What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

Had an 'End of the World / Civilization' week

Knowing (2009) (Coronal mass ejection) Not a fan of Nic Cage but I quite like this picture.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) (Nuclear Holocaust) Not as good as the previous two, cant say anything about 'Salvation' as I've yet to see it. Great ending scene with a great score.

The Day After Tomorrow (2004) (Extreme weather) Again not a fan of Jake Gyllenhaal but this has some good visuals and the opening score is good.

These Final Hours (2013) (Asteroid collision) An Australian movie that I had never heard of before wasn't too bad actually. How would you spend your final hours on a doomed Earth?

Arctic Blast (2010) (Extreme weather) What a pile of crap do your selves a favour and avoid this picture, it almost makes 'Asylum' pictures look good!

Contagion (2011) (Viral outbreak) Not a bad movie but also not a good movie. For me this just lacks something.

The Day After (1983) (Nuclear holocaust) One of the first movies I ever recorded onto VHS, the other was 'Firefox'. Havent seen this in years and although I thought it was great when it was originally aired it didn't live up to the memory of my first viewing.

World War Z (2013) (Viral outbreak) For me a good actioner with a great score and some startling images, hordes of zombies climbing over each other to scale a massive wall!

Left Behind (2014) (Rapture) Ended the week with another Nic Cage picture and like 'Arctic Blast' another pile of crap. I think Cage was in need of the cash to do this turkey!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by JoshuaKaitlyn

World War Z (2013) (Viral outbreak) For me a good actioner with a great score and some startling images, hordes of zombies climbing over each other to scale a massive wall!

I watched this for the first time last Sunday and also found it very enjoyable.

Absolutely nothing like Brooks source novel though.

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I watched this for the first time last Sunday and also found it very enjoyable.

Absolutely nothing like Brooks source novel though.

Got it but haven't read it. I have to be in the right frame of mind for reading nowadays. Used to read tons of historical fiction a few years back.

[Buboven]

Brave (2012)

Amazing and stunning, beautiful animation in this one,

This should be the movie with a TV programme dedicated to it, not that good but WAY overhyped film called Frozen.

I enjoyed the story in this one so much better, and the music was so good aswell, catchy but good aswell. From what it appears this is a criminally underrated Pixar animation.

9/10

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Avenging Angel (1985)

Sequel to the 1984 hit? Angel, in which former prostitute, now law student, Angel goes back to the Hollywood streets to get revenge for a friends murder.

Dropping the griminess of the first film, Avenging Angel is a campier and much more fun affair with shoot out's galore and a riotous sequence as aging cowboy Rory Calhoun is bust out of a sanitarium.

The curvy Betsy Russell replaces the original Angel Donna Wilkes for this film and her tougher yet sexy look make this more of an action film than the hard edged thriller that the first film was. Whilst much stylistically has changed what remains is the neon brightness of Hollywood Boulevard which is captured rather well by some stylish camera work.

Although very dated in style and fashion, Avenging Angel remains a more than satisfying ride.

[R-T-C Tim]

More classic MacLean action. This one differs quite a lot from the source novel (which is certainly one of MacLean's very best) but manages to be a good thriller in its own right (something that is genuinely rare!). A whopping star cast including Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Jim Brown and Patrick McGoohan bring some class to proceedings and the submarine footage is very impressive. Unfortunately the Arctic climax is let down by obviously stage-bound filming.

Ice Station Zebra review.

[PaulD]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Honeymoon (2014)

A film ruined by cheap jump scares this is not. Honeymoon is a masterful blend of psychological horror and the creeping unknown. Featuring a cast of only four and with two of those barely having any screen time the film stands or falls by the talents of it's two leads and thankfully in Harry Treadaway and Rose Leslie the film has talent in abundance. Leslie in particular is magnificent as her performance slowly morphs from 'girl you'd love to be with' to a deeply unnerving individual with a presence of pure screen horror.

Much credit must go to director Leigh Janiak. Not only is there some wonderful outdoors photography, it's also the way Janiek slowly lets you into the life of this newly married couple going off on their honeymoon to a cottage in the woods by a lake. An idyllic scenario where Janiak almost makes the viewer feel like an intruder in the couples bliss. Janiek then, by the half way point brings tension to proceedings with a slow build up which climaxes in shocking circumstances.

It's difficult to discuss the plot because the whole film is so inconclusive. We aren't given any reasons or indeed explanations as events unfold, which for me really topped off the whole atmosphere of dread which envelops the film. There are the occasional clues in the dialogue or onscreen subtleties which may lead to answers yet it feels better not to know. For some i can imagine this being off putting but personally i loved the thought provoking aspect of it all.

Highly recommended.

Absolutely. Watched this the other night and felt exactly the same. Maybe I felt the ending was a little bit more conclusive than you Dem but even so, a fantastically-paced horror film and a wonderfully-crafted yet worrying metaphor for the worries of marriage and relationships.

[Frankie Teardrop]

RABID DOGS - A trio of vicious hoods are on the run from the polizia in this great late Bava entry. Liked the use of real time and the cramped, claustrophobic minimalism - most of it takes place within the confines of a car. There's a really tense, desperate atmosphere and a bracingly bleak finale. Lean, cynical exploitation with a racing pulse. Highly recommended.

SILENT HILL REVELATION - A pile up of clichés, plot convolutions, info dumps and monsters. It doesn't seem to have a very good rep, but sue me, I liked it. I don't know anything about the original video game, and remember I used to find myself cringing when I'd hear people go "hur hur, yeah that's a bit 'Silent Hill'" about anything with tentacles. For me, it all feels like an off kilter B movie with a bit of money and a lot of stupidity behind it, a (comparatively) rich man's Yuznaesque Lovecraft non-adaption. Sean Bean keeping it real also sells it me, sort of.

SAMURAI COP - What can you say about a movie whose strongest relationship with reality is Robert Z'Dar? You say nothing and move on, or watch agape in stunned and slightly saddened silence. There are too many things wrong with 'Samurai Cop' to even begin. Shots seem artless to the point of seeming cryptic, lighthearted innuendos do battle with sadistic gore, a hospital looks like a vet's waiting room. A close competitor for trash-hood dominion such as 'Miami Connection' has heart and inexplicable verve, whereas watching 'Samurai Cop' is like being drenched in piss and forced to run blindfolded towards a concrete pillar. In other words, I liked it. A cool but desolate experience, my abiding memory of it is the sequence which centres on a huge knitted lion's head whilst two characters explain the plot a bit more. Essential for fans of the shadow zone where bad eighties action becomes nightmarish psychosis.

PHANTASM - Back to reality with trusty old 'Phantasm'. Actually, its weirdness for me grows with every viewing. It's not very often that I sit down with it these days, but when I do I always leave thinking 'wow, that was a lot stranger than I remember'. A trite point, but who these days would make a movie about an oversized undertaker shrinking corpses and reanimating them as dwarves destined for a slave planet? I sometimes think of 'Phantasm' as being a bit like an eighties Italian horror movie from that time when they really did stop making sense, but of course it has that very seventies, American feel to it (although, again, the music sometimes sounds a bit Fulci). Needless to say, this classic which you've all seen countless times is a hundred percent great.

JANIE - Sleazy picaresque from ill fated roughie maestro Michael Findlay follows a creeped out teen en route to her dad's. She is somewhat paternally fixated, but her main problem is that she really digs murder and pretty much kills everyone she encounters (after appropriately icky interludes). One from the Alpha Blue slime tank, 'Janie' is a very odd little film which features a non-stop psych rock soundtrack and a bleak, reverb drenched narration which is constantly droning about "Autumn, your favourite month Janie, when everything turns brown and stiff and dies" etc etc. The editing style is also pretty brown acid, with plenty of frenetic montages to suggest the ego fragmentation of the time (but mainly to recycle and reuse footage, of which there isn't much). Can't see 'Janie' being kitted out with a new Hi-Def makeover anytime soon, although it is quite Vinegar Syndrome in essence. Regardless, this sickly sausage roll should end up in the gobs of those weird enough to suck it.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

RABID DOGS - A trio of vicious hoods are on the run from the polizia in this great late Bava entry. Liked the use of real time and the cramped, claustrophobic minimalism - most of it takes place within the confines of a car. There's a really tense, desperate atmosphere and a bracingly bleak finale. Lean, cynical exploitation with a racing pulse. Highly recommended.

SILENT HILL REVELATION - A pile up of clichés, plot convolutions, info dumps and monsters. It doesn't seem to have a very good rep, but sue me, I liked it. I don't know anything about the original video game, and remember I used to find myself cringing when I'd hear people go "hur hur, yeah that's a bit 'Silent Hill'" about anything with tentacles. For me, it all feels like an off kilter B movie with a bit of money and a lot of stupidity behind it, a (comparatively) rich man's Yuznaesque Lovecraft non-adaption. Sean Bean keeping it real also sells it me, sort of.

SAMURAI COP - What can you say about a movie whose strongest relationship with reality is Robert Z'Dar? You say nothing and move on, or watch agape in stunned and slightly saddened silence. There are too many things wrong with 'Samurai Cop' to even begin. Shots seem artless to the point of seeming cryptic, lighthearted innuendos do battle with sadistic gore, a hospital looks like a vet's waiting room. A close competitor for trash-hood dominion such as 'Miami Connection' has heart and inexplicable verve, whereas watching 'Samurai Cop' is like being drenched in piss and forced to run blindfolded towards a concrete pillar. In other words, I liked it. A cool but desolate experience, my abiding memory of it is the sequence which centres on a huge knitted lion's head whilst two characters explain the plot a bit more. Essential for fans of the shadow zone where bad eighties action becomes nightmarish psychosis.

PHANTASM - Back to reality with trusty old 'Phantasm'. Actually, its weirdness for me grows with every viewing. It's not very often that I sit down with it these days, but when I do I always leave thinking 'wow, that was a lot stranger than I remember'. A trite point, but who these days would make a movie about an oversized undertaker shrinking corpses and reanimating them as dwarves destined for a slave planet? I sometimes think of 'Phantasm' as being a bit like an eighties Italian horror movie from that time when they really did stop making sense, but of course it has that very seventies, American feel to it (although, again, the music sometimes sounds a bit Fulci). Needless to say, this classic which you've all seen countless times is a hundred percent great.

JANIE - Sleazy picaresque from ill fated roughie maestro Michael Findlay follows a creeped out teen en route to her dad's. She is somewhat paternally fixated, but her main problem is that she really digs murder and pretty much kills everyone she encounters (after appropriately icky interludes). One from the Alpha Blue slime tank, 'Janie' is a very odd little film which features a non-stop psych rock soundtrack and a bleak, reverb drenched narration which is constantly droning about "Autumn, your favourite month Janie, when everything turns brown and stiff and dies" etc etc. The editing style is also pretty brown acid, with plenty of frenetic montages to suggest the ego fragmentation of the time (but mainly to recycle and reuse footage, of which there isn't much). Can't see 'Janie' being kitted out with a new Hi-Def makeover anytime soon, although it is quite Vinegar Syndrome in essence. Regardless, this sickly sausage roll should end up in the gobs of those weird enough to suck it.

Findlay didn't direct JANIE, though he has a small part in it, reprising his Richard Jennings character from the FLESH trilogy. Roberta was the cinematographer under her non de plume Anna Riva. The actually director was Jack Bravman who mainly produced skinflicks but most Cult Labbers will know him as the Thortastic director of ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly

Findlay didn't direct JANIE, though he has a small part in it, reprising his Richard Jennings character from the FLESH trilogy. Roberta was the cinematographer under her non de plume Anna Riva. The actually director was Jack Bravman who mainly produced skinflicks but most Cult Labbers will know him as the Thortastic director of ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE.

Looks like he did 'Night of the Dribbler', too. Quite a departure from the nihilism of 'Janie'.