What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Here's what i said about Last Shift back in 2016.

Thanks to a PM from gag, I have ordered the DVD from CeX for £3.50 (+ £1.95 p&p), which is much cheaper than the £20+ it was being sold for on eBay.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

I can't remember a thing about the first Wonder Woman movie but i can say that second time around i again enjoyed this knockabout romp pitching Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) into a world of spandex and Duran Duran.

Being set in the mid 80's the whole thing felt more grounded in reality than the majority of superhero movies (Looking at you, in fact staring intently at you here, Marvel) and the fact we go for long stretches without any superhero action (Wonder Woman appears once for a brief action sequence at a shopping mall and that's it for the first hour and twenty minutes) helps no end, giving Gadot more to do than simply look good as we get a satisfying revival of Chris Pine's Steve Trevor character. It also means when the set pieces come they are actually enjoyably thrilling, be it scrapping in the White House with the fun Cheetah (An enjoyable performance from Kristen Wiig) or a Raiders of the Lost Ark style road chase.

Plus there's a cameo from the original (and best) Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter, during the end credits.

The main plot about Maxwell Lord, a shady business man who becomes a kind of wish master thanks to an ancient rock is entertaining if fairly standard stuff but my mind wandered during Wonder Woman's big speech to him at the death.

As far as superhero films go i like Wonder Woman 1984. Not many people do though.

I should have added, i didn't think it made the best use of Atmos sound. Seemed to channel music through it rather than actual incident on the screen.

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

Ilsa: The Tigress Of SIberia. 1977.

Is there another film part of this franchise either made before or after this film??

Yes...and no!

Also made in 1977, 'Ilsa, The Wicked Warden', which was directed by Jesús Franco, is an unofficial entry in the series. It features Dyanne Thorne as 'Wanda', a character that is very similar to Ilsa

The films original title was 'Wanda, The Wicked Warden'

When it was released in North America, the film was purchased by the official Ilsa rights holders, who proceeded to re-dub the name of the character so that it could be released as an official entry in the series

Exploitation film-making at its finest!

[MrBarlow]

Originally Posted by Susan Foreman

Yes...and no!

Also made in 1977, 'Ilsa, The Wicked Warden', which was directed by Jesús Franco, is an unofficial entry in the series. It features Dyanne Thorne as 'Wanda', a character that is very similar to Ilsa

The films original title was 'Wanda, The Wicked Warden'

When it was released in North America, the film was purchased by the official Ilsa rights holders, who proceeded to re-dub the name of the character so that it could be released as an official entry in the series

Exploitation film-making at its finest!

Thank you Susan, I will be on the hunt for it

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

As far as superhero films go i like Wonder Woman 1984. Not many people do though.

I've seen WW84 twice and, although I prefer the first one, I think it's very good escapist entertainment, a film that seems more like a comic book-based movie than anything else DC has done recently, and an interesting use of a 'wish maker' character.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Walk East on Beacon! (1952)

There are Commie bastards everywhere infiltrating society working in the shadows to destroy our way of life. At least that's what the dire Walk East on Beacon! would have you believe.

The film is based on a Readers Digest article by the then head of the FBI J Edgar Hoover, and this seems as though it's bankrolled by the bureau too like some sort of recruitment film as well as a paranoid warning to the general American public of the threat of Communism as Federal agents trail 'suspects' across the country.

Despite all the 'red scare' business the films real issue is that it's so dull. There's no action, no tension and certainly no thrills. In short it bored me shirtless.

1959's The FBI Story starring James Stewart is far, far superior to this.

Part of Indicator's Colombia Noir # 4 box set.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Oculus (2013)

An enjoyable modern ghost story based around a haunted mirror. Although this sort of thing has been done before - From Beyond the Grave, Mirrors and the terrible Mirror Mirror movies - Oculus stands out because of it's time shifting storyline, which i won't spoil for anyone who hasn't seen the film.

The scares are quite subtle, avoiding the musical jolts which i think spoil so many of today's supernatural horrors, giving us blink and you'll miss 'em ghostly figures including a creepy suspenseful set up with three covered statues. Gore is minimal, but there's a sequence with a light bulb which had me squirming.

Oculus showcases the acting talents of two sci-fi tv legends in Karen Gillan (Amy Pond from Doctor Who and later to star in the Marvel Universe as Nebula) and Katee Sackhoff who shot to fame playing Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica's reworking. Both are excellent.

Directed by Mike Flanagan, he of the terrific Absentia, the film has a reasonably fast paced plot even though it's clearly a slow burner that keeps pulling you in with it's build up of tension. With convincing acting by all involved, Oculus is a clever little chiller that i enjoyed immensely first time around and last night in a Blu-ray rewatch.

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Oculus (2013)



An enjoyable modern ghost story based around a haunted mirror. Although this sort of thing has been done before - From Beyond the Grave, Mirrors and the terrible Mirror Mirror movies - Oculus stands out because of it's time shifting storyline, which i won't spoil for anyone who hasn't seen the film.



The scares are quite subtle, avoiding the musical jolts which i think spoil so many of today's supernatural horrors, giving us blink and you'll miss 'em ghostly figures including a creepy suspenseful set up with three covered statues. Gore is minimal, but there's a sequence with a light bulb which had me squirming.



Oculus showcases the acting talents of two sci-fi tv legends in Karen Gillan (Amy Pond from Doctor Who and later to star in the Marvel Universe as Nebula) and Katee Sackhoff who shot to fame playing Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica's reworking. Both are excellent.



Directed by Mike Flanagan, he of the terrific Absentia, the film has a reasonably fast paced plot even though it's clearly a slow burner that keeps pulling you in with it's build up of tension. With convincing acting by all involved, Oculus is a clever little chiller that i enjoyed immensely first time around and last night in a Blu-ray rewatch.

Oculus is indeed excellent Dem. I've enjoyed most of Mike Flanagans work that I've seen, particularly his adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House. I've yet to see Absentia though.

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[Frankie Teardrop]

THE DENTIST – More vintage Yuzna (if that exists as a concept). This one has Corbin Bernsen giving a great turn as a rampaging dentist who has looked beneath the veneer of his polished existence and found only filth and rot (quite amusing when he’s vocal about this). There’s enough of a whiff of nitrous about ‘The Dentist’s stagey unreality to suggest that maybe Yuzna aspired to something Lynch-like, and occasionally the Dentist, although baggy and not well paced, does extract a bit of real oddness from its hazy black comedy. Enjoyed.

FROSTBITER: WRATH OF THE WENDIGO – It being a grainy regional ‘Evil Dead’ rip-off from the early nineties starring Ron Asheton of The Stooges, I think it unlikely that I would have to search high and low to find something good to say about ‘Frostbiter: Wrath Of The Wendigo’. On the other hand, it’s just too kooky, and I don’t like comedy horror that’s overly kooky. ‘Evil Dead’ wasn’t kooky, it was just f*cked. If they’d held back on the kook and just gone with snowy wilderness and bad prosthetics, well then, I’d be charmed, wouldn’t I? I still am, but only a bit.

FREEWAY – Reese Witherspoon is a foulmouthed hick whose ‘can do / f*ck you’ attitude is basically meant to seem quite charming; Kiefer Sutherland is, well, just a nasty c*nt in a car. On a freeway. When Reese hitches out of town, ‘Freeway’ mutates into a strange odyssey loosely based on ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. The presence of those players should indicate to you that it’s a relatively mainstream affair, and it’s true that ‘Freeway’ demonstrates sufficient restraint in dealing with decidedly creepy subject matter. But it has a really grubby, dark edge, the kind that was alive in nineties cinema, even in stuff like Tarantino, just that kind of cynicism bordering on nihilism. I didn’t catch it at the time, but here it is on blu ray from VS, and I highly recommend.

THE WEREWOLF VS VAMPIRE WOMAN – I often find Paul Naschy a bit hit and miss, but TWVVW really works for me. Give me a black-veiled vampire gliding in slow motion down misty corridors and I’m hooked (I don’t even really like vampires, by the way); TWVVW is full of such seventies pop psych high-goth imagery, plus oodles of the kind of badly written Euro horror dialogue that is by turns boneheaded and poetic. Of course, Naschy is playing his trademark tragic nobleman, who’s a helluva nice guy till he turns and rips yer throat out (he seems to have cultivated a fondness for blood spattered breasts here, too). Perfectly crepuscular silliness. I can’t believe it, as I’m writing this someone in the street outside is playing the theme tune to ‘One Foot In The Grave’ at high volume on a ghetto blaster for the third time in a row! Leeds is way weirder than Paul Naschy.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Oculus is indeed excellent Dem. I've enjoyed most of Mike Flanagans work that I've seen, particularly his adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House. I've yet to see Absentia though.

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I need to see The Haunting of Hill House. Only owned it for two and a half years.