What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

It came out through Synapse as one of those posh limited editions at the start of the year. Not sure how available it is, you can certainly still score through Diabolik if it's one of your all time faves (doesn't sound like it is if you haven't seen it for donks - me neither). Has to be more than just a serviceable monster flick to bag my money at those prices these days.

Cheers, good sir. I'll wait until it comes available in a cheaper edition. It's certainly not a fave as i can't recall anything about it. Except the vidoe cover which seemed to be everywhere in the 80's.

[MrBarlow]

Originally Posted by Justin101

That’s a bit arty for you lol, are you feeling ok or have you literally run out of films to watch

Me run out of stuff to watch was something that popped up and decided to watch it.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

THE KINDRED – Late eighties tentacle fun about a genetics experiment in an abandoned house, complete with slight shades of “The Dunwich Horror” (sort of, seeing how I’ve developed a tendency to slip in Lovecraft references everywhere these days). A solid B pic, although its workmanlike finish fails to conceal a few dodgy effects along with a tone that sometimes doesn’t hold up. Someone who looks like Paul McGann is a very standard male scientist hero; Rod Steiger lurks on the threshold before raving like a cry baby when everything explodes at the end. During the build-up, tendrils burst out of a watermelon. ‘The Kindred’ features a few effective scenes (in one, a screaming woman is transformed by gills that tear her flesh open), but, back to that wavering tone; the film is undermined by a melodramatic screechiness and an insistence on heading down a very standard route. It’s enjoyable, but convention snuffs the moments of intensity, making the dollop of goo at the end a bit less of a treat. The film has its fans. They’ll be happy to shell out big time for the newish Synapse blu ray, I guess (I watched an old knackered VHS version). It’s not overly stylised, but maybe it’ll play better in a superior format, considering all the stuff I’ve dismissed when I’ve seen it via cruddy analogue video / DVD, only for it to spring to life in HD. I tend not to be cynical about that, I think it’s simply that film is a visual medium and a better presentation usually enhances.

GIRLS NITE OUT – A rewatch, to find out whether the upcoming blu ray might be worth getting. Seeing it again, I’m not surprised I’d wiped it from memory. We’re in familiar slasher territory on a campus full of rowdy studes, where a sinister back story unfolds when a now-crazed alumnus escapes from the local psyche ward and etc etc etc – sounds OK? Part of the problem is that, for a solid half hour, ‘rowdy studes’ is all we get. Then someone is stabbed and a bear costume is stolen. And then… more students hanging out, but then also an unforgivable swerve into plodding police procedural during the home run. It’s enlivened by a few quirks, a dab of blood and not much else besides the weird ending. Hal Holbrook tries his best to look dignified through it all. A disappointment really, because who doesn’t want to get behind a film in which a maniac dressed as the college football team’s mascot bear (!) goes around whispering cryptic proclamations to a radio DJ, or prefaces a fatal encounter by hissing “bitch! Bitch! You whore!” But GNO is from the same place as ‘Killer Party’, all tease. The effective moments never reach beyond their moment. I would say it’s worth sticking around for that weird ending, but I’m not sure it is. Apart from that, the slim pickings of eighties nostalgia and a few bits of oddity might not be enough to warm even my cockles. “Be mellow. Be Happy. Get High,” says college DJ Harry Kaiser at one point. Yeah, you’d be better off just doing that.

I have one particular memory of The Kindred, so this will spur me on (but not to ebarf )

Kudos as always .....

[iank]

The Silent Scream. College students move into an off-campus boarding house run by a reclusive woman and her teen son. Heads start to roll. This horror flick with Rebecca Balding (The Boogens, Soap) feels very creaky and old-fashioned, often feeling like it was made in 1970 rather than 1980, and is so agonisingly slow and filled with uninteresting characters I often felt myself losing the will to live. A bit of a snoozer, tbh.

[Frankie Teardrop]

URGE TO KILL – Dick Randall had his hand in this one. It’s flabbergasting, as though a fourth rate Ken Russel had been charged with the task of “Stock, Aitken and Waterman; the Untold Story” and decided to remake “The Demon Seed” instead. Confused? You will be. A sleazy record producer lives in a flat controlled by proto-Alexa surveillance system known as S.E.X.Y (red flag number one – the acronym doesn’t even stand for anything). He chats up girls, watches sci-fi porn plus or minus mud wrestling, is visited by dominatrices who end up in a hot-tub nightmare starring the most inspired severed limbs I’ve seen this side of ‘Tenebrae’ (don’t get your hopes up, it’s utterly bath-etic). A number of other fairly horrible computer-driven deaths occur. Somewhere along the line, S.E.X.Y materialises as a naked living statue impersonating Siouxsie Sioux. “This movie is like a fever dream” is a phrase used too often these days, but it’s accurate in this case. Not having much cash for blu rays has sent me scuttling in search of bad VHS rips on youtube; thank goodness for that, because mind-blowers like this are the reason I’m still watching screens. I realise I’m asking in vain, but can’t BFI or Vinegar Syndrome put out a nice refurbishment I can at least drool over in HMV shop windows?

[Demoncrat]

It's an odd one alright. I sat transfixed.

REWATCH.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

URGE TO KILL – S.E.X.Y materialises as a naked living statue impersonating Siouxsie Sioux.

Sold!

Abso****inglutely sold!

[Demoncrat]

Enjoy D! It's not forgotten easily

[nicholasrope]

Phantom Of The Open

Mark Rylance stars in the story based on the world's worst Golfer and how he manages to play in the British Open and other tournaments in disguise after he is banned. Really enjoyable with a special mention to the Commentator who is able to insult people without realizing the reactions of their faces as they are watching the TV.

Exam

Several people are having a Exam as the final part of an interview but there isn't a written question. Very decent effort with definite Cube vibes (Without the violence)

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Eyeball (1975)

A killer in a red plastic mac murders a bus load of American tourists visiting Spain, removing their right eyeball as he goes.

Whilst parts of this Umberto Lenzi directed giallo work other times a visit to the optician and reading the eye chart is more exciting, especially during the many mind numbing conversations that bring the films pace to a near halt.

Some of the kills are sweetly done, the largely female bus passengers all seemed happy to shed their clothes and the final pay off caught me by surprise. However I'm not sure which Umberto Lenzi turned up to direct this but i'm pretty certain it wasn't the same one as made the excellent Nightmare City, Violent Naples or Rome Armed to the Teeth. So all in all not one of Lenzi's better efforts but watchable all the same even if some scenes drag.

The 88 Films Blu-ray was a huge step up from the Marketing Film dvd i'm about to throw away.