I bought that a while back started to watch it got to around ep7 as well, Then put it down watched a few films since, that i to catch upon and 4 got all about it till noticing you said your watching it ,its not to bad what i saw. prob is i have a habit of starting to watch episodes of what ever then putting them down and then forgetting to go back to them because i get to involved watching other films...stuff i started to watch then put own ..eg kingdom hospital, 90s tv series civvies by lynda plant, city of men brazilian tv series based of the film and city of god. well other way round the films are based of the tv series....

'What dvd's have you seen recently and can you recommend them?'‏
 

Re: Vampix
I agree rith you about MARTYRS.
Overall I thought the film was very good, but it's martyrdom' theme concerning the rich people wanting to know about beyond life or whatever was disappointing.
It's got, in my opinion an arthouse feel to it.
Still a good film, but I was a bit disappointed in the end.
My French faves are still SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE and INSIDE.

I watched THE SURVIVOR tonight,not a bad little potboiler.
Jenny Agutter was wasted though....she didn't strip off.....:eyebrows:

I preferred the book of The Survivor though I did enjoy the film. Robert Powell was excellent as always.

Whatever was Tim Rice doing playing a newsreader though? :shocked:

It's the land of Oz mate.
Funnily enough,Robert Powell's hair-do has never changed since then....:suspicious:

Just finished watching new remake children of the corn
Not a bad remake if i dare say
Onlyprob i had was the kid who played isaac he was terrible and just didnt fit the part and a times sounded like a dalek with a cold :laugh:

Another DVD gone from the 'to watch' pile!

Beyond the door 2.

Really creepy movie. Couple of parts made me jump(rare for me!). Loved the music in it, really added to the creepiness.
Only problem was the picture quality on the dvd.

Is that the uk dvd of Mario Bava's Shock?

haha yeah i do that all the time :doh:

ive just finished episode 10 of kingdom hospital

Yeah the UK Hollywood release.

I'm very new to the Bava thing so didn't realise this was 'Shock'.:o

It's an easy mistake to make.

I had that dvd but i never watched it.

I enjoyed Shock and the music is superb.

I watched Splinter last night. A pretty good film, and a nice spin on the 'Mother Nature is coming to get you!' angle.

Watched Gruesome (Salvage) again this afternoon. A very enjoyable film from Danger After Dark releasing. A good film to watch for the second time too, as you notice little bits and flashes that are sometimes easily missed first time around. Recommended, anyhow. :thumb:

Plus I have finished watching the new season of Family Guy. Not nearly as funny as earlier episodes but still good for the odd laugh, even though some of the episodes feel a bit cobbled together. Road to Germany was particularly disappointing IMO - a missed opportunity as those Road to... episodes are usually some of the best of the lot.

I've just finished watching Viy - a creepy tale of Russian witchcraft which was recommended by (and then traded with) loops. Really enjoyed this one. :cool:

Glad you enjoyed it.

Did you find the disc's menus confusing? I did!

Yeah especially trying to get the desired audio and subtitle combo playing - It took me three attempts to activate the Russian audio track with English subs. It kept playing in English with English subs... :loco: :laugh:

"Tooth and Nail"

Hmmm....
A barmy post-apocalyptic plot that has all civilisation virtually destroyed in no time at all because the electricity has run out.
This sudden lack of lack of twinkly lights, PC's, DVD players and HBO is so bad that many humans turn to cannibalism (despite there being rather a lot of animals in the world) and as the survivors try to stay survivors...these cannibal sorts roam around picking them off one by one.

After an effective enough start the tiny budget starts to show, the silly script starts to scream at you about how silly it is and the few good bits in the film start to drown in the rising boredom and general ho humness now swamping all before it.

Despite Michael Madsen playing one of the cannibals he actually appears in only 2 scenes and then without the other cannibals.
Vinnie Jones also appears in only 4 or so scenes and again, he is either alone or with only one other cannibal chum.
Obviously this was because the budget only stretched to having these guys there for one day or so.
Jones is hammy rubbish, Madsen is...er...Madsen again and is soon dispatched in a crappy way.

The fact the cannibals (to keep the meat fresh!) only kill one person at a time adds a certain sadism to the proceedings as those left at the end of a particular grocery trip know they will have to go through it all again the next night when the ribs have all been eaten.
But this methodical way of doing things also means that a dull repetitiveness sets in, not helped by some bad acting and small scale of the set-pieces as it's almost all set in a few deserted rooms and corridors with only 2 or 3 people on ever on screen.

Gore wise it starts off very well with a nasty throat slicing and an exceedingly sadistic axe attack (with Madsen enjoying himself!), but after that there is very little gore and little real bloodshed.

A late twist is also ineffective as quite frankly it seemed blindingly obvious ages ago, so the film is playing catch-up to its audience which is never good.
A weak finale rounds things off badly.

Could have been okay...ended up not.



"The Invisible Man" (1933)

Universal's groovy, pretty faithful, adaptation of HG Wells' story of the same name still holds up on many levels.

The FX are still damn good and effective, with no wires on show for the many moving objects, and the clever (and damn hard) invisible man effects are also fine...with the Black and White cinematography ensuring that the ancient matte work looks great thanks to none of those typically awful colour problems.
Hell , look at the truly dire matted Alien FX (a green hued blob on a wall more like) in "Alien 3" to see how even decades later colour problems could ruin many a matte shot.

Away from the great FX we have a fast pace, some great sets, a brilliant support cast of whacked out and theatrical local yokels (with the great Una O'Connor in top camped up form as the shrieking landlady and a top 'comedy cop' performance by E.E. Clive) and a wonderfully mixed brew of slapstick comedy, black comedy and out and out nastiness.

And it is Claude Rains who superbly utilises this mix of horror and humour.
Wrapped in bandages or quite simply not there at all Rains has only his commanding voice to make an impression. And he does.
His psychotic rants, mad cackling and comic singing as he causes mayhem all help to essay one of the most whacked out and downright nasty characters in any film ever.
Something I think people tend to forget.

Today, we mostly think of an invisible man as a purely comical creation or a good guy figure.
Add this to the fact that a man you simply can't see is somehow not as scary or visually impressive as a werewolf, vampire or man-made monster and the character has been rather pushed aside when we talk about great screen villains and threats.
But in reality...The Invisible Man is by far the most deadly figure in any 'Universal' horror film!
A couple of dead yokels or local wenches? Small fry!
Dracula, The Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster are novices in death dealing!
The Invisible Man racks up a body count of...wait for it...122!
By the time he has bashed in heads, rung necks, pushed people of cliffs, sent a man (who screams in a genuinely unsettling way) crashing to his death in a runaway car as well as derailed a damn train...he's bumped of 122 human beings!
As such there is real sadism in the film, as the laughing killer routinely kills people with psychotic glee.

A few plot hiccups (a guy is murdered and next we see that the national press is reporting the murder in blazing newspaper headlines and yet the scene of the body being carried out of the room comes after this press coverage! Must have started to smell a bit!) fail to hurt the film to any degree and in fact the great dialogue given to the Invisible Man is so memorable it bulldozes everything else out of the way.

The embracing of the violence and mass death that is constantly on occurring, when added to the great FX, wonderful cast and generally effective black comic styling, ensures that "The Invisible Man" has dated less than many other 'Universal' horror films and still retains a genuinely horrific edge.

I loved the bike scene in The Invisible Man - genius effects for the time.

I watched The Last Horror Film today, variable print quality throughout but great to have it uncut. Spinell is also on top form a la Maniac.

The Last Horror film was not bad eh B.E.?

Watched NEKROMANTIK the other night......:puke:

Not advisable for bunny lovers nor to eat pickled onions whilst watching.....:eyebrows:

Love "Nekromantik".
Although it was a tough love as I chose to walk around the trade stalls when the bunny/bath scene occurred when I saw it for the first time years ago at a 'Black Sunday' all night festival.

This strange moment of normal morals and tastes was happily a one off though...and I saw it later in full and loved it! Still do.

TLHF is a pretty good watch reaps, cheesier and less gruesome than Maniac but still enjoyable if you don't mind some print fuzz and poor lighting in places.

You didn't like Nekromantik then reaps? ;) If you're a seal lover I would avoid the sequel... :fear:

I recently bought Dying Breed,so I'm glad it sounds like a winner.I watched Trick R Treat & really enjoyed the film which reminded me of a gored up feature length version of the US kids series Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark.It's been overhyped but it's well made & generally well acted if a bit predictable.Not scary in the least,but a fun watch with plenty of atmosphere.MY 14 year old daughter loved it.

Comp Diddy is back!:pound:

I still need to see Trick 'r Treat... :tsk:

I've just finished watching Murder Party - another Halloween themed horror. It was a pretty nice blend of horror and dark comedy, and well made and shot for an indy film.

I watched Black Mama, White Mama last night and thought it was ok. The lack of any real sleaze was dissapointing:tsk:.

Nothing original, but a damn fine wallow in brutality and shocks. I liked it a lot.

You don't honestly think I'm watching The X Factor with the missus do you ?:mmph:

I thought it would be your kind of thing!:party:

I'd only watch it for a glimpse of Danni Minogue & Cheryl Cole in that little dresses.:eyebrows:

I'd only watch it for a glimpse of Danni Minogue & Cheryl Cole in their little dresses.:eyebrows:

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!:tongue1:

Wifey's watching X-Factor in the next room. The sound of the screaming idiotic drones of an 'audience' are annoying me so I've stuck iTunes on to block it out... :pound:

I think someone has just been singing the Ghostbuster's song.

It wasn't Cheryl and Danni in their little dresses was it loops?! Or were you dreaming! :pound: :pound: :pound:

If only! I think it was those two lads everyone hates.

Brown and Darling? :pound:

"Rosemary's Baby"

Hack about 10 minutes out of this and things would improve in leaps 'n' bounds.

There are too many repetitive scenes and events and the whole Satanic plot (if it exists...but I think by the end we are meant to realise it is indeed real)seems rather flawed and long winded in execution.
The plan of the all powerful Lord of Hell has to rely on the complete consumption of a chocolate mousse?

And although I like John Cassavetes he is never, ever, anything other than rather unlikeable and suspicious. With his endless forced smirks and bursts of rage you never, not once, feel this is a trustworthy guy and innocent Husband. He seems to be on the wrong path (indeed the left hand path! LOL!) from the start.
It would indeed have been far more effective (and fascinating) if the clean cut, likable, Robert Redford (who was originally up for the Husband role) had taken the part.
As quite frankly to have had a "Barefoot in the Park" style Redford be exposed as pimping out his young wife to Satan would have been a real shocker...and completely unexpected to a virginal 60's audience.
With Cassavetes though, you think he's up to something as soon as he appears!

This aside though, Polanski has delivered a surprisingly engaging Satanic slow burner that has some engaging characters and a nice air of sinister mystery and dark conspiracy.
Mia Farrow is just the right side of twee and does a great job later on as her character's natural shrewishness valiantly tries to fight back against the all powerful witches plotting against her.

I have to wonder why this still rates an '18' in the UK though. A nicely bloody body aside (and I'm still not sure why and how this character died either...her existence in the plot seems rather strange and unexplained) we have nothing else at all except some mild nudity, Halloween costume Devil claws and the most sedate rape ever filmed.
This is '15' material.

I still refuse to see this as a real classic in 2009 and I put it far behind "The Omen", but it does hold the attention for the most part, is well made and directed and delivers a stonking finale.

I love Rosemary's Baby and actually prefer it to The Omen. Nice review though 42nd. :nod:

Gosh! I wouldn't have imagined anyone could consider The Omen in the same league as Rosemary's Baby, never mind better than it! :lol:

As Bizarre Eye said though, great review! Thanks for posting. I love reading the reviews on here. They're always interesting - even if I disagree!

Cheers.

OOOOH yes! I most certainly put "The Omen" far above "Rosemary".
Pensioners with chocolate mousse and the world's most suspicious husband do not a great Satanic plot make.

I still like it and fully understand and appreciate its historical placing. But this does not move me in any of the ways "The Omen" does.
And yeah...I prefer "The Omen" to "The Exorcist" too! :tape: