What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Frankie Teardrop]

AMOK TRAIN – All aboard for some eighties Italian horror garbage. 'Amok Train' – is it about an out of control train? About a young American student who happens to be possessed? About an out of control train who happens to be possessed? 'Amok Train' doesn't really care about any of these questions, to be frank. There's just enough plot to string some ropey fx together - a few American college kids go over to Serbia for a reason that probably gets mentioned at some point, whereupon they end up in a village full of evil stereotype Eastern Europeans in hoods who clack stones, get chased by aforementioned, escape onto a train where demonic things happen and eventually lead to someone becoming the bride of Satan (almost). Chances are you'll be as interested in plot and logic as the filmmakers were, and if so, you're in luck, as obviously the main draw here, beyond the dickheadedness of pretty much everything else about it, is the essential element of trash. The latter is abundant enough to justify wading through the set up and the uneventful passages (the film does take the scenic route at times). If you want gore, you'll get a smattering and maybe more, with oddly excessive face ripping and various dismemberments providing nice counterpoints to the well shot scenes of trains passing through countryside. If you want freaky and just a bit 'erm, is that really OK?', well there's a hymen bothering old woman who sets out to prove the female protag's virginity twice and seems to really get into it. But best of all, if you want sheer eighties fantasy bombast, there's a mute monk who plays a recorder and turns out to be a benevolent spirit guide. Yeah, he gets the train just like everyone else. 'Amok Train' – can't scale the heights of 'Night Train To Terror', but still a pretty fun ride. And that last sentence does actually make sense in my mind, god help me.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

'Amok Train' – can't scale the heights of 'Night Train To Terror'

What can?!

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

AMOK TRAIN – All aboard for some eighties Italian horror garbage.

Class! I almost watched this again last night. Eventually decided on Rakoff's clunky Death Ship for the umpteenth time.

As far as train film goes, i haven't seen Night Train to Terror but Amok Train is far superior to the brainless Train (2008) and head and shoulders above the anemic Terror Train (1980)

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Death Ship (1980)

Films about haunted or possessed boats must be incredibly difficult to make as there isn't one that's totally successful. Val Lewton's The Ghost Ship (1943) goes down the mad captain route, whereas Venon Sewell's 1952 effort Ghost Ship features an actual haunted boat. The 2002 effort of the same name is a largely pointless time waster with one great prologue sequence.

Alvin Rakoff's Death Ship wisely uses the best of both worlds - a haunted vessel and possessed captain to come up with the best of the bunch. The basic plot is straightforward but ambitious. A mysterious black freighter hits an ocean liner causing it to sink. A small band of survivors including captain George Kennedy, Richard Crenna and Saul Rubinek, manage to board the deserted vessel . Once aboard they discover the ship seemingly abandoned has been sailing the seas ever since the Second World War with it's long dead German crew always on the look out for Allied boats to sink.

Death Ship is quite a lot of fun. It features some rather nifty set pieces. Saul Rubinek's early death is beautifully suspenseful and Victoria Burgoyne's shower sequence the film's stand out memorable moment. Captain George Kennedy's descent into madness and possession is also well done. The revelation that the ship was a Kriegsmarine prison ship, and the ghosts of its inmates and crew are still aboard adds a welcome air of absurd creepiness to it all.

What doesn't work so well are the endless shots of the boats engines and order telegraphs which often only serve to break tension, yet also add a certain something to the whole thing, a calmness, a hypnotic suggestion that only dares to break out of films of this ilk.

Whilst Death Ship isn't the best horror film of the 80's it does stand out thanks to it's ambition, filming on an actual old ship out at sea definitely gives this film an atmosphere which i doubt could be created in 2016.

[Cinematic Shocks]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

The Initiation (1984)



64/100

'The Initiation' is one of those unsung second tier slashers that's better than a lot of the first tier slashers that came out around the same time. It's a pretty good one.

[Demoncrat]

Innocence (2004, Lucille Hadzihalovic)
Coming in a roundabout way from the same source material as Suspiria, this was more like it. Essentially it uses a tried and trusted framework, but within this is a whole world of bewonderment (??). Highly recommended.


Paprika (2006, Satoshi Kon)
The blu this time. Looked a bit soft in places, though this just may be my crappy tv.... Another comm where they sit around basically saying "Look! We got away with this!!" Which is to be applauded. If indeed you haven't seen this particular film, I can only say stop throwing your money away on a certain Andreas Bianchi disc........as this is like the ultimate present, you can never stop "unwrapping" it. And breathe!!


A Field In England (2013, Ben Wheatley)
From the psychotropic to the monochrome in one leap. Is it the spawn of an unholy marriage of a Public information film & folk horror?? Another film set "somewhere", like the other two above, which in all 3 cases isn't just used to shovel some "weirdness" at you. Phew!

Demolition Man (1993, Marco Brambilla)
It's is the smugness of most Hollywood productions that I can't stand, I've worked out. Plus The Bullock still resembles Kira . And to think they could have had Lori Petty, who might have injected some life into the part, instead of SB's furious mugging. Ho hum. So I dug out...

Tank Girl (1994, Rachel Talahay)
Beset with behind the scenes problems, this glorious mess is still one of my real guilty pleasures haha. Ice T as a kangaroo. Enough said.

Conan The Barbarian (1982, John Milius)
Thought I better actually watch a JM film.
AANyway. Priceless. Whilst I enjoyed The Sword & The Sorceror more on balance, CTD is next on the list!! A boy becomes a man, meets a girl and conquers half the known world...you know, that old tale.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

A Field In England (2013, Ben Wheatley)
From the psychotropic to the monochrome in one leap. Is it the spawn of an unholy marriage of a Public information film & folk horror?? Another film set "somewhere", like the other two above, which in all 3 cases isn't just used to shovel some "weirdness" at you. Phew!

I beg to differ.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I beg to differ.

[trebor8273]

A.W.O.L. 8.1/10

Time cop 8/10

[gag]

My mum wanted to watch a film callled heaven is for real.
Never heard of it so i imdb, reviews where pretty good so thought i would watch it as well.
So i sat down with her and watched her. It was as exciting as watching the grass grow.
Lets just say yawn YAWN zzzzz. Wake up, well im of to bed
It was slow (so slow never got into first gear let alone 2nd) dull and boring and made the waltons look like action film of the year. (Ok it was tv show).
If there ever was cure for insomnia then this must be it.

About a religous couple who father preaches in the church and their son needs surgery, he survives but starts talking about how he went to heaven and seeing god and his parents crying, and well thats about it really.