What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Make Them Die Slowly]

THE OUTSIDER. Slightly disappointed that this Craig Fairbrass action flick wasn't an adaptation of the Camus classic. Instead it is a poor man's riff on the excellent THE LIMEY.

BEAST OF THE BARING SEA. Bilge and bollocks.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by demonknight

Room 237;

An interesting documentary on the making of THE SHINING. Not your typical doc, for sure, but pretty mesmerizing all the same. May give The Shining a spin again tonight if I don't watch Bob Clark's BLACK CHRISTMAS. Not the kind of documentary I was expecting, but it turned out to be a great watch.

It's all true

[Make Them Die Slowly]

The Inbetweeners 2. Very good follow up to the original film that expands the formula rather than repeat.

...and if people haven't seen it, Dallas Buyers Club is now on Netflix. Brilliant film.

[Nordicdusk]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

The Inbetweeners 2. Very good follow up to the original film that expands the formula rather than repeat.

...and if people haven't seen it, Dallas Buyers Club is now on Netflix. Brilliant film.

Cheers for the heads up about Dallas Buyers Club ill watch it the weekend.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by nordicdusk

Cheers for the heads up about Dallas Buyers Club ill watch it the weekend.

Make sure you have tissues handy but not for your normal reasons.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Hotel (2004)

A girl takes a job at a hotel deep in the Austrian Alps. Once there she discovers the girl she replaced left her job and vanished without a trace.

Hotel is one of those films you really have to be in the right frame of mind for. It's beautifully filmed and directed by the highly regarded Jessica Hausner but is so minimalistic in it's approach to drama that i can easily imagine some finding it nothing short of boring.

Long scenes go by without a word spoken, there is no incidental music, in fact the only music throughout comes from a stereo in the hotel staff room. The photography is precise and often static which creates a beautiful ambience and a slight feeling of unease especially when Hausner leaves her camera on the edge of the night time forest and we stare into the murky shadows, our eyes squinting for a flicker of movement in the blackness.

The story hints throughout that there may be a malevolent presence in the forest. That of a 'forest witch' and tales of hikers going missing, indeed it gives the biggest hint that the legend has much to do with the disappearance of the former employee but nothing is conclusive. The film's final scenes also hint at this yet the ending is so ambiguous that we have to make up our own minds. Hausner asks the questions but like David Lynch et al ,never gives us a definitive answer.

I'm typing this several days after the viewing and the film has stuck with me whereas many others don't, yet i'm not sure it's deliberately languid style could make me recommend it to anyone. Even though i thought it was terrific.

[Nordicdusk]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

Make sure you have tissues handy but not for your normal reasons.

Better watch it alone so.

[R-T-C Tim]

From the £3 bin at ASDA I didn't expect too much from this one, in fact I was rather hoping for a cheesy 'Children of the Corn' rip-off...

Obviously made on a very low budget, 'Fields of the Dead' is competently made, with a good old fashioned feel (ie. no jump edits, gratuitous CGI or the like) and a few genuinely creepy scenes. Unfortunately the storyline just isn't there and the film ends very messily.

Of interest to low budget filmmakers - proof that you can put the camera on a tripod if needed - but not particularly entertaining to watch.

Full review and specs of the New Horizon UK DVD release - Fields of the Dead review.

[R-T-C Tim]

Another low budget horror title for me. I'm watching nothing but DTV nonsense during December, lots more reviews to come!



The Lodge is about a young couple who holiday in a remote cabin. They arrive to discover that there is a "caretaker" there who seems a little odd, then after 30 minutes of nothing much going on, things start to get creepy during the night - doors locked that were open earlier, alarms going off in distant rooms, creepy faces at the window - the film starts to pick up and has potential to be a good haunted house film.

Then it decides to go all psycho horror on us as the caretaker turns out to be a nutcase and kidnaps the girl, leading to the usual fight to save her. Unfortunately the film doesn't do the proper exploitation thing and give us the gory details of what is going on and so we get an implied rape and torture while we have to watch the boring boyfriend trying to rescue her, so it is nothing but chasing, screaming and hiding. Rather like watching a heavily cut rape and revenge film I guess.

Direction is not quite as good as 'Fields of the Dead', the directors seem determined to shoot the film at hip height for no particular reason and lots of it is either blurry or blue-night-filtered.

More review, pics and DVD specs - The Lodge review

[Frankie Teardrop]

MOEBIUS - Crazy, crazy film which filmgoers who still have issues with Oedipus are advised to avoid. To anyone who just likes batshit weirdness however, I heartily recommend. An unhappy woman castrates her son and swallows his dick in retaliation against her philandering hubbie... the phallocentric twistedness has only just begun at this point, and 'Moebius' throws masturbation via 'extreme grazing' (I don't know how else to put it) and knife wound wanking at its bewildered viewers en route to an incestuous final act. None of this is particularly explicit, but 'Moebius's psychosexual notions, all delivered in an often breezy, nonchalant manner, are definitely on the warped side of Cronenberg. Its manic game of penis substitution conceals a more sober meditation on the absurdity of attachment (well, attachment to a schlong, anyway). From Kim Ki-duk, on absolute top form here in this blacker than black comedy (which is all the more boundary-pushing for being completely without dialogue). One of the most audacious things I've seen this year, and pretty much a must-see.

DEVOURED - A waitress struggles to stay afloat in the big city - all her cash goes back home to pay for her absent son's operation. Her bosses are arseholes and she's surrounded by cold, horrible people in general. Her life and sanity begin to spiral ever downwards. 'Devoured' is a flawed but interesting take on the old 'isolated descent into madness' riff. It's no 'Repulsion' (very obviously a reference point here), but it is quite affecting and, in some places, powerful. It works best when it's at its most subdued and tries to capture with some subtlety the slide into darkness some lives can take... the bleakness it evokes rings true. It doesn't do all that well with the 'horror' aspects, mostly because these are too overt to chime well with the otherwise carefully maintained atmosphere of depression. These more blatant aspects don't really kick in until nearer the end however, leaving 'Devoured''s slow, absorbing build up otherwise intact. So despite some drawbacks (again, the film's ending, which as well is a bit of a fumbled 'reveal'), I do recommend 'Devoured' as an involving attempt to step outside expectations, as it sits awkwardly and interestingly between dreary but poignant drama and something more 'genre'.