Honeymoon (2014)

A film ruined by cheap jump scares this is not. Honeymoon is a masterful blend of psychological horror and the creeping unknown. Featuring a cast of only four and with two of those barely having any screen time the film stands or falls by the talents of it's two leads and thankfully in Harry Treadaway and Rose Leslie the film has talent in abundance. Leslie in particular is magnificent as her performance slowly morphs from 'girl you'd love to be with' to a deeply unnerving individual with a presence of pure screen horror.

Much credit must go to director Leigh Janiak. Not only is there some wonderful outdoors photography, it's also the way Janiek slowly lets you into the life of this newly married couple going off on their honeymoon to a cottage in the woods by a lake. An idyllic scenario where Janiak almost makes the viewer feel like an intruder in the couples bliss. Janiek then, by the half way point brings tension to proceedings with a slow build up which climaxes in shocking circumstances.

It's difficult to discuss the plot because the whole film is so inconclusive. We aren't given any reasons or indeed explanations as events unfold, which for me really topped off the whole atmosphere of dread which envelops the film. There are the occasional clues in the dialogue or onscreen subtleties which may lead to answers yet it feels better not to know. For some i can imagine this being off putting but personally i loved the thought provoking aspect of it all.

Highly recommended.

Fantastic review, Dem.

I've got this on my watch pile too so should be giving it s spin sometime over the coming week.

Excellent review Nos.

I'll really have to pick this up on dvd. I'm pleased Garland did a great job with it. The Beach, both novel and film, are two favourites of mine.

One aspect which is worth mentioning, and I somehow haven't, is how consistently good the screenplay is. Both 28 Days Later and Sunshine (and, to a lesser extent, The Beach) suffer from the third act not being as strong as the rest of the film, whereas with Ex Machina, the third act is arguably the best part of the film.

Yeah, I was worried that it would fall apart in the third act, but I'll just blame Danny Boyle for that instead :D

Blade 8/10

Blade 2 8/10

Big hero 6 9/10

Mill of The Stone Woman (1960)

6/10.

Pretty decent euro horror effort in the same vein of Eyes Without a Face, taking additional inspiration from House of Wax etc.

Would be very interesting to see how this looked on a restored Blu version.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Billy Wilder's classic noirish Hollywood satire sees Gloria Swanson give a depiction of madness in both style and look and as much a movie monster as anything created by Karloff or Lugosi. Coming across as a deranged bride of Frankenstein in a once seen never forgotten performance as a fading silent movie star discarded by the new generation of talkies and left alone to rot in her Sunset Boulevard mansion. William Holden plays the struggling screen writer ensnared in her exquisitely woven trap, valiantly trying to make a clean break from his unlocked prison.

Expertly directed, acted and written, this was a first time viewing for me.

Superb stuff.

It is a magnificent film, and one which doesn't diminish over time and with repeated viewings. I love the voice-over, the cinematography, direction and even the little cameos, such as Buster Keaton who, like Gloria Swanson in 1950, was largely a faded silent movie star.

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Thanks Nos.

I should perhaps have waited until tomorrow to write a slightly better review but i liked it so much i just wanted to say i'd seen it. :lol:

Had an 'End of the World / Civilization' week

Knowing (2009) (Coronal mass ejection) Not a fan of Nic Cage but I quite like this picture.:)

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) (Nuclear Holocaust) Not as good as the previous two, cant say anything about 'Salvation' as I've yet to see it. Great ending scene with a great score.:)

The Day After Tomorrow (2004) (Extreme weather) Again not a fan of Jake Gyllenhaal but this has some good visuals and the opening score is good.:)

These Final Hours (2013) (Asteroid collision) An Australian movie that I had never heard of before wasn't too bad actually. How would you spend your final hours on a doomed Earth?:)

Arctic Blast (2010) (Extreme weather) What a pile of crap do your selves a favour and avoid this picture, it almost makes 'Asylum' pictures look good!:censored:

Contagion (2011) (Viral outbreak) Not a bad movie but also not a good movie. For me this just lacks something.:pop2:

The Day After (1983) (Nuclear holocaust) One of the first movies I ever recorded onto VHS, the other was 'Firefox'. Havent seen this in years and although I thought it was great when it was originally aired it didn't live up to the memory of my first viewing.:(

World War Z (2013) (Viral outbreak) For me a good actioner with a great score and some startling images, hordes of zombies climbing over each other to scale a massive wall!:nod:

Left Behind (2014) (Rapture) Ended the week with another Nic Cage picture and like 'Arctic Blast' another pile of crap. I think Cage was in need of the cash to do this turkey!:censored:

I watched this for the first time last Sunday and also found it very enjoyable.

Absolutely nothing like Brooks source novel though. :rolleyes:

Got it but haven't read it. I have to be in the right frame of mind for reading nowadays. Used to read tons of historical fiction a few years back.

Brave (2012)

Amazing and stunning, beautiful animation in this one,

This should be the movie with a TV programme dedicated to it, not that good but WAY overhyped film called Frozen.

I enjoyed the story in this one so much better, and the music was so good aswell, catchy but good aswell. From what it appears this is a criminally underrated Pixar animation.

9/10

:clap:

Avenging Angel (1985)

Sequel to the 1984 hit? Angel, in which former prostitute, now law student, Angel goes back to the Hollywood streets to get revenge for a friends murder.

Dropping the griminess of the first film, Avenging Angel is a campier and much more fun affair with shoot out's galore and a riotous sequence as aging cowboy Rory Calhoun is bust out of a sanitarium.

The curvy Betsy Russell replaces the original Angel Donna Wilkes for this film and her tougher yet sexy look make this more of an action film than the hard edged thriller that the first film was. Whilst much stylistically has changed what remains is the neon brightness of Hollywood Boulevard which is captured rather well by some stylish camera work.

Although very dated in style and fashion, Avenging Angel remains a more than satisfying ride.

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More classic MacLean action. This one differs quite a lot from the source novel (which is certainly one of MacLean's very best) but manages to be a good thriller in its own right (something that is genuinely rare!). A whopping star cast including Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Jim Brown and Patrick McGoohan bring some class to proceedings and the submarine footage is very impressive. Unfortunately the Arctic climax is let down by obviously stage-bound filming.

Ice Station Zebra review.

Absolutely. Watched this the other night and felt exactly the same. Maybe I felt the ending was a little bit more conclusive than you Dem but even so, a fantastically-paced horror film and a wonderfully-crafted yet worrying metaphor for the worries of marriage and relationships.

RABID DOGS - A trio of vicious hoods are on the run from the polizia in this great late Bava entry. Liked the use of real time and the cramped, claustrophobic minimalism - most of it takes place within the confines of a car. There's a really tense, desperate atmosphere and a bracingly bleak finale. Lean, cynical exploitation with a racing pulse. Highly recommended.

SILENT HILL REVELATION - A pile up of clichés, plot convolutions, info dumps and monsters. It doesn't seem to have a very good rep, but sue me, I liked it. I don't know anything about the original video game, and remember I used to find myself cringing when I'd hear people go "hur hur, yeah that's a bit 'Silent Hill'" about anything with tentacles. For me, it all feels like an off kilter B movie with a bit of money and a lot of stupidity behind it, a (comparatively) rich man's Yuznaesque Lovecraft non-adaption. Sean Bean keeping it real also sells it me, sort of.

SAMURAI COP - What can you say about a movie whose strongest relationship with reality is Robert Z'Dar? You say nothing and move on, or watch agape in stunned and slightly saddened silence. There are too many things wrong with 'Samurai Cop' to even begin. Shots seem artless to the point of seeming cryptic, lighthearted innuendos do battle with sadistic gore, a hospital looks like a vet's waiting room. A close competitor for trash-hood dominion such as 'Miami Connection' has heart and inexplicable verve, whereas watching 'Samurai Cop' is like being drenched in piss and forced to run blindfolded towards a concrete pillar. In other words, I liked it. A cool but desolate experience, my abiding memory of it is the sequence which centres on a huge knitted lion's head whilst two characters explain the plot a bit more. Essential for fans of the shadow zone where bad eighties action becomes nightmarish psychosis.

PHANTASM - Back to reality with trusty old 'Phantasm'. Actually, its weirdness for me grows with every viewing. It's not very often that I sit down with it these days, but when I do I always leave thinking 'wow, that was a lot stranger than I remember'. A trite point, but who these days would make a movie about an oversized undertaker shrinking corpses and reanimating them as dwarves destined for a slave planet? I sometimes think of 'Phantasm' as being a bit like an eighties Italian horror movie from that time when they really did stop making sense, but of course it has that very seventies, American feel to it (although, again, the music sometimes sounds a bit Fulci). Needless to say, this classic which you've all seen countless times is a hundred percent great.

JANIE - Sleazy picaresque from ill fated roughie maestro Michael Findlay follows a creeped out teen en route to her dad's. She is somewhat paternally fixated, but her main problem is that she really digs murder and pretty much kills everyone she encounters (after appropriately icky interludes). One from the Alpha Blue slime tank, 'Janie' is a very odd little film which features a non-stop psych rock soundtrack and a bleak, reverb drenched narration which is constantly droning about "Autumn, your favourite month Janie, when everything turns brown and stiff and dies" etc etc. The editing style is also pretty brown acid, with plenty of frenetic montages to suggest the ego fragmentation of the time (but mainly to recycle and reuse footage, of which there isn't much). Can't see 'Janie' being kitted out with a new Hi-Def makeover anytime soon, although it is quite Vinegar Syndrome in essence. Regardless, this sickly sausage roll should end up in the gobs of those weird enough to suck it.

Findlay didn't direct JANIE, though he has a small part in it, reprising his Richard Jennings character from the FLESH trilogy. Roberta was the cinematographer under her non de plume Anna Riva. The actually director was Jack Bravman who mainly produced skinflicks but most Cult Labbers will know him as the Thortastic director of ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE.

Looks like he did 'Night of the Dribbler', too. Quite a departure from the nihilism of 'Janie'.

Yeah, JANIE is an oddly depressing film. Bravman was also involved with Findlay's SLAUGHTER and the lost THE CLOSER TO THE BONE THE SWEETER THE MEAT which from it's title alone conjures up all kinds of wonders in my mind.

"The Closer the bone, the sweeter the meat!" Is that the motto of the new MTDS porn and witchcraft academy? I can see it in Latin, on a plinth.

I am looking for a change in career, and after reading yesterday that people are charging top dollar for pubic hair removal by magick( I'm honestly not making this up), it could be my way forward. There is a link on one of the last posts on the Wicked Witches thread for this and more if anyone is interested in an astral back, sac and crack.

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A man is left in the middle of the desert handcuffed. It's the near future and a mixture of zombies and nuclear war has turned everything very post apocalypse. He's picked up by a group of survivors and quickly wins their trust only for the group to clash with a raider army that our hero once belonged to.

Objectively this is a terrible film yet I sort of enjoyed it. The acting is mostly amateur so the main villain is a scenery chewing mess. This comes with some laughs to be had, especially with his arch villain dialogue..."when I want your opinion I'll rape it out of you!" Also for a post Apocalypse, the infrastructure seems to be relatively intact, almost as if the film makers looked at their s&*t hole new mexicio/nevada town and decided it looked apocalyptic enough, in spite of the buildings all looking quite clean. The 'zombie hordes' are intermittent at best and the film feels somewhat longer than it actually is.

That said it tries to go for a VHS era cheap and nasty feel, we get a small role from Fred 'the hammer' Williamson, and i've seen far worse in the low budget zombie movie sub genre (I still remember when most zombie films were shot on actual video by guys with mullets) So if its a quid in a charity shop then it might be worth a punt.

Showed mate Eugenie (1970, JF). He dug it.

Also watched Vampyr (1932, Carl Th. Dreyer) again. I seem to watching/reading a lot of Dream stuff at the moment. Which makes up for no decent "visions" of my own harumph. The film gets eerier every time I watch it btw.....;)

Do you have the Masters of Cinema release from Eureka? The Guillermo del Toro commentary is one of the best I have ever listened to.

Aye, tis that release. He is rather, er passionate about the film, I'l give you that ;)

I watched it immediately after the commentary finished, and found it to be a completely different experience, spotting all the things del Toro referred to, making it a richer and more rewarding experience.

I just finished watching a 2012 film called Resolution. Not sure if anyone's seen it too as I haven't read any mention of it before but by God it was good.

It's the "story" (you'll understand the quotation marks if you've seen it) of a guy called Mike who spends a week trying to sober up his drugged up friend through the cold turkey route. Mike handcuffs him to the radiator of this log cabin, that he squats in, and vows to help him through the ordeal but not is all as it seems as strange encounters gradually occur throughout the week.

I found it to be a real breathe of fresh air in the horror genre, something that can't be said to the majority of the latest offerings. It was well acted, shot, directed and written. A real intelligent piece of film making that I'm sure you guys and girls would enjoy so I'd recommend checking it out if you can.
The way I came across it was reading an article on upcoming horrors of 2015 and found an interesting one called Spring, which is the latest film from the creators of Resolution, so I'm really looking forward to seeing that too.

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Puppet on a Chain (1971). One of Alistair MacLean's very best novels (if you haven't read them, you really should, still stand-out today as some of the very best thrillers ever written and there is something really good about a proper old fashioned espionage story without all the endless modern techno-babbel).

MacLean co-scripted the film himself, as he did for the equally good When Eight Bells Toll film and he is happy to streamline his plot to fit into a cinematic runtime, while retaining the grim tone and clever twists.

The new, but very welcome addition to the storyline is a boat chase through the Amsterdam canals, an absolutely fantastic sequence that is worth watching the film for on its own. If you like thrillers or intelligent spy films then this is a must see.

A full review, featuring pictures and a quote from the book, because I'm so classy - Puppet on a Chain review.

I picked up the Swedish DVD of this film back in about 2007, there is now a nice shiny US widescreen release from Scorpion, although it is very slightly cut, excised of a couple of topless dancers from the background of a nightclub scene which are present on the International release. Still it is the better release to get. I'm holding out for a Blu-Ray though... :rolleyes:

Girls Nite Out (1982)

This is one thrill less, anaemic, sorry excuse for a slasher film. The killer wears a dancing bear costume with huge doe eyes, which done with a bit of competence could have made for a weirdly creepy killer. Sure it's a daft costume but so is the big bunny suit in The Bunnyman Massacre films, yet that works, albeit in a grungy low budget sort of way.

The film lacks any real blood or shock value of any kind due to a script that's far too interested in the inane drunken ramblings of the students on show than it is in ramping up anything resembling tension.

The acting is just so-so with nobody coming across as any sort of hero or heroine, and the only star on offer is Hal Holbrook who sleepwalks through proceedings as he's on the phone behind a desk for 90% of his screen time.

This was the second time i've watched this and i still can't figure out the title and it's relevance to whats on show as a large portion of the film focuses on guys and there is no girls night out at all.

Sold!!!

Not really, but despite your scathing review I am mildly intrigued to check this one out...

I wish you luck. :nod:

I'll probably need it... however chain-watching films from Nightmare USA has quite possibly readily mush-ified my mind and damaged my senses of reasoning enough to prepare me I feel... :nod:

Big Hero Six (2014)

9/10

A SERBIAN FILM. No point going into plot details as I am sure people have either seen it or have refused to watch due to content. Anyhow, I quite enjoyed this rather muddled and towards the end slightly ludicrous film that comes on all serious pseudo art house but really is the wacked out viagra and amphetamine beast the protagonist becomes. Personally, I did not find it shocking or offensive, there is a lot worse out there in horrorland and the legit end of extreme porn. That all the shock scenes are so well filmed and are either seen through the filter of a film within a film or in heightened drugged out states dilutes the impact of the shock reveals. I particularly liked the director's ramblings regarding art and life that came across to me not so much as political statements but more as a piss take on transgressive films in general. On the downside, the earlier porn scenes could have at least been real to give the snuff scenes more of an edge at the end. On a final note, did anyone else note Cult Labs own Ron in the film, getting one in the eye in the name of art!

Cheers Boo.

Hannie Caulder (1971)

One of that rare(ish) breed - The British western. Raquel Welch leads a great cast - Robert Culp, Christopher Lee, Ernest Borgnine and Jack Elam in this brutal revenge western.

Welch is raped and her husband murdered by Borgnine and his two partners, Elam and Strother Martin. Out for revenge she is helped and trained in the ways of a gunfighter by Culp and Lee. There's much bloody mayhem before the final showdown with the three killers, and despite it being a tad formulaic, the film has one or two different aspects, (such as part of it being filmed on the sea shore) which make this fast paced blood spiller a film which remains memorable forty odd years later.

TEMPLE WOOD: A QUEST FOR FREEDOM. Micro budget short film that firmly falls into the Wyrd of Britannica. A student goes looking for his teacher at an ancient stone circle...This starts out with a major Lovecraft vibe of a student trying to locate his teacher both physically and metaphysically via a journey and the teacher's journal. This is a fun little film that starts off in a comedic way but gradually gets darker and wyrder as it goes along. I won't say much more as not to spoil things for people but will say that the ending reminded me of Peter Gabriel era Genesis filtered through a dark gay lens.

The director has posted it for free viewing here.https://vimeo.com/55674524

THE SKELETON KEY. Kate Hudson is an end of life nurse caring for John Hurt in this hokey slice of Southern Gothic dripping with hoodoo rites and all manner of jiggery pokery. Sadly the most sinister thing about this is the way the director manages to film almost all of Kate Hudson's scenes with her dressed only in knickers and T-shirt. The hoodoo scenes are rather fine until the magick slips into the grimoire tradition that isn't really hoodoo but is visually more impressive with magick circles and the like. That said, it is nice to see a form of magick from the African diaspora being used in a positive light as well as in a negative manner. Worth a look if it crops up on TV or if you wish to see Kate Hudson's arse every 5 minutes.

I really enjoyed The Skeleton Key. That said i've only watched the dvd once when it first came out so perhaps another viewing is in order.

Yeah, it passes the time pleasantly enough and in it's own way felt quite old fashioned with it's lack of gore and special effects which is no bad thing once in a while.