What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[shel]

Watched a bunch of ArrowVideo titles that I've been buying like mad.

Night Child - brilliantly atmospheric Italian movie with a surprise appearance by a 1970's BBC headquarters building.

Squirm - everything you want from a b movie creature feature; good characters, decent acting, funny, great physical SFX and shower scenes with a cute redhead. Why am I only watching this now?!

The Car - "Jaws only with a car instead of a shark" does sum it up well. I thought this was an incredible movie, brilliantly shot and played straight (I hear the director worked on the twilight zone) so ends up having a ton of genuinely creepy moments. Pretty much everything I wanted the Christine movie to be (love the book, loathe the movie, which always pains me to say as I adore the rest of Carpenter's filmography excluding that movie on Mars that everybody pretends doesn't exist).

Arrow really make it an easy label to collect, all make safe "blind buys" IMO.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

10 TO MIDNIGHT. Neat little spin on DIRTY HARRY with Charles Bronson as a cop so hard arse when he eats coal, he shits out diamonds. Charles is on the trail of a serial killer and won't let a little thing like the law stand in his way...

A wonderfully sleazy and downbeat film rifffing on right wing vibes and reactionary politics. Whatever your political views, you've got to love the f#ck off ending. Recommended.

[Buboven]

Watched William Castle's Mr Sardonicus (1961) tonight.

Just scrapes a 8/10.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Slayer (1982)

The Slayer was the first Vipco sell-thru tape i ever bought so i've always had a soft spot for this often clumsy film.

The main problem director JS Cardone, best known as the screenwriter for remakes of Prom Night and The Stepfather, is the lack of characters. With only four central protagonists to work with the killings have to be rather spaced out during the film's 85 minute running time, and there aren't really enough bloody deaths to sustain it, so we are left with many a sequence being far too talky and others of bland exposition "It's from my dreams".

Having been negative so far the film just about gets by without becoming boring. It's beach front location is interesting and well utilized and Cardone gives proceedings an almost Gothic atmosphere.

Having said all this i was delighted to have seen The Slayer again after all these years and more than pleased to add it to my dvd collection.

I may be mistaken but i was under the impression the Beyond Terror / Vipco disc was of very poor picture and sound quality. I didn't find this at all. The 4:3 print was fine, a little speckly in places but extremely watchable. It must be noted though that i do sit through and enjoy some of the worst looking dvd releases known to man courtesy of our friends at Popflix and Pendulum Pictures etc and have yet to discover blu-ray.

[Handyman Joe]

I picked up Festen in a car boot sale today for the princely sum of 50p and watched it tonight - wow, how did I miss this movie until now, a truly amazing effort that hits some pitches of almost unbearable intensity. For all the 2 bob budget, the director (not Von Trier as I've mistakenly believed all these years!) creates an insidiously creepy atmosphere throughout and creates some great visuals through camerawork and editing alone (the underwater bath montage is brilliant) - it's the unravelling of the sordid story that keeps you gripped though, just when you think these people can't get any more hideous.... This one really flew by, don't miss it.

[trebor8273]

Jess Franco's Dracula

Wasn't expecting much as the only other franco film I had seen was oasis of the zombies and to say it was shit is putting it mildly. But this was a different matter was hard to believe it was the same director. Acting was good which could not be said for oasis and for me this was a better film than francis ford Coppola Dracula. We had some great actors in the form of Christopher Lee, klaus kinski and Herbert Lom only downside theses great actors didn't have a lot a screen time but what there was is brillant . 9.5/10

maleficent

Another film in which I was not expecting much but again was surprised how good it was very dark in places and found it better than the sleeping beauty story of the classic Disney animated film. 8.5/10

Now watching Q the winged serpent.

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

Having an Italian directors week, starting off with:

Mario Bava and La ragazza che sapeva troppo (The Girl Who Knew Too Much) (1963). Apparently the picture that gave birth to the Giallo genre and was Bava's last B&W production. Somewhat unloved by him however I quite liked it.

Mario Bonnard and Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (The Last Days of Pompeii) (1959). With the aid of Sergio Leone as writer and uncredited director this Steve Reeves peplum is typical of the sword and sandal genre. Plots, conspiracy, gladiators and christians it wasn't until the volcano erupted during the last ten minutes that I remembered that there was a volcanic event to come!

Dario Argento and L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird With the Crystal Plumage) (1970). Agento's first film as director and a classic. If I remember correctly this was the second gialli that I ever saw, the first being Tenebrae and it was the flyover of the house with that music in Tenebrae that sold me on getting more Agento.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

The Slayer (1982)

The Slayer was the first Vipco sell-thru tape i ever bought so i've always had a soft spot for this often clumsy film.

The main problem director JS Cardone, best known as the screenwriter for remakes of Prom Night and The Stepfather, is the lack of characters. With only four central protagonists to work with the killings have to be rather spaced out during the film's 85 minute running time, and there aren't really enough bloody deaths to sustain it, so we are left with many a sequence being far too talky and others of bland exposition "It's from my dreams".

Having been negative so far the film just about gets by without becoming boring. It's beach front location is interesting and well utilized and Cardone gives proceedings an almost Gothic atmosphere.

Having said all this i was delighted to have seen The Slayer again after all these years and more than pleased to add it to my dvd collection.

I may be mistaken but i was under the impression the Beyond Terror / Vipco disc was of very poor picture and sound quality. I didn't find this at all. The 4:3 print was fine, a little speckly in places but extremely watchable. It must be noted though that i do sit through and enjoy some of the worst looking dvd releases known to man courtesy of our friends at Popflix and Pendulum Pictures etc and have yet to discover blu-ray.

Good to see mention of 'The Slayer' again, Dem - although it's a well known film, I always feel it's a little underappreciated these days. Of course, the triteness you point out is clearly there, and with characters as lively as soggy cardboard it's no wonder its often dismissed as an eighties remnant... but there's just something about the atmosphere, which for me is quite strange - misty, windswept and doomed, with a heightened sense of claustrophobia as it crawls to its climax. Like 'Don't Go In The House', it's a film I often return to at this time of year. Reminds me somehow of walking along the Autumnal seafront of an abandoned, depopulated Morecambe (if Morecambe were an American island haunted by a dream demon) - concrete yuckyness and dead fish. Might have to get it out again.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

The Slayer (1982)

The Slayer was the first Vipco sell-thru tape i ever bought so i've always had a soft spot for this often clumsy film.

The main problem director JS Cardone, best known as the screenwriter for remakes of Prom Night and The Stepfather, is the lack of characters. With only four central protagonists to work with the killings have to be rather spaced out during the film's 85 minute running time, and there aren't really enough bloody deaths to sustain it, so we are left with many a sequence being far too talky and others of bland exposition "It's from my dreams".

Having been negative so far the film just about gets by without becoming boring. It's beach front location is interesting and well utilized and Cardone gives proceedings an almost Gothic atmosphere.

Having said all this i was delighted to have seen The Slayer again after all these years and more than pleased to add it to my dvd collection.

I may be mistaken but i was under the impression the Beyond Terror / Vipco disc was of very poor picture and sound quality. I didn't find this at all. The 4:3 print was fine, a little speckly in places but extremely watchable. It must be noted though that i do sit through and enjoy some of the worst looking dvd releases known to man courtesy of our friends at Popflix and Pendulum Pictures etc and have yet to discover blu-ray.

I've also got a soft spot for TS, Dem. I love the fact that theyre on holiday etc....

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Handyman Joe

I picked up Festen in a car boot sale today for the princely sum of 50p and watched it tonight - wow, how did I miss this movie until now, a truly amazing effort that hits some pitches of almost unbearable intensity. For all the 2 bob budget, the director (not Von Trier as I've mistakenly believed all these years!) creates an insidiously creepy atmosphere throughout and creates some great visuals through camerawork and editing alone (the underwater bath montage is brilliant) - it's the unravelling of the sordid story that keeps you gripped though, just when you think these people can't get any more hideous.... This one really flew by, don't miss it.

It's been done a stage play as well. That would be some night out. Was this your first Dogme film Joe? If so, I'd recommend The Idiots