk. The film doesn't follow one single person but the girl putting all the footage together narrates events as they happened to her knowledge at the time.

At times very gruesome and guaranteed to make your skin crawl - you think images of Monkeypox makes you itch - The Bay is a horror film that is 80% true and the cause of the infection is deep rooted in reality.

Excellent.

Watched this last night and totally agree , another excellent footage film.




Yes it's shit but I enjoy it every time I've seen it , supposedly Barker hated it but as he's was the screen writer his just as much too blame as anyone. Quite sick and gory in places and unintentionally funny.

Now watching




Followed by



Both not seen before.

[trebor8273]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

Surprised you didn't like this one, I thought it was a good remake, yeah the creature designs were decent

I actually enjoyed it as well and thought it did a few things better than the original.

[Demoncrat]

After 10 minutes I had predicted exactly what was going to happen. Next!

Midnight Ride (1990, Bob Bralver)

The Dudikoff? Mark Hamill?? Robert Mitchum???
Ahem. A cop saves his failing marriage by chasing down the maniac that has kidnapped his wife. Well, that's what happens
Ahem. About as Cannon as it gets tbh, what with the endless set pieces and that. The ending especially