What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Recent viewings:

[PaulD]

So Sweet So Dead. Pretty good giallo. Quite bloody and at times reminded me of the New York Ripper in a way.

[Frankie Teardrop]

LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET - Wonderful seventies horror scum, which feels like it's the result of cinematic mould growing on rancid stock wrapped round a venereally infected porn corpse rather than the work of people with souls and minds not entirely full of evil (I could still be wrong about the last bit). It just oozes the rank atmosphere you kind of always expect from low budget exploitation from this period, but don't always get. It seems to fuse a sort of avant-garde student film approach with clunky grade Z filmmaking, and makes for a dizzying blend of sneering intelligence and stilted incompetence - in the context of a dead serious look at the world of porn going off the rails into snuffland, this really works (I would say it's entirely humourless, but that's not true - there's a lot of caustic wit, somrtimes even playfulness, in evidence during the first half) . Comic porn sniping aside, this is utterly depressing 'Nam era psychedelia as cinema. Despite the sleazy vibe, there's not all that much explicit sex and gore, certainly not by today's standards - but dark weirdness such as a terrified porn producer being forced to fellate a deer hoof during some freaked out ritual murder takes some beating. My fave moment - in the film, but, strangely enough, in almost in all of cinema, and I mean this - is a sequence where a blind man in silhouette walks down some stairs.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET - Wonderful seventies horror scum, which feels like it's the result of cinematic mould growing on rancid stock wrapped round a venereally infected porn corpse rather than the work of people with souls and minds not entirely full of evil (I could still be wrong about the last bit). It just oozes the rank atmosphere you kind of always expect from low budget exploitation from this period, but don't always get. It seems to fuse a sort of avant-garde student film approach with clunky grade Z filmmaking, and makes for a dizzying blend of sneering intelligence and stilted incompetence - in the context of a dead serious look at the world of porn going off the rails into snuffland, this really works (I would say it's entirely humourless, but that's not true - there's a lot of caustic wit, somrtimes even playfulness, in evidence during the first half) . Comic porn sniping aside, this is utterly depressing 'Nam era psychedelia as cinema. Despite the sleazy vibe, there's not all that much explicit sex and gore, certainly not by today's standards - but dark weirdness such as a terrified porn producer being forced to fellate a deer hoof during some freaked out ritual murder takes some beating. My fave moment - in the film, but, strangely enough, in almost in all of cinema, and I mean this - is a sequence where a blind man in silhouette walks down some stairs.

I have a friend who first watched this whilst suffering with a puking and shitting bug. He swears it's the only way to watch the film for that added layer of scuzz. I've yet to replicate his experience but given time and a low boredom threshold, who knows?

[Susan Foreman]

About 15 minutes from the end of 'Purple Storm', the DVD player decided to throw a wobbly, and it spat the disc out

After many attempts to put the disc back into the machine, so that I could see the end of this twisty-turny thriller, I gave up, so I have no idea what happened

Am NOT happy!

GGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[Wes]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET - Wonderful seventies horror scum, which feels like it's the result of cinematic mould growing on rancid stock wrapped round a venereally infected porn corpse rather than the work of people with souls and minds not entirely full of evil (I could still be wrong about the last bit)...

Great, great post Frankie, the film is indeed an unruley collision of scuzzy exploitation and student avant-gardism which lands the film in a kind of nowhereland - it's not quite Scorpio Rising, and not quite Bloodsucking Freaks, but something more akin to home movies made by the Manson Family had one of them been an able film maker. I've seen many low-budget relics with post-synched dialogue but it's particularly disembodied here and lends the film a truely weird flavour. I can't imagine what the original 3-hour Cuckoo Clocks of Hell looked like, I'm not sure if I could take more than 80mins - the film is a draining experience...

[fuzzymctiger]

Originally Posted by Wes

Great, great post Frankie, the film is indeed an unruley collision of scuzzy exploitation and student avant-gardism which lands the film in a kind of nowhereland - it's not quite Scorpio Rising, and not quite Bloodsucking Freaks, but something more akin to home movies made by the Manson Family had one of them been an able film maker. I've seen many low-budget relics with post-synched dialogue but it's particularly disembodied here and lends the film a truely weird flavour. I can't imagine what the original 3-hour Cuckoo Clocks of Hell looked like, I'm not sure if I could take more than 80mins - the film is a draining experience...

Didn't the guy who runs Synapse find a theatrical print of this?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Violent City (1970)

This Italian made film has a great opening twenty minutes and an inspired last five minutes. Unfortunately despite boasting the acting talents of Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland and Telly Savalas there isn't much inbetween in the way of entertainment.

The script seems a little laboured with nothing much for anyone to do. For me the standout is Jill Ireland, she's not a favourite of mine and i usually cringe when it comes to watching her American thrillers with Bronson, her hubby. She has a meaty role in this and reminds me of Barbara Bouchet in many scenes.

The films main plus point is its opening car chase in the Virgin Islands. Its as tense and well filmed as any from its time. Its great to watch cars causing chaos without any CGI.

[Rik]

Well I'm trying to watch Snowtown on Lovefilm, but due to Sky Broadband being a pile of wank, it's buffering every five bastard minutes!

[ThePopeofCOSDS]

The Psycho Lover (aka The Loving Touch) - It's decent, sleazy and stupid all rolled into one. Not a bad way to kill 80 minutes or so. Review coming soon!