What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

The Beyond and City of the Living Dead are much better films – my favourite is City – than House by the Cemetery, but it's much more fun than the other two.

City is my favourite .

Depending on my mood The Beyond can seem very dull.

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Linbro

Arrow. PQ looked great to me.

Its not terrible by any means, it just has that weird noise some arrow titles seem to get. I noticed it here more quickly as I had the BU blu on the shelf for a while and watched it about 3 times befor picking the arrow one up and its definately more noticeable. The arrow release is a decent package but it is worth seeking out the BU one at the right price.

[keirarts]

SOUTHERN COMFORT.

This looks bloody marvelous on blu-ray. I've seen walter hills tale of survival in the swamps dozens of times, mainly on the x-rated thorn emi tape I wore down till it snapped, and the previous dvd releases. (the optimium dvd looks pretty good as well) Walter hill maintains the film isnt a vietnam allegory, or at least its not meant to be there intentionally but the tale of a bunch of part-time soldiers facing off against an often unseen enemy from a culture that seems totally alien to them cannot help but entertain that reading. Great perfromances from everyone involved, including regular Hill collaboraters powers boothe and keith carradine, and of course the excellent fred ward. Anyone reading this that hasn't seen this (though I doubt thats many people on these forums) need to seek this out.

VIRGIN WITCH.

A bizzare fusion of soft core seventies porno and occult horror set in the english countryside and featuring a male witch called gerald.About as far removed from southern comfort as your going to get! The film was released previously in the Tigon coffin box set but is out now in the us on redemption blu-ray (region free) and looks spiffing. Sure it feels like something you might have found under a hedge as a kid, but the film has an odd little old world charm about it. Not even the remotest bit scary this one is really only reccomended for those who like their trash cheesy!

[fuzzymctiger]

The Beyond is by far my favourite of the trilogy, being a masterpiece in my opinion, very rewatchable.

City Of The Living Dead would probably come next, but I probably shat myself to much watching it, to reserve an opinion on it.

House By The Cemetery is my least favourite, I find it a bore. Cut out a lot of padding scenes, or skip straight to the final 3rd, and it's great, but too much boring stuff in between, and the throat slicing and poker deaths are almost too OTT.

[fuzzymctiger]

Originally Posted by keirarts

SOUTHERN COMFORT.

This looks bloody marvelous on blu-ray. I've seen walter hills tale of survival in the swamps dozens of times, mainly on the x-rated thorn emi tape I wore down till it snapped, and the previous dvd releases. (the optimium dvd looks pretty good as well) Walter hill maintains the film isnt a vietnam allegory, or at least its not meant to be there intentionally but the tale of a bunch of part-time soldiers facing off against an often unseen enemy from a culture that seems totally alien to them cannot help but entertain that reading. Great perfromances from everyone involved, including regular Hill collaboraters powers boothe and keith carradine, and of course the excellent fred ward. Anyone reading this that hasn't seen this (though I doubt thats many people on these forums) need to seek this out.

The new Second Sight Blu is on my shelf at the moment, never seen the film, but on this recommendation, I think I'll be watching it soon.

[Linbro]

I second the recommendation, for the film and the SS disc. Enjoy!

[Vampix]

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
I saw this last night with my 9 year old son, we both really enjoyed it.In fact, I enjoyed watching this first installment of the The Hobbit trilogy far more than when I watched LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time.

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by fuzzymctiger

The new Second Sight Blu is on my shelf at the moment, never seen the film, but on this recommendation, I think I'll be watching it soon.

I feel quite comfortable saying you will really enjoy this movie!

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

Dickson Greeting (1891)
http://www.cult-labs.com/forums/memb...tml#post307930

[fuzzymctiger]

Just sat down and had myself a nice little disturbing "Fish out of water" double feature with Drafthouse's Wake In Fright and Second Sight's Southern Comfort blu rays. 2 fantastic films which present ideas almost a little too close to home for me.

Wake In Fright -
An amazing piece of film making, adapted from a novel, accurately described in a review as "Kafka with Kangaroos", this film see a British teacher (attempt) to go for a holiday to Sydney, stopping off in a town called the Yabba, and gets stuck there after throwing his money away in a game called 2 Up. A startling film, with accurate depictions of alcoholism and gambling, resulting in a spree of madness. All performances are great, especially Donald Pleasance. Some Australians would watch this and be offended at what they think are stereotypes, but let me tell you, it's very accurate depiction of the outback. Smack bang in the middle of nowhere, a self sufficient town, with all too friendly people, a rampant alcohol culture resulting in crazies, and also the brutality, especially in the hunting, having experienced it with cousins and rabbit hunting, and heard about "sticking pigs". I have relatives up in a town in a dusty area, so this felt quite familiar.
Definantly wasn't a fan of the Kangaroo hunt. Controlled or not, it was still horrible and brutal, going on for far too long. And don't let the little note at the end fool you, Kangaroos have never been threatened.
Drafthouse's blu ray recycles the Australian transfer, which makes sense, as it was a national restoration, from the only print. But don't let Drafthouse's screens fool you, this has been DNR'd to shit. No textures what so ever, with telephone lines in the background at the start disappearing and reappearing! But im fairly sure it has all of the features from the Madman disc.

Southern Comfort-
Ladies and Gentlemen of Cult Labs, any one who recommended this film to me, I would like to thank you personally. An amazing, gripping film which see 10 members of the Louisiana National Guard on an exercise with blanks only, get lost and end up on the wrong side of the Cajuns. Great scrip, great acting, great location, great soundtrack, great everything. With the ending, I wonder with Walter Hill was a Fulci fan, quite similar to City Of The Living Dead. Very well done, with the madness getting to some people, the betrayal and paranoia, all very well done. The Cajuns actually seemed like quite good people from the end though, with good taste in food and music.
I felt like I'd seen this movie before though, kind of felt like Blair Witch, with the getting lost and the unseen evil, and Dog Soldiers, with the military excersize going to shit.
All felt quite familiar to me, as earlier this year, I had a cadets camp earlier this year which went to absolute shit. We had horrendous rains and gale force winds, while only sleeping under a tarp and rope, and this eventually got so bad, we were evacuated to a military base for the night, but only after having spent the whole previous night trying to stop your Hoochie from flying away. Also, we had a navigation excercise, in which we got hopelessly lost, and wandered around a forest with a shit map, and got surrounded by Kangaroos at one point. We ended up in a plain with a big hill, which wouldn't have looked out of place, and had an eerie experience. We saw a person walking up a hill in casual clothes. We thought it was leader, so we called out to him. No response. Later, we headed that direction, and saw him running down the same hill. We called out again, no response. We reached the hill, and found an abandoned cadet jumper, next to a pile of animal shit with a rabbit skull on it, with a fork lodged in it!! Fair to say, worst camp ever.
Second Sights blu ray looks amazing, in a snazzy little slipcase. Glad my preorder went down to £14 thought, as £18 would have been a bit steep for a Blu ray with only one feature.

Overall a great double feature, and I have a feeling they'll both be revisited soon, especially Southern Comfort.