What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Trapped Alive (1988)

Three convicts hold up a couple of young women on their way to a Christmas party and end up stuck down an old mine shaft with no apparent way of escape.

So far so good, twenty minutes gone and we are in creepy slasher territory...then another half hour goes by and we are still in creepy slasher territory minus any actual slashings and stuck down a mine shaft with no apparent way of escape.

Then a policeman turns up and a troll like character with shades of Madman(1981) appears and the murders begin, often utilising elaborate pulleys and lifting devices, with about twenty minutes to go.

What's weird is the mine shaft is rather nicely lit, in fact it's never dark and despite the fact nobody can escape said mine, characters randomly turn up, including a woman in a sexy party dress who desperately needs acting lessons appears with five minutes to go for a twist ending you won't have seen coming nor will you actually care about.

Trapped Alive has a low budget ambiance all of it's own, mainly stoked by shit acting, crap dialogue and whiffs of boredom that creep in every quarter of an hour or so. There's little in the way of gore and even less of 'star' Cameron Mitchell who features in a couple of house party scenes. Still. If you've got a name actor you may as well get your money's worth.

Arrow's Blu-ray looks fantastic. Far better than the film probably deserves. I bet Frankie Teardrop friggin' loves this film.

½ / 5

Two days and two films down and not the most auspicious of starts to my December horror marathon.

Ha ha, I don't hate it as much as you, that's for sure. But if it's any consolation, my long-standing sense of self-congratulatory smugness about being able to really get into films that to most fans are irredeemably lame or boring came crashing down when I saw 'Death Screams'. Things just haven't been the same since. Anyway, on with some good(ish) movies, for once...

[Frankie Teardrop]

HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES – Another one that fell from my shelf and into my hand after I noticed it getting a few plays from labbers recently… been around fifteen years since I watched my old DVD, so I went for it. I like the way it shifts from conventional, albeit carnivalesque backwoods mayhem to, by its final stages, something that hints at what Rob Zombie would probably like to think of as ‘his vision’. It’s not bad as visions go, a sort-of ghost-ride world peopled by undead cybernetic surgeons and the like, and rounds out what could’ve been just another B-movie with something a bit hallucinogenic. The nasty ‘Devil’s Rejects’ may prove to be peak Zombie in the end, although I prefer it when he does the weirder stuff, or the quieter - ‘Lords Of Salem’ is my favourite of his. As for ‘House of 1000 Corpses’, its loving dollop of gaudy and occasionally cruel grotesque still manages to raise a curdled smile (along with leaving me feeling misty eyed and frankly a bit old).

COLOR ME BLOOD RED – Speaking of old times… when did I last watch some HG? I hate this forty something nostalgia for stuff I thought I’d processed by my late teens, but… well, I can’t hate it that much, just look at my postings. Anyway, CMBR is not really full throttle Lewis, but it does mesmerise with its discombobulating set-ups, bad camera angles and dramatic hysterics. It’s basically Lewis’ version of ‘A Bucket of Blood’ ie “imagine the gore-related potential of the artistic process”… etc. I like it because of the intestine-milking scene, but equally because of those rad beatniks… daddio…

WRONG TURN – A solid enough remake that kept me entertained, although the one real impression I took away came through its attempt to humanise its ‘monstrous clan of outcasts’ beyond the usual cannibalistic tunnel dwelling archetype. Even so, how often do we see the ‘who are the real murderous lowlifes’-type coin being flipped…? So often it’s never really landed. ‘Wrong Turn’ basically just does that, although it does manage to insert a semi-medieval forest city into its socially conscious narrative. As for stylistics, atmosphere, graphic horror, it’s very much in line with ‘the now’. An alright diversion, just don’t expect it to lead you to anywhere amazing.

[Justin101]

I have to say, I love Color Me Blood Red!

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Justin101

I have to say, I love Color Me Blood Red!

It's a good laugh, actually. I always forget that those old HG flicks were so knowing and tongue-in-cheek, to the point of the humour and bizarreness being more vivid than the gore.

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by Justin101

I have to say, I love Color Me Blood Red!

I think it's the weakest of the original blood trilogy - 'Blood Feast', '2000 Maniacs' and 'Colour Me Blood Red'

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

Ha ha, I don't hate it as much as you, that's for sure. But if it's any consolation, my long-standing sense of self-congratulatory smugness about being able to really get into films that to most fans are irredeemably lame or boring came crashing down when I saw 'Death Screams'. Things just haven't been the same since. Anyway, on with some good(ish) movies, for once...

Death Screams. That's the one. I knew there was one bad film Arrow had released fairly recently that even you disliked. I just couldn't remember which it was.

I'll certainly remember it now and avoid it like the plague, fancy slip case and all.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Death Smiles on a Murderer (1973)

This intriguing Gothic giallo from director Joe D'Amato is a tale of Incan remedies, ghostly visitations, rotting corpses and murder.

It's a beautifully filmed dream like film aided by a fascinatingly haunting score which gives the film an almost ethereal quality with star Ewa Aulin a delicate presence as she floats across the screen seducing anyone and everyone until she exacts her revenge with feline ferocity as her victims see what she really is - a reanimated decomposing body - as they die in even more gory ways.

However my favourite moment came as Klaus Kinski's doctor removes a tie pin and penetrates Aulin's eyeball with it thus discovering she feels no pain and is in fact dead.

The whole film has that sense of being in a Victorian opium den, half awake, hedonistic waves taking over your mind with Poe, Stoker and MR James as your companions. Lovely.

Death Smiles on a Murderer isn't an easy watch. At times i was a little confused i will admit, but it all comes good in the end and was certainly the best film i've seen so far this Christmas. Enjoyably macabre fun.

/ 5

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Black Cat (1990)

Luigi Cozzi's The Black Cat is one of those films that left me dumbfounded, bewildered and thoroughly entertained throughout it's ninety minutes of what can only be described as madness.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the famous Poe story and is more a homage to Dario Argento as the film is about filming the potential third chapter in Argento's Three Mothers trilogy. Every time Suspiria or the Three Mothers are mentioned we get lengthy cues from Goblin's infamous theme to really hammer the homage home.

The plot itself concerns Florence Guerin who is starring in an adaptation of Poe's The Black Cat until her husband announces at a dinner party that he's going to write a script for a sequel to Suspiria and he wants his wife to star in it as the witch Levana. As Guerin prepares for the role she starts to sense the real witch Levana is beginning to take control of her.

The above takes in the first fifteen or so minutes. What follows is a mind f*cking series of set pieces that blur the lines between reality, dream and film culminating in a mental battle between two super powered beings alongside clips of the cosmos from Cozzi's inferior Hercules movie. It can only be described as a wild ride as Guerin struggles with her demonic subconscious amid inappropriate bursts of 80's metal music.

Whilst the film does become more perplexing the longer it plays out it's certainly never dull. Barely a scene goes by without something gory or utterly bizarre playing out as Cozzi treats us to gloopy practical effects and that wild, produced on a Commodore 64 style, lighting and lasers that were only ever seen in low budget late 80's horror and sci-fi.

So to sum up. If anyone fancies a bewildering assault of psychedelic visuals that make increasingly less sense for an hour and a half then The Black Cat is for you.

I loved it.

½ / 5

[Demoncrat]

It's a keeper that one D. REWATCH!!!

[nicholasrope]

Two Minute Warning

A Sniper is at a Championship American Football game and it's up to Detective Charlton Heston and a S.W.A.T Team Captain to stop him. This was along as the same vain as Rollercoaster but I thought that considering the premise, it's rather disappointing.

It was kind of boring at the beginning as it was introducing the many characters and I didn't like the fact that we knew where in the Stadium, the Sniper was. I thought that it would be more suspenseful if we didn't know where he was.