I've also recently watched The Witch and would consider myself among it's fans. I was worried that the 'Black Philip' scene would be cringe-worthy but it wasn't, I thought it was pretty well done actually. The only bad point I have against it really is that I thought that the whole puberty/sexuality metaphor was a bit heavy handed. Otherwise a great film!

The kid playing Caleb was really good, and Kate Dickie as mother was as good as she always is.

I, Madman (1989)

*** out of *****


12 Angry Men (1957)

****1/2 out of *****


Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs (1974)

**** out of *****


Basket Case 2 (1990)

***1/2 out of *****

Last week's viewings...

Tonnes of '80s slasher trash, another fun NZ horror-comedy, and Matt Damon growing potatoes in his own shit.



Corpse Eaters (1974)

https://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m...73sho1_500.png

21/100


Lucifer (AKA: Demon Spirit) (1987)

http://www.horreur.com/sites/default...jpg?1328822274

32/100


Blood Beat (1983)

http://dailygrindhouse.com/wp-conten...-beat-1983.jpg

48/100


The Refrigerator (1991)

http://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx...x9t0o1_500.jpg

30/100


Twisted Nightmare (1987)

https://66.media.tumblr.com/90dd26d2...97xbo1_500.jpg

28/100


Housebound (2014)

https://67.media.tumblr.com/257b9007...xh0uo1_500.gif

71/100


The Demon (1981)

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZI5kllwv0O0/hqdefault.jpg

29/100


Rush Week (1989)

https://66.media.tumblr.com/752b53f2...fe6go1_500.jpg

51/100


Offerings (1989)

http://www.sentex.net/~dirtygirlrevi...apeimage_2.png

28/100


Night Shadow (1989)

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pqNs4Q9T9gs/hqdefault.jpg

46/100


Demonwarp (1988)

https://horrorpediadotcom.files.word.../demonwarp.jpg

50/100


The Martian (2015)

https://66.media.tumblr.com/2832fc42...4fe1o1_400.gif

56/100


Open House (1987)

https://horrorpediadotcom.files.word...ng?w=450&h=227

54/100


Berserker (1987)

http://www.hysteria-lives.co.uk/hyst...berserker2.jpg

40/100

THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF-Terrified me as a pup,quite laughable now-but still a great nostalgic watch!
Makes a great double bill with BAD MOON.
Scream Factory's Blu is superb!

I'm positive the BBC screened this back in the late seventies/early eighties late one Friday or Saturday night.....if not,well must've been the naughty pirate man who used to come round the doors.....

All we need now is Stephen King's Silver Bullet on Blu,another Lycanthrope guilty pleasure!

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE-Wasn't holding much hope for this,but was pleasantly surprised.
Draws you in and keeps your attention.A keeper.:nod:

SCALPS-If you like slashers of the Hills Have Eyes variety (without the intensity) then you'll like this.The Red Indian demon/creature is rather good and the film has some cheap splatter.

Talking of cheap splatter......

DRIVE IN MASSACRE-88's disc includes a 65 minute cut of the film which trims most of the yawnsome chat.Makes for a tighter,punchier viewing experience.
Watch out for Hills Have Eyes Janus Blythe flashing her impressive acting assets!:happy:

88's Discs are the best both films have ever looked.

The Purge: Anarchy.

The Punisher escapes from New York, sort of...excellent follow up that eclipses the original in every way. Recommended.

BC Butcher.

Some people tart about dressed as cave people.

@Bizarre_Eye

I didn't mind Berserker at all. However you were possibly a little jaded due to all the other 'quality' product you'd watched beforehand.

Glad you rate Housebound. It sits in my DD watch pile.

Housebound is excellent Dem.

Surprised by that score. Out of all the films I saw at the cinema last year, it was one of my favourites and is a 4/5 (or 8/10, or probably 78/100). It certainly isn't flawless, but I thought it was a tense affair which was really well acted by everyone involved, particularly Matt Damon, and was a whole lot of fun with a brilliant soundtrack.

It was entertaining overall but a little far-fetched whilst at the same time trying to promote the vein of 'realism' that a lot of 'serious' sci-fi films seem to want to do nowadays. There was also the nagging feeling throughout that it lacked emotional depth (the irony here being that it is a film that relies on the emotional bond you have with the characters - Damon in particular - to get properly invested in the story); everything just seemed very forced and shallow. It also seemed a little too smug with itself at times, which turned me off a bit. Some great visuals though.

I also can't really agree on the soundtrack with the amount of disco music Matt Damon's character was stuck with on Mars. I think I would have stepped outside the habitat with my space helmet off long before I started thumbing through the captain's collection of disco hits lining up what to play next. ;)

Tombstone. Legendary lawman Wyatt Earp arrives in Tombstone with his older and younger brother and their wives, but he's long since retired from the law profession and is just in town to make a buck, only to find the place is under the control of a vicious criminal gang known as "the Cowboys". Stiil, all Wyatt wants is to keep his head down, make some good money and then probably get out of there - but circumstances soon begin to conspire to make that impossible, and a showdown inevitable... Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer (in probably his best performance as Doc Holliday) lead a fabulous cast (including Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Sam Elliott, Dana Delany, Powers Boothe, Terry O'Quinn and more) in this thoroughly entertaining mid 90s Western. I'm not even really much into Westerns in general but this is a very enjoyable film.:nod:

:lol:

Homicidal (1961)

William Castle classic in which Jean Arless appears to be doing a slightly wayward impersonation of Cristiano Ronaldo.

After a pacy, exciting and remarkably bloody opening 20 minutes the film settles down in the sleepy Californian town of Solvang and things come to a juddering halt.

Just as the excitement levels hot up again the gimmicky Castle stops proceedings to give the squeamish ones in the audience time to leave before he plunders Psycho with an ending we all saw coming a good hour previously.

I bought it about a year ago and haven't watched it yet. Something i'll have to remedy!

In The Electric Mist. 2009. Bertrand Tavernier.

Tommy Lee Jones stars as a Louisiana cop of some description investigating the murder of a young girl and the discovery of the decaying bones of a man in chains. I can't say if the novel this is based on is any better but the film whilst not unwatchable is a confused mess.

I was meaning in the way they fit the songs to match what was happening in the story, so Hot Stuff when he is in the buggy with uranium, I Will Survive at the end, and other songs which seemed to enhance the narrative.

Basket Case 3: The Progeny (1991)

**1/2 out of *****

Thats a good two stars more than i would give it. :lol:

Black Roses

A small town take offense to a metal band playing to the youths of there small town, as in their small minded book burning and bigoted town,its the music of the devil and makes those who listen to it into evil murders. Unfortunately for them they could be right as we find out that the band are actually demons and are corrupting the towns teenager to evil. Lucliky for the them we have a literature high school teacher ( who looks like a reject from the village people) who becomes suspicious. Some very mild gore with some nudity and pretty awful special effects that just look like cheap masks you can get in any fancy dress shop. Was half expanded a mask to ripped off and some one saying I would off gotten away with it, if it wasn't for you meddling kids or in this case high school teacher. 4.2/10

Now watching night of the demon. Which just ooze's atmosphere and menace compared to this

Yeah it’s probably Henenlotter's worst film. I think he might have been burnt out making it having filmed it back-to-back with ‘Basket Case 2’ and ‘Frankenhooker’. Maybe my rating is a tad generous but the film isn't completely worthless - maybe a ** out of *****. It’s a shame because the original is excellent and 2 is a very good sequel.

Hardcore Henry

SHIT BLOWS UP!

F#ck me, this starts out bonkers then accelerates the action to some kind of transcendental fever pitch of gore and violence so fast and relentless, every scene feels like the climax whilst building on the scene before until it ends in a moment of lunacy that really does have to be seen to be believed.

Highly recommended.

Two Evil Eyes (1990)

*** out of *****

Which of the two films do you prefer?

Both are pretty good but Argento’s version of ‘The Black Cat’ just edges it for me.

If you had to give the individual films/stories scores, what would they be?

The Dressmaker (2015)

'I'm back you bastards!'

Kate Winslet proves she's the nearest thing we still have to a golden age of Hollywood star in this quirky, pitch black, revenge comedy which owes more to justice meting out westerns like High Plains Drifter than you might expect.

From the off Winslet has us purring at her sexy confidence and stunning outfits yet this Australian genre bending production offers so much more than that, in fact so much more totally unexpected delights than i can describe in a few short sentences here.

Suffice to say it's quite brilliant.

I'm pleased you enjoyed it and basically (it seems) felt the same about The Dressmaker (and Kate Winslet) as I did.

When I find it cheap enough, I'll buy a copy, but not at the moment because a) I have so much to watch already and b) the disc doesn't contain many extra features.

Sold!

So I watched the extended 'Ultimate Edition' of Batman Vs Superman yesterday and I really enjoyed it, although clocking in at 3 hours and 2 minutes it didn't seem that long, at least to me. I'm not saying that it magically fixes a film which doesn't really make much sense, but it does help explain some things which were head scratchers from the theatrical version.

Some totally new story strands help expand on the Louis Lane story arc with the bullet etc and some subtly different scenes give a bit of a spin on what we saw before. However, it still doesn't make sense why Lex wants Batman and Superman to face off, and it doesn't tone down the extraordinary directing decision to make Lex act the way he does, it's even more annoying on the 2nd viewing. It's like Synder's note to Eisenburg (who is usually a terrific actor) was 'Have you seen "The Spy Who Shagged Me"? That's what I want'. Which really sticks out like a sore thumb when everyone else is playing it so straight and serious.

It's not going to convert people who hated it before I'm sure of that, but if you got some enjoyment out of seeing it at the cinema, as I did, then the extended version should improve upon that enjoyment.

Baaed on that it can stay on the shelf til it's cheaper. Does it do anything to explain why Afflecks Batman isn't his usual genius self?

SIMON SAYS – Mid noughties back woods horror that replays some very familiar tropes – well, there's basically a vanload of pot smoking kids and a forest and a killer, I think I've seen something similar before somewhere. The difference is, 'Simon Says' stars Ace of Dorks Crispin Glover, present here as a pair of creepy twins with a homicidal past and access to flying pick axes and other bizarre bits of machinery. Glover is, I guess, an acquired taste, and whether you dig 'Simon Says' or not will probably depend on your tolerance of his very particular brand of performance. Here, he's on good form, seemingly out to deconstruct the very notion of acting with a characterisation which is so lopsided it nearly takes you out of the film. However, 'Simon Says' is pretty much played for laughs, so Glover's weirdness is more or less contained. Apart from Glover, it offers a surprising amount of gore, throwing avalanches of innards and severed limbs at the screen at a couple of points. The bloodshed isn't necessarily sustained, but it felt to me like there was quite a lot of it. Overall, 'Simon Says' is rather good fun, and I would definitely recommend it to fans of Glover or to those who are into graphic simulated dismemberment. Oh, and it was made by the guy who directed 'Bigfoot and the Hendersons'!

Not particularly, it sort of just paints the picture that he's been doing Batman for 20 years now and he's just a bit tired of it. He's more business man than techno-gadget genius. I kind of like it, and I really like Jeremy Irons as Alfred.

Yeah Affleck played it well. Jeremy Irons was a refresh Alfred. The story was the problem, Batman was played like a fiddle. His all consuming hatred for Superman was daft in the first place but then he should have been smart enough to see wha was going on with Luthor too.

I just didn't get on with this at all. I was really looking forward to it following Glover's ace performance in the Willard remake.

My dvd was £6.99. It's one of the best films i've seen this year. Possibly only The Witch beats it.

You'll love it, Justin.

I quite enjoyed it, surprisingly so considering I don't like 'comedy horror'. It's not as good as 'Willard', though.

I've still got it i think. I'll give it a re-watch to see if time as softened my dislike of it. I don't think David Arquette helped my enjoyment levels.

Watched High-Rise finally.

Great attention to detail. Great ST. Great cameo from Neil Maskell.
Am rewatching tonight, as was dog tired after the weekend.



Down Terrace (2009, Ben Wheatley)

Also rewatched this, BW's first film, it aint Lock Stock, though the cover may give you that impression. Was impressed with this on Film4, so twas nice to see without ads. Bog standard story given a wee twist that is very British in nature, Julia Deakin stands out here etc. Recommended!!

And now you put me off The Witch...[emoji57]

What are you actually insinuating?

A film you haven't seen (The Dressmaker) puts you off another film you haven't seen (The Witch). :confused: