What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by iank

I loved this when I saw it last year for the first time! It's like a 1950s Doctor Who story!

Ha,ha yes definitely. I can just picture a young Lethbridge-Stewart in those early military scenes.

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

X The Unknown (1956)

Apparently the title was chosen to highlight the fact that it was a 'X' rated horror film. The same goes for the first Quatermass film, which is actually called 'The Quatermass Xperiment' - It's only the various television versions that are spelt '...Experiment'!

[Frankie Teardrop]

NIGHTMARE CITY – Not many these days would make movies as unabashedly dumb as some of those Italian zombie flicks. The Fulci films swim with atmosphere and strange vibes, but the rabid dementia is to be found in 'Zombie Holocaust', 'Burial Ground' and this, Umberto Lenzi's 'Nightmare City'. Even after countless rewatches, it still seems that there's too much bad craziness going on in 'Nightmare City' to fully recount. It's no wonder they roped in Hugo Stiglitz as the lead, because his glowering mono-expression and ultrawooden ways are a perfect foil for the cadaverous carnival of silliness erupting around him. Here, he's a journalist wanting to get to the bottom of just why a military jet full of kick-ass undead has landed in his city – The Truth, dammit, that's what the public needs to hear. He always looks mega-serious so no one can doubt his dedication to the cause, but this sobriety is somewhat undermined by Lenzi's constant lurches into high end stupidity. Witness the disco era dance troupe, see a scalpel throwing surgeon, be privy to an intimate conversation about how a sculpture gives Francisco Rabal a “feeling of death”. Moments like these are the lifeblood of 'Nightmare City', whose perfunctory plot is really only there to be gotten over. The film moves quickly from set piece to set piece – zombies attack film studio, zombies attack hospital etc etc. Most of these stagings are really quite impressive, and allow Hugo to clench his fists and scowl but mostly keep the focus on the zombie action, which in this case is a lot more 'action' than in most other films of its ilk. 'Nightmare City' is of course partially notorious for introducing the fast moving, as opposed to lumbering, undead into cinema, and I've always really dug the zombies on show here. It's not so much that they're quick, it's that they appear to be reasonably well organised, use weapons, are just needlessly sadistic and seem more like a gang of really fuc*ed up criminals than anything that's just stepped out of a grave. The gore, although not extreme, is gleefully nasty and slightly sleazy – there are numerous breast fixated moments for example. And to top it all... it's all a dream! Yep, the ending really doesn't work, but it's just another out-of-place element in a film which has been throwing incongruity at the viewer, smiling and shrugging for ninety minutes anyway. 'Nightmare City' is always good to turn to in moments of slight jadedness as it's one of those movies that does actually feel like it delivers on some base but unfathomable level. Note to purists – yeah, I know they're not really 'zombies' in the narrow sense, but I prefer that shorthand to 'inexplicably mutated radioactive humans with singed looking faces and a fixation on drinking the blood of others'.

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

NIGHTMARE CITY

Note to purists – yeah, I know they're not really 'zombies' in the narrow sense, but I prefer that shorthand to 'inexplicably mutated radioactive humans with singed looking faces and a fixation on drinking the blood of others'.

If you have the Arrow release, and you watch the interview with Lenzi, he spends all his time stating that 'they are NOT Zombies...I hate that term...They are humans who have been infected by radiation'

BUT...during the interview, he constantly refers to them as Zombies!

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Susan Foreman

If you have the Arrow release, and you watch the interview with Lenzi, he spends all his time stating that 'they are NOT Zombies...I hate that term...They are humans who have been infected by radiation'

BUT...during the interview, he constantly refers to them as Zombies!

Seems like I was channeling a bit of Lenzi myself at the end there. I quite like him in interviews, he always seems quite snarky and bitter.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

Seems like I was channeling a bit of Lenzi myself at the end there. I quite like him in interviews, he always seems quite snarky and bitter.

It's strange that's how he comes across in interviews because that's not the impression I got from him when I (briefly) met him and he happily signed some things for me, albeit in return for money!

Me Me Lai says he was a real tyrant onset, repeatedly screaming at people. His attitude towards her, and public body shaming of her (saying her breasts were too small) led to her getting breast implants (which she regretted and, I believe, had removed later on in life), hence why her breasts look bigger in films following Eaten Alive!.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

It's strange that's how he comes across in interviews because that's not the impression I got from him when I (briefly) met him and he happily signed some things for me, albeit in return for money!

Those are the key words, one feels.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Those are the key words, one feels.

They could be, but I didn't get the impression over the day he was there that Lenzi is the kind of man who will put on airs and graces for money – that was just an accepted fee.

Compare that with how Rik described Tom Savini, who was apparently rude even after being paid, and it's the difference between someone who meets fans because they feel appreciated and someone who does it because they feel obligated and it's easy money.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

They could be, but I didn't get the impression over the day he was there that Lenzi is the kind of man who will put on airs and graces for money – that was just an accepted fee.

Compare that with how Rik described Tom Savini, who was apparently rude even after being paid, and it's the difference between someone who meets fans because they feel appreciated and someone who does it because they feel obligated and it's easy money.

True.

I remember meeting Amber Benson and she was just a joy to speak to, didn't need the money as she was still working on Buffy, but loved to meet people.

From all accounts Savini's a miserable so and so and i wouldn't give him my money.

[Justin101]

I started to watch films which met my birth year challenge criteria as suggested by Gag earlier in the week, I was born in 1977 so I started with Hitch-Hike as I own it and had never seen it, I followed that up with Invasion of the Body Snatchers as a 1978 follow up.



Unfortunately I wasn't really taken with either. Franco Nero was a mess in Hitch-Hike, I don't know if it was an acting/directing choice or he was actually pissed on set, plus him doing his own dubbing was distracting as you couldn't really understand what he was saying for most of the film. Hess, however was fantastic and perhaps this says a lot about me but quite sexy I don't recall much about the film other than those 2 things.



Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a disappointment due to my expectations going in to it. The 50's version is often cited as one of the best Sci-Fi films ever, I wasn't really a fan, and the remake is well received too and quite honestly, apart from some really stand-out moments it bored the pants off me. Donald Sutherland is not even remotely as sexy as David Hess either... I liked a few scenes though, Elizabeth tailing her husband after she becomes suspicious was one, Matthew falling asleep the pods giving birth to the 4 clones, and that famous scream at the very end of the film.

1979 tonight, and I'm either going to watch something clever (Stalker), classy (Vengeance is Mine), or Phantasm...