"Cabin Fever 2" -
Not bad. Starts off slow but engaging. But then loses it's way during the Prom, until things pick up again.
Some nicely gross moments involving various body fluids, lost of blood but only some (though strong) gore.
Some of the FX are dubious (awful latex finger and chest piece) while some are very good (head smashing and drippy cock), but the end is weak and anti-climactic with a tagged on piece that's too long, though leads to an okay pay-off during the animated credits.
Nothing special, weak ending, but has enough gross moments and interesting characters (who are not as obnoxious as those in the first film) to make a good rental.
"Ride the High Country".
Early Peckinpah flick is well though of, but failed to impress me.
Nothing much happens for nearly an hour, no gun is fired until about 70 minutes in and the end seems to be the kind of forced cliche the basic set-up of the film (aged gunslingers trying to find a place in the changing West) was playing against.
Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott (Scott especially does good work ) should have been given lots of fine dialogue moments about aging and change but their time together seems rushed so we have less great character moments between them than we should have as too much time is spent on their younger partner and a wayward young woman who joins them...to less than interesting effect.
Eventually some kind of plot kicks in and we have a great support cast (L.Q Jones, R.G Armstrong, Warren Oates) and a smattering of effective action (including a surprisingly shocking for the time zoom in on a dead face, complete with bullet hole in the head)...but the bad guys are not initially that bad and seem to be having a lark more than acting like hardcore killers and the finale is, as said, forced and unlikely.
If you want a look at the changing West and those old guys trying to live in it Peckinpah's masterful "The Wild Bunch" does this much better and if you want an aging Western star playing an aging gunslinger facing up to his fate watch the wonderful "The Shootist" with John Wayne.
"Werewolf of London"
Before 'Universal' gave us the now iconic Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jnr we had this Werewolf flick Starring Henry Hull.
For me the design of the Werewolf here is much better than the more famous later design.
Chaney kind of looked like a teddy with a silly black snout...But Hull looks far more feral with his bottom row fangs and pointed ears and although perhaps more human looking than Jack Pierce's later Wolfman make-up it looks far more savage.
The problems here are that in a 70 minute film the Werewolf takes too long to appear, Hull is amazingly stuffy and everyone else is so overly theatrical that much of the film looks like a stage play.
The film also makes a major mistake with the way the Werewolf acts.
Despite uncontrolled howling, Hull has presence of mind the dress up in a big coat, put on a cap and cover his face up as he skulks around (in one scene, despite the fact he leaps through a window after he changes, Hull puts on his hat before doing so!!) as such the film actually plays far more like a 'Jekyll and Hyde' film than a Werewolf film.
Hull never loses control or goes totally animal like Chaney did...he's basically a wolfy looking Mr Hyde and acts like a skulking serial killer rather than a feral beast.
BUT...The film is still fun, the Wolfman looks good, there is some nice atmosphere and there are two great support characters (two gin swigging old women who spend their time trying to put one over on each other) who provide comic relief and give the film much needed energy.
Strange mix of sci-fi in this too, including a way before its time CCTV/video phone set up that lets Hull see who is at his door, and a huge meat eating plant with tentacles!
If they had got the Werewolf in quicker and have it acting more like a feral wolf this would have been improved greatly, but it has enough successful moments to pull it through and make it worth a watch.
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