Unfortunatly, Zucco has not much to do apart from informing Bela that the lone women are on their way up the road and talking mumbo jumbo at the voodoo ritual.

Next up....

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THE MONSTER MAKER (PRC 1944)

Dr. Markoff is experimenting with a cure for Acromegaly. A disease which deforms the body. While at a piano concert, he spots a girl who is the spitting image of his dead wife. He injects the girls father with the Acromegaly disease and will only cure him if he will get his daughter to marry him....

Entertaining horror. The disease of Acromegaly is a real one, and actor Rondo Hatton had it. Universal used these features for The Creeper in a couple of their horror films. PRC used this disease for Monster Maker and some critics once again see this as using the disease for entertainment and therfore dismiss the film.
But like I said, for me this is entertaining. I have seen the film before and can find no wrong in it. Anyway, in the end it all turns out okay.

I'm a little bit behind in posting my latest viewings so excuse me whilst I try and catch up a bit...

The Euro-goodies of course keep on flowing...

Five Women for the Killer (5 donne per l'assassino) (1974)

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Middling giallo about a reporter who comes home from an overseas assignment to find his baby (who may not actually be his because he's infertile) in the hospital and his wife dead.

One of the the most noticeable things about this one is the abundance of J&B product placement, plus the reveal ending is kind of spoiled by a very obvious 'clue' as to who the killer is near the end... I guess they'd emptied the red herring barrel by then.

Overall it's a pretty engaging film and rather nasty in places - what with our gloved killer going around slashing the wombs of pregnant women. A jazzy score adds to the psychedelic mania on offer and the performances are generally pretty solid.

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65/100


The Weapon, The Hour, The Motive (L'arma, l'ora, il movente) (1972)

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After a sexually promiscuous priest is stabbed to death in a church, it is up to Renzo Montagnani's detective to find the culprit - however, he instead decides to arrest the wrong man (the unscrupulous looking church caretaker) and shacks up with one of the dead priest's ex-lovers. Red herrings aplenty, seedy goings on within the clergy, a weird kid who may have witnessed the murder, and a graphic throat slashing are some of the high-lights of this rather interesting slightly off-beat but stylish gialli. Recommended.

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71/100


The House of the Yellow Carpet (La casa del tappeto giallo) (1983)

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A curious home invasion thriller that turns psychologically giallo concerning Franca and her husband Antonio, who decide to sell a yellow rug which was a gift of Franca's stepfather. One day, while Antonio is out, a strange man calls around saying he wishes to buy the rug. He then holds Franca hostage and says he killed his wife on that same yellow rug. Franca then kills the man, or has she...

Despite a simple, but fairly effective story line, The House of the Yellow Carpet unfortunately falls victim to being made in the '80s where the giallo trend was waning and films, for want of a better term, were becoming more 'TV like' as the Italian studios were no longer interested in pumping money into home grown crime/mystery/thriller films. This is reflected in the overall production quality and the acting. The script is also a little lacking at times, although the plot certainly carries it through to its rather weird conclusion pretty effectively. Whilst not up there with some of the genre greats from the early '70s, this one is certainly a curio that's worth checking out for fans of the genre.

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52/100

The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) (1979)

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Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II. So he refuses the society and his tin drum symbolizes his protest against the middle-class mentality of his family and neighborhood, which stand for all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. However, (almost) nobody listens to him, so the catastrophe goes on...

I'd been avoiding this one for a long time mainly because it sounded pretty shit, but also partly because the cover art on the UK release never grabbed me (how shallow do I sound?), The Criterion cover above is certainly more appealing from a 'catches your eye' kind of standpoint, however does look bizarrely a little Aztec for what is essentially a pre-WWII set West German film. Anyway, in my ongoing quest to fill in some blanks where checking out highly acclaimed classic films are concerned - in amongst all the euro-sleaze, sex, and murder of course - I finally decided to check this one out and was surprised at what a gripping but fun yet emotional ride of a film it really is with great performances all around. It pitches itself (at least it did to me) as an offbeat comedy (some of it towards more of the dark side of the comedy spectrum) coming-of-age drama, however this is counterbalanced by the war trappings and all the horrors contained within them.

A film I probably should have checked out sooner. Never judge a book by its summary as well as its cover, I guess.

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81/100

I have Tin Drum about a year now still not gotten around to watching it i will change that soon now.

All the Colours of the Dark (1972)

Of all the gialli i own Sergio Martino's All the Colours of the Dark is perhaps the most genre bending. For the most part, indeed right up until the final fifteen minutes, this superb film is purely and simply a horror film without any giallo elements whatsoever.

The story concerns Jane, (Edwige Fenech) a young woman living in London, who following personal tragedy is having recurring nightmares of a man with blue eyes stalking her with a knife. From here the film delves deeper into Janes psyche as she is coerced into taking part in a Black Magic rite as all her dreams seemingly become a nightmarish reality.

I really like Sergio Martino as a director. In films like Your Vice is a Locked Room and only I have the Key, Blade of the Ripper, Torso and The Violent Professionals he epitomizes Italian cinema of the 70's. Sex, violence, crime, murder...you name it. In All the Colours of the Dark he seemingly leaves his giallo / crime comfort zone and drags us kicking and screaming into a terrifying dream world of violence and sexually explicit black magic. The film has a disorienting effect the longer it goes on, as Jane's reality becomes lost in her nightmares and gives the viewer a woozy unrelenting confusion as you feel trapped alongside her, seemingly as unhinged as she is. Some of the ritual scenes are genuinely frightening as Fenech is gang raped by the sect members on more than one occasion and the film really gets under your skin due to Martino's eerie surreal camera work and a traumatic score from Bruno Nicolai.

It's only in the final reel that the film sports any resemblance to a giallo thanks to some unconventional plot twists and turns.

The film has a strong cast including a deliciously creepy Julian Ugarte, George Hilton, Nieves Navarro and Ivan Rassimov, but it's the outstanding Fenech, in her best performance from what i've seen, that really holds the film and keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat.

Martino's film is often mesmerizing, extremely gripping and always unpredictable. Quite simply, All the Colours of the Dark is one of my favourite Italian horror films of all time.

Although it's been well over a year since I saw it last, I thought it was brilliant.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts if you do manage to check it out, Nordy. :nod:

Im at a loose end tonight i might throw it on later.

Checkpoint (1956)

Taut industrial espionage thriller starring Stanley Baker, who breaks into an Italian car factory and steals some blueprints for a new fuel system. Naturally things go pear shaped and Baker accidentally kills a guard in a shootout and blows up the factory (as you do) resulting in him being wanted for murder throughout Italy.

Checkpoint doesn't mess about. Running at a tight 80 mins the above all happens in the first ten minutes. The next half hour is all planning how to get Baker out of Italy by his boss, James Robertson Justice. Finally coming up with the idea of Baker joining a race team from Florence to Switzerland.

In a final and rather dramatic last half hour amid some frantically shot driving scenes in the Italian hills, the film becomes a precursor to The Italian job with Baker's final predicament above Lake Lugano.

Although the story as a whole is on the perfunctory side, the film has a good cast including Jess Franco regular Paul Muller, and the road racing sequences and opening fight scenes are superbly done and remarkably exciting. The film is also a vintage race car spotters dream...and in colour too, surprising for a mid fifties British film.

Recommended.

Sounds like my kind of film with the vintage cars i must invest cheers Dem.

But do check out the book, it is very good.

I may very well do that - thanks.

I got it as part of this box set, for around a tenner last Autumn.

Also included is Turn the Key Softly (also very good), The Informers and Sapphire. Neither of which i've seen yet.

The Flounder by Grass is very good too.

Cheers Dem just pooped it in my basket. I see a few other of those sets War and two Film Noir have you seen any of these.

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Hope you have some loo roll handy. :nod:

Be careful of crossovers with those sets.

I didn't get the war one because i bought Operation Amsterdam individually. That was very good. :nod:

Strawberry Media do a good job with the prints. All i've seen of theirs, including The Rocking Horse Winner, has been top notch.

Will that help with my lack of education ?

:lol:

Sadly not, just with the mess.

Anyway who ever heard of an educated hillbilly :lol:

look! Just stop with the hillbilly wise cracks okay!

You'll be making MTDS redundant. ;)

Just trying to fill the void his absence has left in my life he never even writes to me the way he used to :crying:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj10EzNKA2M

The Green Inferno (2013)

The Green Inferno is a cannibal film, a throwback to the 70's exploitation days of Ruggero Deodato, Umberto Lenzi and Sergio Martino. Days adored by fans of gut munching horror and reviled by censors. In many respects these films offered nothing more than a few folks from western civilisation out of their comfort zone and very much out of their depth, trecking through miles of South American rain forest before being captured, tortured and finally eaten by the natives...and The Green Inferno stays true to these roots.

Coming some 30 plus years after the cannibal film explosion, The Green Inferno, along with 2008's Vinyan, makes a nice footnote to a once seemingly dead genre.

Recommended.


Full review here -

https://www.cult-labs.com/forums/cul...tml#post479572

Spectre (2015)

At the end of every Bond film, somewhere in the credits comes the announcement - James Bond Will Return. Well, since the end of Die Another Day some four films back he doesn't actually seem to have made it back to our screens, although with Spectre it seems he might just be waiting at the bus stop to return.

Spectre is a well constructed action film (albeit, again 20 minutes too long) with a few Bond traits added, such as the famous Monty Norman theme on sporadic occasions, together with a some nice one liners from Daniel Craig, and a few gadgets thrown in, and even a hidden base in the desert in which Christoph Waltz's cat stroking uber-villain runs his dastardly operation. It isn't quite a return to the glory days of Goldeneye but ever so slowly we might be getting there. Lets hope Craig catches that bus to Pinewood sooner rather later so that James Bond does return in time for the next film.

A Couple of Beauties.

A short film that reduces Some Like It Hot into a 30 minute showcase for drag artist Bunny Lewis in 1971 Manchester! Pat Coombs and James Beck add star quality with a little cameo from Bernard Manning for local flavour.

I am not sure who would want to watch this today other than fans of Britshit or social anthropologists! Recommended for those brave souls who travel the cinematic landscape without a map and a willingness to watch anything.

It also has Colin Crompton, who was a Manchester stand-up comedian, and is probably best remembered as being the chairman at the 'Wheeltappers And Shunters Social Club'

He does a great joke about a toilet brush!

Do tell. :nod::thankingyou:

A bloke wins a toilet brush in a competition but returns it a week later saying, I think I'll stick with the paper.

Last Shift (2014)

Rookie police officer Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy) is given the unenviable last shift at a police station before it is closed down. Ordered not to leave as she waits for a hazmat team to arrive to collect the final cases of crime scene evidence, strange events start to occur and Jessica realizes she might not be alone in the seemingly deserted police station.

Last Shift is basically a one woman film and stands or falls on that one woman's performance. Luckily Jessica Loren, who was one of the Governor's women at arms in season four of The Walking Dead is an accomplished enough actress to pull it off.

Obviously there are other characters but their scenes last no longer than a few minutes and i do want to avoid spoilers so i'll leave it at that.

The film is low budget but the old police station is a creepily effective set and what money was available was obviously spent on ghostly FX and make up. The film is a slow burner which gradually allows suspense to build, and director Anthony DiBlasi, who also directed the rather good Clive Barker adaptation Dread, makes great use of light and shadow in a very Lewton-esq way, rather than the usual lazy jump scares. Being a big fan of Val Lewton i don't say this lightly, so keep watching the shadows.

The film is flawed but the eerie, unnerving, atmosphere allowed me to forgive and forget.

Far superior to many of the big budget ghost stories doing the rounds such as The Woman in Black: Angel of Vengeance, Last Shift is a ghost story similar to Absentia , money wise, that other low budget film makers should aspire to and realize what is achievable with limited sets and a small cast.

Recommended to all lovers of no-budget film making (You know who you are) and to others i'd say it's worth a risk.

Interesting how the initial setup sounds like eerily similar to Assault on Precinct 13, but then takes a very different turn.

Whichever way, your review has piqued my interest, so I'll look into it.

You've definitely piqued my interest further with your review, Dem. Looking forward to checking it out. :nod:

The star chamber

Michael Douglas stars as a judge who is getting steadily depressed at letting off rapists and killers due to technicalities, eventually his friend (Hal Holbrook) informs him of a group that holds secret trials on guilty crooks and dispensing death penalties on those found guilty. Douglas relishes his membership of the group but begins to have doubts when he discovers two guilty men might actually be innocent.
Mostly The star chamberis an enjoyable piece of tabloid fluff that aspires to more than it reaches. Its premise is basically a straw man set up that shows the worst kinds of crimes getting away thanks to skilful public defenders and legal arguments that would not pass in a real court. The sort of logic that informs the comments pages of most online newspapers. However it attempts to suggests that this might not work as well as people would hope and the end is open to the interpretations of the audience. The blu-ray is locked region A but looks great.

Coma

A rare for the time female led thriller with Genevieve Bujold discovering a conspiracy after patients at a hospital begin falling into unexplained coma's. Its gripping stuff and Bujold manages to hold it together with Michael douglas providing a great supporting role.

Grimsby

Sascha Baron-coens comedy works best imo when he's confronting people who are not in on the joke, as he moves away from that format the comedy suffers and this one is very hit and miss. I must confess I chuckled at the scene where the film stops everything to show Daniel Radcliffe contracting AIDS (i'm going to hell, I know but its funny) for no real reason at all. Beyond that there are a lot of gags that feel forced, jokes plundered from saturday night live sketches (most notably the jepordy sketches) and a central plot that pilfers a lot from kingsman. Its one probably best left for netflix.

Frankenstein (2015)

a lot better than i was expecting, not really a horror but more of a drama with horror elements. a very faithful retelling of the Frankenstein tale set in modern times with a few slight differences the main one being how the creature is created(here a 3D printer). Adam (the creature) looks perfectly normal until he develops cancerous growths so victor his creator decides to have him destroyed. Adam manages escape and on his journey we seethe worst of humanity in their treatment of those who are different. well acted but especially from the actor playing Adam(Xavier Samuel). those looking for a straight out horror movie might well be dis-pointed, but i recommended given it a chance. 8.5/10

next up highway to hell, which is another first time viewing

I have to be cheeky and ask why you bothered even buying a film when you don'e expect much from it?

You start a lot of reviews by saying better than you expected.

I'm not being critical Treb, just puzzled. :)

Because he buys every film made!

if i haven't seen something i usually go in with low expectations, while i was on amazon it caught my eye and as i said if i have not seen it before i low expectations and that's why i say i was not expecting much.

and this

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Hollywood is filled with young hopefuls who while working jobs to make ends meet they dream of the chance to make their impact on anyone with a script or a film in the works. Sarah is one of these people she works in a fast food place as a waitress where young attractive females are forces to wear a more than revealing uniform to entice customers to come in and leer at the girls and maybe stay for the food. When Sarah attends her latest audition she feels like she didnt do herself justice heads to the ladies room to vent her anger upon herself by pulling clumps of hair out of her head. In her rage she does not realise one of the people she auditioned for was outside watching suddenly they seem more than interested in her talents and she is given her first call back in a long time but something is not quite right but in her excitement Sarah does not notice. Her call back takes her to the home of the head of the film company for her final audition but after he suggests that the part is hers in return for sexual favours she is devastated. When her latest set back sinks in she then starts to question should she go back and do what ever she needs to do to land the role.

Its nothing new to hear stories of what people subject themselves to just to get a foot of the ladder to fame and fortune Starry Eyes shows this in a very horrific and sinister way. It also shows how fake,insincere and self centred people in the movie business can be. Apart from Sarahs house mate Tracy who genuinely cares for Sarah the rest of their friends are all extremely unlikeable assholes only out for number one no matter who they have to screw over to achieve their own goals.

Throughout the film we see so many sides to Sarah firstly bubbly ,outgoing and enthusiastic then a more emotionally fragile and vulnerable person all the way to someone with extreme tunnel vision with only her chance at the big time consuming her emotionally and physically and that is where the journey takes an horrific turn. Its hard to say anything else without creating spoilers.

To say that Starry Eyes is a slow burn film would be doing it an injustice for me it had a perfect build up it leads you alone nicely but it never allows you to get too comfortable with its sinister vibe. Its the sort of feeling i love to get from a film that you know there is something nasty constantly in the shadows but not using the cheap jump and scare tactics that i have grown so tired of recently. It is great to see more and more horror films going back to using atmosphere to create tension and unease.

I love every thing about this film and along with It Follows this is one of the best new horror films i have seen in years. Even the poster artwork is beautiful.I cant recommend this highly enough a really excellent film.

9/10

Thanks for the review by the way. :thankingyou:

Glad you liked it. 8.5 is a high score so i'll definitely pick it up in the coming weeks.