What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART 2 - THHE2 has a pretty abysmal reputation. I'd never seen it before though, so when I saw it sitting there in CEX wearing a £1 price tag, I felt obliged to check it out. Well, I'm struggling to find many positives to report, although I think the received wisdom about THHE2 being unapproachably bad is wrong. It is however a very mediocre effort, and, where the original was raw and abrasive enough to hit the mark as part of horror's new crude wave in the seventies, the sequel only plays on established slasher flick themes and motifs and comes across all the duller for not going anywhere with them. The obligatory bunch of kids are out in the desert somewhere, trying to reach a motorcycle tournament. Of course, after they take that ill advised short cut they end up in the domain of the bad guys – the latter being two cannibal mutant survivors from the first film. Some stalking and killing ensue, but not enough to redeem what's essentially a pretty boring flick. There are some aspects which make THHE2 worthwhile for me personally – the motorcycling element seemed really period and in that sense as interesting as a bad eighties fashion statement, Michael Berryman is always a 'pleasure' the behold, and a slightly insane high point is reached when a dog has a flashback. But all that amounts to pretty slim pickings, really. Seeing this, you might find it difficult to believe that Craven's game changer was just around the corner.

ROCK AND ROLL NIGHTMARE – I don't know much about John Mikl Thor, apart from that he's the star of 'Rock'n'Roll Nightmare'. AND that maybe, just maybe, he holds the keys to an existence where all reality is an illusion and where camp metallers lie in wait to do perpetual battle with satan. That's what he seems to be telling us here. Let's just hope it's only a movie. What a movie, though. 'RnR Nightmare' is a bad film. Mind-bendingly bad. You pick up really quickly that a film is setting its stall out when one of its opening salvos is a two minute shot of a van driving down a road. Or, to be fair, a series of roads. That's enough to propel it towards the avant-garde. I don't think Bela Tarr would make a movie about a rock band trying to record an album in a house full of novelty store demons and tiny horror munchkins which look like they belong in something from eighties children's ITV, though. But that's how 'R'nR Nighmare' erm rolls. The sense of soulless emptiness captured by that overlong van driving footage is elsewhere in abundance. John Thor's rockers, who are, it goes without saying, excruciating non-actors of the rankest degree, sit around arguing about where they're going to sleep, when they're going to wash the dishes, where one of them has zzzzzz. It should just be boring, but it's mesmerising. Occasionally they do a rock number, for example, the song of theirs which appears to be entitled 'Rock'. That's pretty brazen. After a while, demonic occurrences happen in a matter of fact kind of way before the devil turns up and John gives us his spiel about the entire film having been a projection of his mind etc etc. The devil seems a bit freaked out, all the more so when John strips down to his steel loin cloth and prances around like an over satisfied middle aged cat man with too many muscles. John wins the battle, but, seriously, who could not win with that kind of back-up? A mad anti-classic, and hits all the inexplicable bum notes that its shot on video follow up 'Intercessor' failed to get near.

THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS – I have a real fondness for Lucio Fulci's less well regarded movies, particularly those ones he did for Italian TV in the late eighties. They might be hack jobs, but THOC and its companion piece, 'Sweet House Of Horrors', are full of trademark Fulci weirdness and his contempt for well observed realism. In fact, both of them are pretty warped. THOC features an elderly couple who live in a stately home full of (can you guess what it is yet?) clocks. A younger couple, the previous occupants of the house, lie on slabs with long nails sticking through their throats. The couple's maid gets stabbed in the crotch with a pole, some criminals burst in and murder the old couple, time goes backwards and it all gets a bit freaky. In may ways as baffling as something like 'The Beyond', THOC also throws in some surprisingly raw violence for a TV movie. There's some really nice imagery, too – the pendulum of one of the clocks swinging to a halt when the old man dies, his image reflected in the clock's brass surfaces etc etc. Aside from all this, there's the obvious pleasure of late eighties aesthetics, punchy electronic sounds and overall brashness. I say it's a winner, and this is after I watched my crummy Vipco non-anamorphic effort. I can't imagine THOC ever getting bells and whistles on blu-ray, but it deserves a nicer presentation.

I too have a soft spot for THOC, keep it up sir!!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Camp Dread (2014)

Camp dreadful.

[MacBlayne]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Camp Dread (2014)

Camp dreadful.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by MacBlayne

I refuse to waste words on it.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Night Has Eyes (1942)

A young teacher visits the remote Yorkshire moors where she believes her best friend disappeared a year ago. Caught in a storm she and a female companion get shelter at an old lonely house, home to a reclusive pianist, traumatised by his experiences in the Spanish Civil war. Although he appears welcoming, the teacher soon suspects they are in danger and their host had something to do with her friends disappearance.

Despite that lengthy opening paragraph i have only touched on the story. The Night Has Eyes is a superb old dark house horror film from a time when Britain didn't produce horror except as an afterthought.

I really enjoyed every minute of this atmospheric thriller. From the opening storm on the moors to the discovery of the old mansion and the introduction of Huddersfield's finest in James Mason. Mason can do creepy and powerful to a tee and could really have made a name for himself as a horror star however better things were to come for him in his career. He is definitely the star of this show, his brooding antihero is an absolute joy to watch.

The story rattles along and viewer interest is always maintained even as the obligatory doomed romance develops between the pianist and the teacher. The film looks superb. The cinematography captures the gloom of the Yorkshire moors making even the studio bound scenes seem chilling as does the accompanying score.

Anyone with a love for old dark house movies with shadowy passage ways and locked rooms, howling winds, thunder storms, dubious anti hero's and general murder and mayhem, all wrapped up in glorious crisp black and white photography should really check this out.

The dvd from Network / BFI looks and sound stunning throughout.

[Godewind]

DOUBLE GAME (1978). Italian crime flick with George Hilton and lots of pointless violence and terrible acting/dubbing. Nice 'Scope photography but otherwise nothing really special or much positive to report plot-wise, there's a 1980 sequel of sorts from the same director with (save for Hilton) much the same cast in different parts that I'll watch eventually.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Mr. Vampire (1985)



The planned reburial of a village elder goes awry as the corpse resurrects into a hopping, bloodthirsty vampire, threatening mankind. Therefore, a Taoist Priest and his two disciples attempt to stop the terror.

Bonkers comedy/horror/martial arts hybrid that I enjoyed revisiting after such a long time.



65/100

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

ROCK AND ROLL NIGHTMARE – I don't know much about John Mikl Thor, apart from that he's the star of 'Rock'n'Roll Nightmare'. AND that maybe, just maybe, he holds the keys to an existence where all reality is an illusion and where camp metallers lie in wait to do perpetual battle with satan

He was a cartoon heavy metal 'star' back in the 1980's, who overdosed on Manowar and Valhalla!

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Inherent Vice (2014)



In Los Angeles at the turn of the 1970s, drug-fueled detective Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend.

I am surprised at some of the rave reviews this film has gotten, although at the same time I'm not surprised in the slightest with it being a Paul Thomas Anderson film, and whom, along with a clutch of other directors (e.g. Malick, Anderson) seems to attract glowing praise in everything they do whether it be their latest cinematic achievement or their latest bowel movement - and this is coming from a fan of Magnolia by the way.

Inherent Vice whilst a well-acted (especially by Phoenix) and engaging film (to a point) is also overlong, more than a little self-indulgent and purposefully incoherent at times - to the point where my cynicism reared its ugly head and declared that the film purposefully wanted to create a malapropism of itself and be known as Incoherent Vice. The incoherence does seem to hit home like a sledge hammer rather than taking the form of naturally flowing weirdness (the latter being what I'm most used to so maybe it's just me). There is plenty (like with most of PTAs films) subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) humour here and despite the film's shortcomings and gooey indulgence disguised core it's hard not to enjoy for the most part - although I'll add that at times I truly believed I was watching The Big Lebowski.



This is a difficult one to rate though for sure, so I'll use my age old adage of 'if in doubt make it a 7'... at least for now.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by Susan Foreman

He was a cartoon heavy metal 'star' back in the 1980's, who overdosed on Manowar and Valhalla!

Didn't he also fight Nik Turner from Hawkwind playing Loki on The Tube?