What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Phurious]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

"The Dead", looks and sounds great but soon becomes repetitive and derivative of other films. Shame, as I'd really been looking forward to it.

Yeh, there's quite a lot of love for it on these here forums, so I was holding back from the negative comments, but I totally agree with you.
The process and background of making the film is far more interesting than the rather lacklustre film itself.
I thought the two leads were pretty poor and unengaging and there never really felt like any serious mortal threat or peril, apart from the last third when there are loads more people (potential zombies) about.
You see that's the thing with zombies, you need them in large numbers to be truly effective and they felt a bit thin on the ground in The Dead.

[antmumford]

Originally Posted by Phurious

You see that's the thing with zombies, you need them in large numbers to be truly effective and they felt a bit thin on the ground in The Dead.

This is what I loved about it. The neverending zombies that continously composed a threat regardless of numbers or speed.

[James Morton]

Originally Posted by Phurious

Spoiler below if you haven't seen Xtro

Just watched the interview with Harry Bromley-Davenport on the Xtro special edition disc.

Absolutely hilarious. Excruciatingly honest about the trilogy. He spends most of the time exclaiming how appalling they all are, but how he has retained a special place in his heart for the third one.
It's quite refreshing to hear a film maker talk so openly and freely about their work, and of note is his vehemence for Jan Michael Vincent who was somewhat unprepared for his role in part 2.

I've still yet to see the sequels myself, but I really, really like Xtro. As Bromley-Davenport observes it's a mish mash of ideas without anything really cohesive to hold it all together, but nevertheless it does the business for me and shocked me that they beat Miike by years with a woman giving birth to a full grown man.
It also features a superb synth soundtrack that B-D hates (he's a classically trained pianist but he claims this wasn't his finest hour), but I beg to differ.

I have the R1 XTRO w/interview and is an underrated Brit horror
but still HBD keeps calling it the 'dreaded Xtro'
he was made to film scenes that made no sense but its still an excellent horror and the synth music esp. at the beginning was great
only seen the first sequel and its shit
wouldn't see pt 3, but the original is a great low budget horror w/ great sfx

[Phurious]

Der Toderking picked the Headpress VHS up of this rather unusual film.
I've still yet to watch his other more notorious films, but with this I thought Buttgereit did a sterling job.

I suppose death isn't as taboo as the inner workings of a serial killer or necrophiliac, but he cleverly opts to focus on suicide, which can still be a prickly subject for most people (I've yet to see The Bridge, but am still fairly reluctant).
Events leading up to people's suicides, the act itself and the aftermath are all scrutinised in a variety of ways. The days of the week are a kind of framing device for seven individuals stories and throughout we're treated to a gradually decaying corpse.
The passage of time, loneliness, bitterness, forgetfulness and the blackest of black humour serve and punctuate each story.
It comes on like a cross between Roy Andersson's You, The Living and Buddy Giovinazzo's Combat Shock capturing the laconic bleak humour of the former and the scuzzy, downbeat visceral textures of the latter.
There was a striking tracking shot at one point that traverses the underside of a bridge which really made me sit up and scratch my head a bit as to how they pulled it off, but then you quickly remember that this is in fact a suicide hotspot

It'd be easy to say this is a depressing film, but I think it's far from it. More of a memento mori, a film that is at times poignant and provocative - a tricky mix to pull off, but done successfully here.

[Mojo]

The Earth Dies Screaming
Terence Fisher directed b&w sci fi programmer. The aliens are a bit naff, but the zombified humans are pretty effective and it clocks in at an entertaining 60 mins or so.

The Witchmaker
I was looking forward to this one but I have to say it was very disappointing. It has its fans, but I'm not one of them I'm afraid.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

"Way of the Morris". A documentary/biographical film by film maker Tim Plester and his relationship to Morris dancing. This is a great little film that looks at both national and regional identity along with sense of place and heritage. It's a film about coming home physically and spiritually to understand self and where you are from. It's also about Morris dancing which may put some people off but give it ago, it may just make you break out the hankies and dance around the house. An excellent companion film to "Here's a Health to the Barley Mow" which came out from BFI earlier this year. Morris On!

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

An odd triple bill of:

The Bad Seed - Chilling 'evil child' themed horror-thriller. Great BD from Warner, too.

Kiss Me Deadly - One of my favourite noir films (not that I've seen that many!). The Criterion BD is jaw-droppingly good.

The Class of Nuke 'Em High - 80s Troma cheese - What's not to like?

[bdc]

Watched Lady Frankenstein (1971) on the new Shout! dvd and I have the say I really liked how it looked.
The master used was a US release print and the picture still had a very nice texture.
I've actually become more fond of this "less polished original film" look.
There's an option to watch a longer international version (not the longest) but the materials used for that one are not so good (but serviceable).
The disc uses branching to insert the extra footage btw.
Great late Italian gothic imho and this US release print transfer was a bit of an eye-opener to me.
Looks like the old German broadcast had more DNR applied.

Btw this is the movie that made me become a Rosalba Neri fan,she's great as Lady Frankenstein.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Must get round to replacing my knackered transfer Alpha dvd with this set of four films.

[bdc]

I'm currently watching The Velvet Vampire (which looks fantastic,probably restored from a negative or ip?)...