What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demoncrat]

Small Engine Repair (2021, John Pollono)

Written by and starring the director? The Room this isn't TFF
I've seen a dinosaur fly, but why can't they get beards right FFS
Ahem.
Reconnecting with his extended family after a spell inside, our beardy chap finds that the old ways jus don fit no more you hear?
I was settling in for a Loachian (?) character study , but never assume anything .... Recommended, if you can find it. Another one I wish I'd watched the night I got it.

[Demoncrat]

Carnifex (Sean Lahiff)

Aussie caper.
A film maker joins two ecologists whilst they make their rounds after a serious forest fire. Not FF!
Decent enough preamble was eventually let down by poor CGI I felt, shame as the atmosphere was well established etc. Sigh. Next.


Virus (1980, Bruno Mattei)

Well, that's what my dvd is called
The silliest of the gut munchers that was produced in Italy imho. The acting, the script, the structure, the denoument ... it's all utter nonsense. TF.
Two groups of survivors meet up in the aftermath of an outbreak of green face etc. Pinter it isn't

[MrBarlow]

Malignant. 2021.

Some horrors claim to be the best of the year, so frightening blah blah blah, this doesn't advertise itself to be scary or jumpy bit does rely on a good dark tense atmosphere. There is plenty of decent gore and good visual make up used in this especially with right at the start. The acting does get a bit over the top at the start and half way through but then it does windle down. Certainly one I'd watch again and best viewed in the dark.

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[MuckyFunster]

Skinamarink

Hmm

I can imagine this being film being shown in a dark room in an art gallery. I’d walk into the room, watch for a couple of minutes, scratch my head and leave.

I’d read that Skinamarink was ‘experimental’, and I wish I could come up with another word to describe it, but I think ‘experimental’ is probably the only fit word. It basically feels like I’ve been watching static on tv for 100 minutes - you know that way when you stare at it for long enough you start to see things?

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Life of Pi (2012)

A visually stunning film from animation company Rhythm & Hues Studios about a boy stranded on the ocean in a lifeboat with a tiger.

However there's a CGI fakeness about swathes of the film especially the ship sinking, whilst the story, what there was, lacked any sort of engagement with me and the feeling i had at the end was that i'd just watched Slumdog Titanic and it all came over as so worthy and anti-climactic and at two hours, mind numbingly long.

Hitchcock's brilliant Lifeboat (1944) this is not.

[MrBarlow]

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. 1993.

Biopic story of Lee Jun Fan who later to be known as Bruce Lee from leaving Hong Kong to America, working as a restraunt Dishwasher, opening his own martial arts school and film stardom that was tragically cut short. Jason Scott Lee (no relation) takes on the role that did have its rigourous training from being a dancer to learn how to fight. Lauren Holly plays Linda who Bruce went onto marry and her book is based on the film.

What also shows is the inner battle with Chinese superstitions in the form of a demon and racism from wannabe school bullies and those around him in the 60s although not played out to the extreme but can only imagine how tough it could have been. Two hours happily passed re-watchimg this.

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[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by MuckyFunster

Skinamarink

Hmm

I can imagine this being film being shown in a dark room in an art gallery. I’d walk into the room, watch for a couple of minutes, scratch my head and leave.

I’d read that Skinamarink was ‘experimental’, and I wish I could come up with another word to describe it, but I think ‘experimental’ is probably the only fit word. It basically feels like I’ve been watching static on tv for 100 minutes - you know that way when you stare at it for long enough you start to see things?

Attachment 244568


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So, Begotten 2 then?

[Demoncrat]

Out Of The Dark (1988, Michael Schroeder)

Workers on a chatline find they are being stalked by one of their "customers".
Some fun here with the cameos and that (Bartel, Tab Hunter, DIVINE etc) and getting to see Tracey Walter play a central role was nice.
Decent enough set up. Recommended.



Final Cut (1998, Ray Burdis)

The Operation Good Guys return ahem. Centered around a funeral, a group of friends find no comfort with a request from the deceased. This could have been fun, but they seemed more interested in filming themselves being "naughty". Shame. Next!!

[Frankie Teardrop]

JUG FACE – A mysterious pit demands human sacrifice and Toby Jugs from the inhabitants of a small community in the woods. Don’t get me started on Toby Jugs. Why put a face on a jug? So it can sneer at you whilst you dribble your milk? In the film, getting your mug on a jug also means you end up bled out from the throat beside the aforementioned mysterious pit, so perhaps things could be worse for me and my little world. ‘Jug Face’, despite stylistics that seem plain, is an imaginative indie that plays in a consistent and convincing off-key. It features good performances from stalwarts such as Larry Fessenden and Sean Bridgers, not to mention sad-faced Lesley Carter, whose efforts to avoid jug-face motivate the film’s dramatics. Its weird, hobbled world feels real, and it’s well done, even the cheap fx-y bits. I’ve seen it before. I liked it then, and I like it now.

BLOOD QUANTUM – Salmon are returning from the dead – don’t laugh, the zombie apocalypse is around the corner (again). ‘Blood Quantum’ distinguishes itself by bringing in ideas about Native American oppression and ecology and welding them to the ‘Walking Dead’ type framework we’ve all had to get used to over the last ten or fifteen years. It’s ponderous in that moody, well-shot kind of way, and there’s reasonable gore to be had alongside questionable detours into animation that somehow culminate in a someone’s granddad going Rambo. Scores slightly up because of its themes and the doomy atmos, even if it’s more of the same.

A BANQUET – A young woman, taking a breather from a party gone bad, encounters a red moon in the woods and slides into… madness? Possession? One as a metaphor for the other? Something else? There’s obviously a lot in there about warped families and control dynamics, but it’s the first film I’ve seen that pushes the theme of eating disorders towards Lovecraft. Nothing’s very clear in the end, but it doesn’t have to be. I found ‘A Banquet’ absolutely mesmerising. Most of that had to do with the way it looks – austere, in the Euro art manner that has frosted up many genre movies over the last five years or so, and it’s done really well here, conjuring a slow-motion haze of alienation and abstraction. Again, soulless modern houses seem key, but so does witchy Leslie Ash. A winner.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Eight for Silver (2021)

Hugely enjoyable Gothic horror set in the late 1800's. Skillfully directed, written and filmed with some great performances by a cast of familiar faces.

It's all about the mood and atmosphere with spooky houses, fog bound woods, creepy scarecrows, oh and some very gruesome gore. It's refreshingly lacking in modern horror tropes and is more in line with 30's/40's Universal or Hammer horror especially in what it does with a classic monster.

Without giving too much away if you enjoyed films such as Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow or the Hughes bros From Hell then this might be up your street. It's so much up mine i'm looking at house prices.

It was originally titled and released at Sundance as Eight for Silver (It's correct British title) but was renamed as the less interesting The Cursed for it's US cinema release.