What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Most of his early output was good. Only when he went off to DTV world I lost interest. Cyborg has always been a fave too. The enduring image of Sudden Death has always been him fighting the mascot dressed as a penguin.

Most of his DTV stuff has been solid at worst. Most are good fun i'd say.

[J Harker]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I didn't know if you meant Double Impact or Sudden Death.



It's a bit like Seagal films where they have a small dictionary of cool words that they draw out of a hat to make their movie titles.

Double Impact is ok. I'll pick the 88 blu ray up at some point. Its on the cornier end of the Van Damme spectrum though. I used to love AWOL. But despite owning the 101 blu for years I've never watched it. All I can remember when i think about it is a series of fights one after the other with bare minimum plot. As a teenager that was fine. Now I find I want a plot.

Sent from my SM-G780G using Tapatalk

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Double Impact is ok. I'll pick the 88 blu ray up at some point. Its on the cornier end of the Van Damme spectrum though. I used to love AWOL. But despite owning the 101 blu for years I've never watched it. All I can remember when i think about it is a series of fights one after the other with bare minimum plot. As a teenager that was fine. Now I find I want a plot.

For me AWOL was memorable as it co-starred JR's secretary Sly, aka Deborah Rennard.

[J Harker]

I do find with these older 80s early 90s actioners I need to be in a certain mood. Particularly the martial arts stuff, it always seems less story orientated. No Retreat, No Surrender is currently in HMV on sale for three or four quid. I remember liking it but suspect its actually poop.

Sent from my SM-G780G using Tapatalk

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Wer (2013)

In a nutshell - A human rights lawyer decides even werewolves have rights and tries to disprove the great hulking lump the French police have in custody didn't really slay a holidaying American family.

Sometimes a film really springs a surprise and Wer was one of them. Part legal battle part slayfest, if you thought Werewolf films could offer nothing new then you might be in for a nice surprise.

For a start the film has a decent budget. There are some great action sequences involving police hardware filmed in the centre of Lyon (Actually Bucharest) as well as out in the countryside and some wonderfully gruesome gore effects. The film is beautifully acted allowing for fine characterisation in a fairly talky opening half hour but it's all done so well that i was gripped by proceedings from first to last.

Last night was my second viewing of this and i'd forgotten the ins and outs which meant i enjoyed it just as much as my first viewing.

A mixture of crime, action, folklore and of course horror, all played out with maximum intensity, Wer is, along with the slightly less good Late Phases (2014), the best Lycan movie since Marshall's Dog Soldiers.

Oh, and the last line is a killer.

[Frankie Teardrop]

FULL CIRCLE: THE HAUNTING OF JULIA – Saved up my pennies for a splurge as ‘The Haunting Of Julia’ has been a long time coming and I’ve always wanted to see it. For anyone who hasn’t heard of it, it’s from the seventies and deals with grief, loss and ghostly children, characteristics that line it up with the likes of ‘Don’t Look Now’ and ‘The Changeling’. It also shares some of the ethereal qualities of those two movies. In it, Mia Farrow loses a child (who she inadvertently kills in trying to save them from asphyxiation), then splits from her domineering other half to go and live alone in one of London’s leafy backwaters. She chooses a house whose backstory echoes her own tragedy, and before long the once dormant past begins to seep into Julia’s present as she starts to unravel. ‘The Haunting Of Julia’ works mainly as an exercise in tone. The narrative follows Farrow’s investigation into her house’s traumatic history, but the main thrust of the film is atmospheric. Early on, we watch Farrow move from room to room in her new pad, and nothing happens but it’s somehow mesmerising, a somnambulistic glide that lets us take in all the shadows and faded opulence. That's kind of the film setting out its stall; moody. I often imagine seventies London to be a kind of wasteland of beige décor, crumbling buildings and mist, and director Richard Loncraine does nothing to dispel my prejudice as this is exactly the visual register of ‘The Haunting Of Julia’, everything gauzy and faraway, maybe with hints of something dreadful just out of sight. The story progresses through disturbing encounters that send Farrow on a downward spiral, and if you’re anything like me you’ll find that the final moments will linger for long after the film has ended. Farrow, whose fey, even slightly vacant actorly presence makes her interesting to watch whatever she’s in, comes across here as something like a haunted elf; it’s also quite nice to see regulars such as Tom Conte in early roles. It could be said that ‘The Haunting Of Julia’ suffers from too much narrative contrivance and leaves behind a lot of loose ends, and that it doesn’t take its stock imagery (sinister toys and dingey cellars) very far beyond the limits of convention. For me, that’s not the point. ‘The Haunting Of Julia’ works because of its powerful ambience, and feels to me like a foggy dream of the past slowly collapsing into nightmare.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

I really want to see The Haunting of Julia but will have to wait for either a stand alone Blu release or a significant price drop.

Great review, Frankie.

[MrBarlow]

Kalifornia. 1993.

What can be more exciting that going to places where serial killers have struck and killed their victims while travelling with a sociopath as a companion.

David Duchovny and Michelle Forbes play the inquisitive couple looking to travel California for gruesome murder sites for a new book and share expensive with Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis who acts like she has a mind of a child and knows what...or addresses what her loving partner does. It's Pitt's role that steals the show as the unbalanced in life character who can't blow his nose and has no remorse for what he does. This does have its share of violence that can leave a mark but can also give out a snigger or two with the elderly couple and the dummies.

p14987_d_v8_aa.jpg

[MrBarlow]

Repulsion. 1965.

A slow descent into one female's madness in the form of Catherine Deneuve's performance is fantastic in this nicely stylish made chiller. Starting off as we see a woman working as a beautician and living with her sister who's married lover is disliked yet she has a boyfriend but is kept at arms lengths. Once our leading lady is left alone the nightmare slowly unfolds, the outside world can be a scary place but for some inside can just be worse. Purposely shot in black and white I don't think Polanski could have made this in colour as it would loose it's atmospheric touch. The film does start off slow for character build up then it becomes a vision of someone's nightmarish vision. A great classic.

download.jpeg

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

A Lonely Place to Die (2011)

Melissa George and Ed Speleers play a couple of climbers in a group in the remote Scottish Highlands who discover a young girl who doesn't speak English buried in the woods with only an air pipe keeping her alive...

I'm saying no more story wise as this is an excellent thriller that certainly strays into horror territory. The cinematography is stunning and the Highlands as beautiful as they are deadly. One scene involving a climb down a sheer rock face is unbelievably gripping. My feet were tingling and my legs quivering as it proceeded and more than once i winced and swore out loud in anguish.

The films twists and turns surprise but they aren't twists for the sake of twists they do move the story along and it's a story that plays out differently to any preconceptions you may go in with.

Last night was my second watch of this. Given the time between viewings i'd forgotten the majority of the story which meant i had a wonderful thrill ride second time round.

Highly recommended.