What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[DeadAlive]

Open Graves - Some interesting moments of gore can't help save this from being just a barely average horror flick. Unoriginal and not well acted with an ending that just makes you feel like you've wasted around 90 minutes. Shame really, coz I'm a sucker for anything featuring Eliza Dushku.

The Way Of The Dragon - You could never accuse this of being well acted or particularly well made for that matter but this is still an enjoyable film with Bruce Lee oozing charisma as he always did when he was on the screen. The fight with Chuck Norris is a classic played for gritty realism in a film that is mostly fun until the final third.

[Gigantor]

Bats
fangs

[Gigantor]

Originally Posted by DeadAlive

House Of Whipcord - Early seventies British exploitation. Tame in many ways but quite enjoyable. Some of the acting is hysterical.

Rogue - This is a lot less gory than I was expecting but it does have a nice level of tension that it plays out quite well.

Thats why it was delayed for so long from getting a decent Theatre release for so many years.Its a decent movie except for the ending.The ending is terrible it almost ruins the entire movie.

[Schramm]

Sat through Blood Monkey last night. A truly awful, unlikeable film if ever there was one. Wasn't even a killer monkey in the end!

[vincenzo]

Originally Posted by Gigantor

Bats
fangs

I can actually remember crisp brands called those.

Part of the Horror Bags range which also included Bones, Claws and Ribs. Jolly delicious they were too.

[pedromonkey]

watched Darkman last night for the first time in years, very cool movie, and Bruce Campbell's little cameo at the end was awesome.

[42ndStreetFreak]

"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.

[DeadAlive]

Antichrist - Well I will say I didn't hate it! It was way to arty to be taken seriously and Willem Dafoe was too much like his "character" in Mr. Bean's Holiday to take seriously at all. I do get what Lars Von Trier was trying to say about grief and how it can turn us into monsters, but when it's not trying to shock this is pretty long winded and tedious. Charlotte Gainsbourg is brilliant in this though in a very unflattering role.


The Uninvited - This is the Korean horror from 2003 and it is a real s l o w burner with some effective creepy moments but suffers (like many Korean films) from extreme over length. Running at around 2 hours 10 minutes this could really have done with some tighter editing. It does succeed in creating an almost dream like atmosphere but it takes some staying power to stick with it.

[42ndStreetFreak]

"Hush"
http://www.beardyfreak.com/rvhush.php

Low key but very effective, well made thriller/horror from Britain that has some excellent moments and a plot that manages to avoid most of the pitfalls such an idea (kidnapping by a mysterious lorry on a motorway) brings up (Cops, CCTV, other cars/people) better than the slightly similar "Shuttle" did.

Nothing groundbreaking, but very well crafted, acted and satisfying.

[Gojirosan]

Long Weekend

The original, that is...I haven't seen it since I was a kid, and then BBC p&S prints.

Well, it is certainly as atmospheric as I remembered, in fact, I think it is actually creepier than I recalled. I was surprised at the strength of the two lead performances which had not stuck in my mind for some reason - Briony Behets and John Hargreaves are outstanding. I think this is a superb film, one of Australia's best chillers and the Optimum disk is pretty damned good - a beautiful crisp full 'scope presentation with just a few transfer artifacts from time to time (not often). Through my upsampler it looked amazing. A must!

Wake In Fright

I have been wanting to see this film for many, many years and finally there is a Region 4 release of the beautiful restoration. The picture quality is breath-taking (some of the restoration comparison clips on the extras are unbelievable!) and this is a very, very, very good film. I think it does deserve its reputation as a classic of Australian art. Certainly the best thing I have ever seen from Ted Kotcheff by a long way with utterly amazing acting from the entire cast. Just brilliant with the one flaw (?) being the ambiguity of a key flashback scene at the end. There is something this film is famous for that I am not entirely convinced occurs in the film! I suppose this might be success rather than flaw as it might be what Kotcheff was going for. WIthout going into spoilers it's hard to elucidate, I'm afraid! Anyway, this is a truly masterful films that should now, after the search and restoration, be watched and appreciated by many. The Kangaroo hunt sequence is very strong stuff for those who find it hard to watch scenes of animal death.