What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Mojo]

ABSURD
George Eastman stars as a madman killer of unknown origin, who wakes up during surgery and proceeds to murder his way through a house of people, including a partially disabled girl, played by NANA's Katya Berger.
The whole thing is as absurd as its title, but good gory fun for fans of Italian splatter. Anyway, time to throw away those 'horrible' MYA dvds for this sparkling new blu ray from 88 Films, which recreates its famous bloody axe video sleeve.

THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED
This highly regarded Spanish thriller concerning murder in a girls boarding school arrives on blu ray through Scream Factory. Never having seen this one before, I must admit I was highly impressed with this very stylish effort, which is as good as it reputation.
There are two versions of the film here: the shorter US theatrical release and the longer international cut, with inserts. Although there is a slight dip in quality with said inserts, this longer edition is definitely the one to go for. The whole film has a real Hammer look and feel to it ( maybe this is the kind of film they should have been making late 60s/ early 70s ). Not so much a Spanish giallo, more a Hammer giallo! Recommended.

[Cinematic Shocks]

I've never understood why Gore Verbinski's Ring remake is rated so highly. 'Ringu' is far superior.

[Nordicdusk]

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As a child Rebecca is plagued by visits from an unseen entity called Diane. Growing up with a mother who has serious mental health issues she convinces herself it's all in her imagination growing up with her sick mom and without a dad that walked out on them both as a result of the mother's illness. But years later after getting a call from child services about her brother her past comes back to haunt her when he says that his moms friend Diane is calling around to the house all the time.

Without giving too much away this is a pretty interesting idea which resonates with me from my childhood i always had this thing growing up that once there was a light in the room between the room i was in and the previous room then i would be safe because if anything or anyone was following me the light would prevent them from entering that room and thus not been able to catch up with me. If only i had written that down i could of sued

No where near as bad as i had expected a decent idea executed pretty well there was some creepy moments that worked nicely and the acting was solid but couple of things were a bit too predictable and the boyfriend was a bit too understanding right from the get go which under the circumstances i was expecting him to have some skepticism but no he just went straight along for the ride maybe that's just the power of the gold at the end of the rainbow

Not a must but entertaining enough to warrant a watch.

Lights Out get a

7/10

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Cinematic Shocks

I've never understood why Gore Verbinski's Ring remake is rated so highly. 'Ringu' is far superior.

Couldn't agree more! I even re-appraised Gore's remake as part of my Halloween viewing last year as I thought it was maybe just young me being purposefully dismissive of remakes at the time I first watched it...

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

The Ring (2002)



When I first watched this one during J-Horror's mainstream peak, with my shelves crammed full of Tartan Asia Extreme DVDs and my head full of pale juvenile ghosts with wide eyes and lank hair, I considered it nothing more than a pointless cash-grab targeted at dumb western audiences who want everything spoon-fed to them and can't/don't want to read subtitles and watch a film at the same time. I just assumed everyone else who had an appreciation for the subtleties and nuances that make up a lot of Asian horror cinema thought the same.

With time however, there emerged some positivity for this one and at first my young (then teenage) self bluntly dismissed anything positive that was aimed towards it, but that denial eventually gave way to bemusement and then finally contemplation, with the thought that maybe I had missed something the first time around and this one was worth another shot - the 'three stages of re-appraisal' if you will.

Revisiting it for the first time in almost 14 years (with some trepidation I may add), but with a more open mind, I must admit that I didn't quite have the same extreme distaste for it that I did the first time around. Sure, it's clunky and awkward in places with some poor performances (I generally feel Eastern cultures and tales when transposed into more Westernised templates never quite gel right and should therefore be not cut to fit in the first place so films such as this never resonate very well with me irrelevant of how well they are executed), but there is no mistaking that Verbinski did at least try to create something with a little style and substance to it. A great deal of the eeriness and terror, which made the original work so well has dissipated, but instead we have more well-rounded characters and an interesting spin on the material rather than a straight scene-by-scene remake.

However, despite a more positive (i.e. +neutral-) reaction this time around, overall if you’re after watching a film of this ilk, I'd just advise that you stick to Nakata's original which utilises the source material and themes far more effectively than this one does, irrespective of how hard it tries.

44/100

...but no.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Attack on the Iron Coast (1968)

Lloyd Bridges leads a team of commandos on a daring mission into the French port of Le Clerc, now a Nazi naval stronghold, with the aim of ramming the harbour with an explosives laden mine sweeper in a bid to cripple the German naval effort.

Second tier British war film with an overly talky first half. However once aboard the mine sweeper in the storm lashed Channel the film becomes quite atmospheric as Bridges and naval Captain, Andrew Keir clash, Bridges with his gung-ho heroism and Keir, all beardy pragmatism. Naturally it all culminates in a fiery finale as shit blows up big time.

[iank]

I guess he picked the wrong day to give up sniffing glue!

[Frankie Teardrop]

THE WOMAN – Lucky McKee and Jack Ketchum get together for this follow-up to 'Offspring'. It's about a misogynistic lawyer who captures a wild-woman and basically tortures her in his cellar, roping in various family members along the way. He has an even nastier little secret hiding in his kennel. 'The Woman' is a fairly weird hybrid of slow burning indie family drama and brutal horror, and I really quite like the way its downbeat, depressing tale of implied incest and familial claustrophobia is offset by the sheer strangeness of scenes where husband, wife and kids crowd around and gawp at this woman chained beneath the house. There's the randomness too of this wild-woman concept if you're not familiar with 'Offspring'. Some aspects grate slightly, like the alt rock soundtrack, but the film totally nails the unremitting shitiness of the man of the house, who is the leering personification of female hatred. For those who are in it for the gore, 'The Woman' gets pretty harsh towards the end with some enjoyably unsentimental butchery. Recommended.

I DRINK YOUR BLOOD – These kind of things are subjective, but if you asked a bunch of people to name their ultimate grindhouse flick, I bet a lot of them would come up with IDYB. I certainly feel that way about it. IDYB may not be the the absolute pinnacle of seventies excess, either in terms of sex, violence or sheer far outness, but it's steeped in the kind of feverish lunacy that for me marks out the essential character of amped up low brow horror pulp (or rather, how these kind of movies are supposed to be but so rarely are). It throws together nasty hippies, bits of satanism and the occult that don't really go anywhere, and a Romero-Cronenberg style viral outbreak. The reason for all this dementia? A plucky kid injects evil trip commune's meat pies with rabies after they spike his granddad with acid... no, you couldn't make it up. But that's the root of IDYB's charm, a total disregard for basic narrative sense that could've come from the wrong end of one of Bhasker's doobies. The resulting immersion in lysergic bad taste leaves its the audience reeling and having to deal with a movie which seems to casually toss in a badly thought through anti-drugs message at the same time as it revels in lo-fi gore and sleaze. Hysterical trash of the first order.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

THE WOMAN –

Oddly i didn't rate Offspring on first watch. It was only when The Woman came out on dvd i thought i'd rewatch it the night prior to The Woman, that it all clicked.

Probably they make a fine double bill (although i've never tried it)

[gag]

Talk of j horror Was going to watch ju on didn't realise their was so many of them .
Has anyone seen these and what are you're opinion


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ju-On_(franchise)

Also could anyone give me the proper listing of the ring \ringu films please I tend to get a tadge lost with these ..thanks
In correct order inc remakes etc .

[MuckyFunster]

The Wolf of Wall Street.

3 hours?!? Jeesh!

I thought the film started out good. Showing you the guy's quick ascent and all that. Plus It's pretty funny too.

But then when I remembered it's a true story I went off the whole thing. The way that it is narrated and acted out obviously wants you to cheer him on, to be glad for him and his "success". Glorifies the lifestyle...all the money, the women, the drugs, the mad parties...Slags off the cops throughout. The character buying his way out of any problems he encounters...writing it all off as him chasing and living the American Dream. It's what everyone wants, after all!

The scene on the train with the cop who lead the investigation seemed like a real-life personal dig. I took it to be affirming the film's message that crime does pay. Wether or not Jordan Belford had to do a couple of years in jail, he has come out the other side still rich. And regardless...he lived the dream while the cop scraped at the dirt. Turned me off against the whole film.

And then the plug that the guy is now a real life motivational speaker!!?? With the real life Jordan Belford playing a wee cameo??!! He's loving every moment of his notoriety. Did I just sit through a three hour self gratifying advert for an obviously un-reformed criminal's new career??

The fact I watched it all the way to the end makes me feel conned, like one of his many victims.


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