WSKTOW exploits modern British gangster films as equally as it does the fears of Middle England. It is worth watching purely for the very obvious fun Ogilvy is having playing against type.

It's on my Lovefilm rental queue, so I'll just have to wait.

La Poison (1951)

http://primer.a.ltrbxd.com/resized/f...g?k=963c1f907c

http://40.media.tumblr.com/72a539819...emvwo1_500.jpg

77/100

It might be known as Bloody Movie. The Retromedia dvd is.

It's one i'll certainly watch again.

La Vallée (1972)

http://skyfall.a.ltrbxd.com/resized/...g?k=1483048d27

Viviane, a French Consul's wife, is in New Guinea to find exotic feathers for export to Paris. She encounters four European travelers who are en route to 'La Vallée': The Valley, high in the Guinean mountains, is shown on maps as 'Obscured by Clouds' and is beyond their previous experiences. Viviane joins their trek to find rare feathers and soon becomes entwined in their journey. Their extended stay with the Mapuga tribe brings a denouement between western and indigenous values before their final quest toward the 'Valley of the Gods'.

A detached, sometimes dream-like voyage through the stunning forest landscapes of New Guinea complemented by a trippy Pink Floyd soundtrack.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_prod...-by-clouds.jpg

69/100

Trio of short reviews:

Insidious:Chapter 2-Not as good as the first one, but still enjoyable enough

Insidious:Chapter 3-Not as good as the first and second ones, but still enjoyable enough (better than Shit Follows and the Babasfook ;) )

Ted 2-Loved it, just like the first one, it had me laughing out loud throughout

That's enough for today, I'm exhausted after writing these epic length reviews! :thankingyou:

Interesting...got Insidious as a free bonus disc when i bought Sinister from Asda a few years back. Insidious was the better film. The Babadook is simply brilliant and pisses from on high upon both Insidious and Sinister. I was really looking forward to the first Ted when it came out, was thoroughly disappointed with it though.

But what a year.
Giallo A Venezia and The Moomins on TV!!
I do mean every film as well
Am just being lazy doing mostly English Language first haha

;)

I saw The Lady in the Van at the cinema yesterday and hoped it wasn't spoiled by the numerous different trailers I'd seen over the month or so it had been previewed. Thankfully, it wasn't and there is much more to it than the moment in the trailers.

Maggie Smith is brilliant as the titular character whilst Alex Jennings is remarkable as two different versions of Alan Bennett: the one who writes about things and the one who does things (they are on screen at the same time and, for what it's worth, I thought his performance was better than Tom Hardy doing a similar thing in Legend). It's a film full of memorable lines and scenes; some funny, some almost heartbreaking in their pathos.

The fact that it is, as the caption at the beginning says, 'a mostly true story' and was filmed in the house in which Alan Bennett lived at the time (the real Alan Bennett makes a cameo appearance at the end) adds to the sense of authenticity which is so prevalent in Bennett's writing.

Thankfully, it has stayed around in cinemas longer than I expected, but will probably disappear in the next fortnight, so catch it while you can – highly recommended.

THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART 2 - THHE2 has a pretty abysmal reputation. I'd never seen it before though, so when I saw it sitting there in CEX wearing a £1 price tag, I felt obliged to check it out. Well, I'm struggling to find many positives to report, although I think the received wisdom about THHE2 being unapproachably bad is wrong. It is however a very mediocre effort, and, where the original was raw and abrasive enough to hit the mark as part of horror's new crude wave in the seventies, the sequel only plays on established slasher flick themes and motifs and comes across all the duller for not going anywhere with them. The obligatory bunch of kids are out in the desert somewhere, trying to reach a motorcycle tournament. Of course, after they take that ill advised short cut they end up in the domain of the bad guys – the latter being two cannibal mutant survivors from the first film. Some stalking and killing ensue, but not enough to redeem what's essentially a pretty boring flick. There are some aspects which make THHE2 worthwhile for me personally – the motorcycling element seemed really period and in that sense as interesting as a bad eighties fashion statement, Michael Berryman is always a 'pleasure' the behold, and a slightly insane high point is reached when a dog has a flashback. But all that amounts to pretty slim pickings, really. Seeing this, you might find it difficult to believe that Craven's game changer was just around the corner.

ROCK AND ROLL NIGHTMARE – I don't know much about John Mikl Thor, apart from that he's the star of 'Rock'n'Roll Nightmare'. AND that maybe, just maybe, he holds the keys to an existence where all reality is an illusion and where camp metallers lie in wait to do perpetual battle with satan. That's what he seems to be telling us here. Let's just hope it's only a movie. What a movie, though. 'RnR Nightmare' is a bad film. Mind-bendingly bad. You pick up really quickly that a film is setting its stall out when one of its opening salvos is a two minute shot of a van driving down a road. Or, to be fair, a series of roads. That's enough to propel it towards the avant-garde. I don't think Bela Tarr would make a movie about a rock band trying to record an album in a house full of novelty store demons and tiny horror munchkins which look like they belong in something from eighties children's ITV, though. But that's how 'R'nR Nighmare' erm rolls. The sense of soulless emptiness captured by that overlong van driving footage is elsewhere in abundance. John Thor's rockers, who are, it goes without saying, excruciating non-actors of the rankest degree, sit around arguing about where they're going to sleep, when they're going to wash the dishes, where one of them has zzzzzz. It should just be boring, but it's mesmerising. Occasionally they do a rock number, for example, the song of theirs which appears to be entitled 'Rock'. That's pretty brazen. After a while, demonic occurrences happen in a matter of fact kind of way before the devil turns up and John gives us his spiel about the entire film having been a projection of his mind etc etc. The devil seems a bit freaked out, all the more so when John strips down to his steel loin cloth and prances around like an over satisfied middle aged cat man with too many muscles. John wins the battle, but, seriously, who could not win with that kind of back-up? A mad anti-classic, and hits all the inexplicable bum notes that its shot on video follow up 'Intercessor' failed to get near.

THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS – I have a real fondness for Lucio Fulci's less well regarded movies, particularly those ones he did for Italian TV in the late eighties. They might be hack jobs, but THOC and its companion piece, 'Sweet House Of Horrors', are full of trademark Fulci weirdness and his contempt for well observed realism. In fact, both of them are pretty warped. THOC features an elderly couple who live in a stately home full of (can you guess what it is yet?) clocks. A younger couple, the previous occupants of the house, lie on slabs with long nails sticking through their throats. The couple's maid gets stabbed in the crotch with a pole, some criminals burst in and murder the old couple, time goes backwards and it all gets a bit freaky. In may ways as baffling as something like 'The Beyond', THOC also throws in some surprisingly raw violence for a TV movie. There's some really nice imagery, too – the pendulum of one of the clocks swinging to a halt when the old man dies, his image reflected in the clock's brass surfaces etc etc. Aside from all this, there's the obvious pleasure of late eighties aesthetics, punchy electronic sounds and overall brashness. I say it's a winner, and this is after I watched my crummy Vipco non-anamorphic effort. I can't imagine THOC ever getting bells and whistles on blu-ray, but it deserves a nicer presentation.

I too have a soft spot for THOC, keep it up sir!!

Christmas Horror Marathon #4
 

Camp Dread (2014)

Camp dreadful.

:xmaslol:

I refuse to waste words on it.

Christmas Horror Marathon #5
 

The Night Has Eyes (1942)

A young teacher visits the remote Yorkshire moors where she believes her best friend disappeared a year ago. Caught in a storm she and a female companion get shelter at an old lonely house, home to a reclusive pianist, traumatised by his experiences in the Spanish Civil war. Although he appears welcoming, the teacher soon suspects they are in danger and their host had something to do with her friends disappearance.

Despite that lengthy opening paragraph i have only touched on the story. The Night Has Eyes is a superb old dark house horror film from a time when Britain didn't produce horror except as an afterthought.

I really enjoyed every minute of this atmospheric thriller. From the opening storm on the moors to the discovery of the old mansion and the introduction of Huddersfield's finest in James Mason. Mason can do creepy and powerful to a tee and could really have made a name for himself as a horror star however better things were to come for him in his career. He is definitely the star of this show, his brooding antihero is an absolute joy to watch.

The story rattles along and viewer interest is always maintained even as the obligatory doomed romance develops between the pianist and the teacher. The film looks superb. The cinematography captures the gloom of the Yorkshire moors making even the studio bound scenes seem chilling as does the accompanying score.

Anyone with a love for old dark house movies with shadowy passage ways and locked rooms, howling winds, thunder storms, dubious anti hero's and general murder and mayhem, all wrapped up in glorious crisp black and white photography should really check this out.

The dvd from Network / BFI looks and sound stunning throughout.

DOUBLE GAME (1978). Italian crime flick with George Hilton and lots of pointless violence and terrible acting/dubbing. Nice 'Scope photography but otherwise nothing really special or much positive to report plot-wise, there's a 1980 sequel of sorts from the same director with (save for Hilton) much the same cast in different parts that I'll watch eventually.

Mr. Vampire (1985)

http://skyfall.a.ltrbxd.com/resized/...g?k=7a62a86674

The planned reburial of a village elder goes awry as the corpse resurrects into a hopping, bloodthirsty vampire, threatening mankind. Therefore, a Taoist Priest and his two disciples attempt to stop the terror.

Bonkers comedy/horror/martial arts hybrid that I enjoyed revisiting after such a long time.

http://36.media.tumblr.com/48f474eec...emvwo1_500.jpg

65/100

He was a cartoon heavy metal 'star' back in the 1980's, who overdosed on Manowar and Valhalla!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG93h50kYCo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z46CgQIaQ0o

Inherent Vice (2014)

http://skyfall.a.ltrbxd.com/resized/...g?k=95d65fb84d

In Los Angeles at the turn of the 1970s, drug-fueled detective Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend.

I am surprised at some of the rave reviews this film has gotten, although at the same time I'm not surprised in the slightest with it being a Paul Thomas Anderson film, and whom, along with a clutch of other directors (e.g. Malick, Anderson) seems to attract glowing praise in everything they do whether it be their latest cinematic achievement or their latest bowel movement - and this is coming from a fan of Magnolia by the way.

Inherent Vice whilst a well-acted (especially by Phoenix) and engaging film (to a point) is also overlong, more than a little self-indulgent and purposefully incoherent at times - to the point where my cynicism reared its ugly head and declared that the film purposefully wanted to create a malapropism of itself and be known as Incoherent Vice. The incoherence does seem to hit home like a sledge hammer rather than taking the form of naturally flowing weirdness (the latter being what I'm most used to so maybe it's just me). There is plenty (like with most of PTAs films) subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) humour here and despite the film's shortcomings and gooey indulgence disguised core it's hard not to enjoy for the most part - although I'll add that at times I truly believed I was watching The Big Lebowski. ;)

http://49.media.tumblr.com/cacd62310...1r5ro1_400.gif

This is a difficult one to rate though for sure, so I'll use my age old adage of 'if in doubt make it a 7'... at least for now.

Didn't he also fight Nik Turner from Hawkwind playing Loki on The Tube?

ah, The Tube. I wish I had taped more of them when they were on. It's on my 'wish list' of programmes to come out on DVD, but due to musical copyright issues I cannot see happening you groovy f@£kers! (To quote a certain Mr J Holland).

ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS 2.

Not dissimilar to deliberately shiting yourself and not for the first time either. Fun, stupid and very messy.

Christmas Horror Marathon #6
 

Island of the Living Dead (2006)

A boat load of treasure hunters become stranded on a mysterious island only to become victims to the recently risen living dead.

What a mind**** of a film this is. Bruno Mattei what were you thinking? This is amazingly bad yet also so weirdly watchable. It's difficult to know where to start.

No. It's not. The dubbing. Never have i seen dubbing as bad as this. It's worse than one of those fan made bad lip reading YouTube videos for show such as The Walking Dead.

The zombies are on a par with Zombie Lake in the make up dept, alright not as bad but you see where i'm heading. When one zombie lurches into shot we see the back of it, it then turns round slowly, leers at the camera then emits a lions roar. One of the treasure seekers then decides to partake in some of the feeblest martial arts on a zombie that barely flinches, all this after Mattei deliberately lifts the whole 'They're coming to get you Barbara' from Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Laughably he also nicks the eye stabbing sequence from Zombie Flesh Eaters but clearly didn't have the budget to show the piercing so lazily has someone walk over and just casually push the about to be stabbed girl away to safety. The borrowing from other, better, films is over the top in fact. Nightmare City, Tombs of the Blind Dead, they're all here.

To his credit Mattei's location work in the Philippines is excellent as are some of the gore FX work, the flamenco dancing zombie however is not.

The shot on video look doesn't help either.

This is so bad...you have to watch it!

There is actually a DVD of The Tube available - The Tube - Series 1 (2 Disc Set) [1983] [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Various: DVD & Blu-ray - but to quote my review on Amazon: "Disappointing. Too many comedy skits and interviews and not enough music. Then, to add insult to injury, the footage of Twisted Sister has been edited, so we do not get Dee Snider removing his make-up"

Watched a few bits lately.
Escape Plan, Stallone plays Ray Breslin a security analyst who basically makes a living testing the security of prisons by going in undercover and breaking out.
He takes a job going into a new maximum security top secret government super prison. Only someone's set him up and once in he's cut off from the outside world and left to rot.
He teams up with a fellow inmate by the name of Emil Rottmayer played by another obscure 80's action star by the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger, you may have heard of him.
Vinnie Jones does his usual nasty British hardnut thing as head guard and Jim Caviezel plays the warden.
All in all a reasonably entertaining actioner that for me unfortunately all starts to fall apart in the last 20 mins.

Hawk The Slayer
Weird 80s fantasy adventure.
Pretty crap really, but in a good way.
Evil wizard Voltan decides to kidnap a nun. Demanding a ransom.
The nuns seek help from hero and charisma vacuum Hawk played by an American actor called John Terry who i vaguely recognise from other stuff. Hawk sets out to recruit a band of warriors to aid him, a witch, a Giant, an Elf, a Dwarf and a crap guy with one hand.
This motley crew go off to raise the ransom money needed.
Turns out though that Hawk and Voltan happen to be brothers and they already have major beef with one another. You see Voltan has been seeking the secret of their fathers power for years and ended up killing the guy. He also killed Hawks missus. Did i mention this guy was played by a manic Jack Palance and he just seemed to like killing people?
Populated by a whole bunch of famous British actors this comes across as a sort of Carry On film if the team ever decided to tackle the fantasy genre. Only there's not really any jokes. Bernard Bresslaws Giant (read 'tall bloke') is probably the most amusing character and his relationship with the Dwarf (yeah, 'short bloke') is probably one of the best things in the film. The Elf, named Crow is also an interesting character, think micro budget Legolas. The special effects used to make him shoot arrows fast is priceless.
The music is all over the place, an odd mix of disco and Tangerine Dream lite techno.
I enjoyed it but I'm not sure its particularly recommendable.

Back to the Zatoichi-thon.

Zatoichi's revenge.

zatoichi heads back to his old stomping grounds to visit masseur teacher. He soon discovers his old master has been murdered and his daughter has been put in the local Brothel to work off her father's 'debts'. It turns out the local magistrate is in bed with the local Yakuza boss and they are busy keeping the local whore house stocked with the local female population while fleecing everyone else. Seeing red Z decides to tackle things head on and the film climaxes with a big sword fight as he cuts down waves of goons. This one is well orchestrated, violent and hugely entertaining.

Zatoichi and the doomed man

Z finds himself in jail for gambling. While in the clink waiting for a flogging a man in a neighbouring cell asks him to help clear his name before he is executed. On release Z heads off and finds himself the victim of a monk who turns out to be a scam artist who steals his identity and lands him in trouble. He soon begins to put two and two together...
This one is one of the minor entries in the series, short, sweet and well made. Not one of the best or one that really stands out, its picturesque seaside setting and swordfights make it worth watching.

Zatoichi & the chess expert.

Heading by sea to a temple island village, our blind masseur befriends a chess playing Samurai and lands himself in trouble with a gang of Yakuza he fleeces in a dice game. The Yakuza try and jump Z and a young girl is injured as a result. Z heads out and gets some medicine for the girl, also encountering a group hunting a samurai who killed their father. The various plot threads set up begin to come together as the film reaches a bloody climax. This one is great, the tense relationship between Zatoichi and the chess playing samurai, fuelled with the prospect of potential sudden violence is well delivered and engaging. The burgeoning relationship between the young girls mother and Z is also tragic and tender.

Excellent stuff, keirarts! Strangely, on first glance, I read this as being a film about the blind masseur and a renowned authority on coagulated milk protein!

I haven't watched a film in ages :( I'm hoping I can watch some this weekend I've been busy with computer programming homework and Star Trek TNG and the most awkwardly embarrassing to watch episode of The Apprentice ever, I'm not usually one to cringe but I watched this week's episodes behind my hands :lol:

Nekromantik 2 (1990, Jorge Buttgereit)
It came!! And so did I.....not!! Certainly more of a "film" than its predecessor, this tale of redemption and honey looks rather quaint nowadays to be honest.....having only watched the dvd I can say that there is grain, but not as much as I expected. Great to learn that the male lead is a rather fey Mancunian!! Fey isn't used enough today, so that's my next crusade!! Ha ha.

'Mondo Cannibal' is another unbelievably shite offering from Mattei's twilight, and has a similarly inexplicable "is he making it this bad on purpose?" vibe to it. A real mind warper.

I've still got his final zombie effort to go. Zombies the Beginning.

Might leave that until next year. :xmascan:

Blanche (1971) - What is it about this movie that's so addictive? It's a medieval set, Jacobean type tragedy played out deliberately and with none of the transgressive Borowyck sex and violence . For me it's the obsessive attention to detail, especially the numerous cutaway shots that illuminate the whole - a monkey in trousers peeking out the frame, a cowled monk sneaking some sausage, a row of polished apples sitting on a mantlepiece - it really convinces you you're in a weirdly different world. This trip through WB's cv. has notched 4/4 so far - this is the best movie so far although Dr Jekyll is still the most fun!

One of the many highlights from the last film I watched:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CizU8aB3c8

Turbo Kid. In a post-apocalyptic future (1997, amusingly, seemingly in a nod to T2) a young lad gets by reading comic books and trying to avoid trouble, only to be forced into a fight when he meets a new girl who is then unceremoniously abducted by heavies working for a local tyrant (Michael Ironside). A not entirely unsuccessful attempt to make a 1980s movie in 2015, there's some fun to be had in Turbo Kid - especially the Bad Tasteesque wildly OTT blood and gore - and the dippy chick is cute in a weird sort of a way, but it never really manages to turn into anything particularly special. You might as well just watch a real 80s movie, really.:hohoho:

Pickup on South Street (1953)

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A pickpocket unwittingly lifts a message destined for enemy agents and becomes a target for a Communist spy ring.

A solid noir-thriller from Fuller which blends gritty violence with a criminally-entwined romance. The dialogue really adds a lot to the plot here with plenty of slang that will have you reaching for your Noir Thesaurus. The cast are all believable in their various roles and Jean Peters simmers as the femme fatale caught in between Widmark's pickpocket and the Commies who hired her. As Noir goes, this is upper tier and one of my viewing high-lights of the year so far.

http://49.media.tumblr.com/8f4733f0a...66kho1_500.gif

81/100

Wrong Cops (2013)

http://skyfall.a.ltrbxd.com/resized/...g?k=b5294c79d4

If you're familiar with Quentin Dupieux and enjoy his work (especially Wrong) then you don't need to read any further and you can just go off and enjoy Wrong Cops, but for those who aren't overly familiar with him or his films this is a spin-off from his film Wrong and revolves around a group of amoral, lawless, and generally screwed-up cops from Wrong's universe. Dupieux's style is certainly Marmite in flavour, and his comedy style whilst zany also resembles the particular yeast extract food-stuff in colour as well. Overall this was a fun ride and the mix of ridiculous situations, deadpan comedy and general weirdness really played to my sensibilities as I knew it would; even if it was a little too smug with itself at times... however that's just Dupieux I guess. Marilyn Manson also has a bizarre little cameo too which was a nice surprise.

Recommended for fans of all things f*cked up who like their comedy and their films a little bit off to side of the beaten path.

http://www.ew.com/sites/default/file...?itok=LmnzJ9FP

74/100

Christmas Horror Marathon #7
 

Count Yorga, Vampire (1970)

Robert Quarry plays Count Yorga. A Bulgarian vampire who sets up home in an eerie castle in the LA hills.

An enjoyable modern day vampire romp whose closest comparison films would be Hammer's Dracula AD 1972 and The Satanic Rites of Dracula.

Robert Quarry makes an engaging Count although he's no Christopher Lee who is the definitive Dracula in my opinion. The film, although low on gore, ups the Counts sensuality to levels i feel Lee would have been uncomfortable with. As an example, Yorga drinks the blood of a young woman and the camera lingers on the bite, then on a bloody kiss and back to more blood sucking in a lengthy scene which i thought worked well.

Interestingly the film was originally conceived as a soft core porn film and some elements still seem to remain, in particular with the female cast members. However there is no nudity whatsoever but the editing at times leaves something to be desired with an almost clunky shoddiness that makes you wonder exactly what was left on the cutting room floor.

Weirdly although i said the film was low on gore one sequence lingers in the memory where a vampire girl eats a cat. It's quite shocking and feels out of place in this PG rated vampire yarn.

The film did well at the box office and a sequel - The Return of Count Yorga soon followed.

Duffer (1971)

http://zardoz.a.ltrbxd.com/resized/f...g?k=5377ec2f35

Duffer is a black and white movie set in a declining Notting Hill with pretty much no dialogue spoken by those taking part in it. Almost everything is spoken as a commentary by Duffer, a lost teenage boy whose life bounces between homosexual and heterosuxual worlds.

Every once in a while a film comes along that just blows you away whether it be mentally, emotionally, or even physically and all/any combination of the above. For me, Duffer was one of those rare films and despite having watched it late last night my brain and blood and skin - in fact my very bones - are still swimming and swarming with its images messages and sounds. The 'Flipside' collection from BFI is no stranger to the weird, wonderful and offbeat but Duffer is just in a class all on its own. Difficult to recommend to anyone but yet essential for everyone who has a vested interest in cinema. Eraserhead for the Flipside generation.

https://41.media.tumblr.com/0db271f1...emvwo1_500.jpg

93/100

13 Sins.
A timid insurance salesman faced with impossible debts and family responsibilities agrees to take part in a bizarre game requiring him to complete 13 tasks going from the silly to the downright horrific.
For some reason the film seems familiar but i can't think of any major comparisons. Maybe Fincher's The Game.
Anyway great fun i really enjoyed it and it was very funny in parts.