What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[MrBarlow]

Criminally Insane. 1975.

Ethel is discharged from a psychiatric unit into the care of her grandmother, all what Ethel wants to do is eat, her grandmother fearing for her granddaughter locks up the cupboards which makes Ethel snap and kills anyone who stops her from eating. With the body count going up, police asking questions Ethel is running out of time and stories to make up.

Filmed with what seems to be a low budget and a lot of tomato soup and sauce for blood or red paint, and very amatuerish cinematography, poor editing that seems too show the same scene a few times with some WTF moments you gotta love the 70s movies.

Priscilla Alden plays the overweight Ethel who goes to the extreme just to get food and lashing out at those who stop her eating, and turns mentally unstable with having no food and resorts to different measures towards the end, there is a bit of did she or didn't she just do a bit necrophilia or is she just happy to have a guy lying next to her with a splitting headache. At a hour long this is just daft but mildly entertaining.

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[MrBarlow]

The Shout. 1978.

At a psychiatric unit, during a cricket game the new score keeper is told a story about a man who uses Aboriginal magic to gain into the life of a musician and his wife in Devon.

I came across this one years ago and have never really paid much attention to it and decided to give it a re-watch, this is a bit of a slow burner yet it is played out well with the acting of Alan Bates, John Hurt and Susannah York as the main leads to the story. It is weird, bizarre yet haunting as Alan Bates slowly shows his true colors as what he wants and John Hurt will do anything to protect his wife. There is some pieces that can add confusion to the plot but then it's easily forgotten about five minutes later, this defiantly requires a open mind and no distractions to watch.

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[MuckyFunster]

“31”
Dir. Rob Zombie

I really love House of 1000 corpses. And I really want to enjoy another Rob Zombie movie as much as I enjoy House of 1000 corpses. But, oh my god...

I feel like he’s trying to be the horror equivalent of Quentin Tarantino - like constantly turning everything up to 11. The bad language. The extended pseudo intellectual dialogue. The violence. Every single one of the characters just ends up so unlikeable it’s hard to stay focused on any aspect of the film.

Anyone else have an opinion on this one? Am I the odd one out?

Another one for the “I watched it so you don’t have to” file.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by MuckyFunster

“31”
Dir. Rob Zombie

I really love House of 1000 corpses. And I really want to enjoy another Rob Zombie movie as much as I enjoy House of 1000 corpses. But, oh my god...

I feel like he’s trying to be the horror equivalent of Quentin Tarantino - like constantly turning everything up to 11. The bad language. The extended pseudo intellectual dialogue. The violence. Every single one of the characters just ends up so unlikeable it’s hard to stay focused on any aspect of the film.

Anyone else have an opinion on this one? Am I the odd one out?

Another one for the “I watched it so you don’t have to” file.

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It's a disappointment i agree but one i've enjoyed a hell of a lot more on my two rewatches.

3 From Hell was a terrific return to form after this.

Didn't you like The Devil's Rejects, Lords of Salem or Halloween, Mucky?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Above the Law (1988)

Steven Seagal's acting debut is a fairly basic direct to video action thriller but it's easy to see why it elevated the star to the big screen as it was a massive hit on home video and despite not being the strongest actor Seagal had charisma and a fighting style largely unseen in the movies.

Andrew Davis' film has good Chicago location work, in fact the synth score and waterfront photography gives the many night time sequences a Miami Vice feel to them.

Seagal's supporting cast also gives the film credence with decent turns from Pam Grier, an unknown at the time Sharon Stone and Henry Silva at his sneery best.

There are better Steven Seagal movies out there, but here and now in 2021, some 33 years later, Above the Law is still pretty good violent fun.

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Above the Law (1988)

Steven Seagal's acting debut is a fairly basic direct to video action thriller but it's easy to see why it elevated the star to the big screen as it was a massive hit on home video and despite not being the strongest actor Seagal had charisma and a fighting style largely unseen in the movies.

Andrew Davis' film has good Chicago location work, in fact the synth score and waterfront photography gives the many night time sequences a Miami Vice feel to them.

Seagal's supporting cast also gives the film credence with decent turns from Pam Grier, an unknown at the time Sharon Stone and Henry Silva at his sneery best.

There are better Steven Seagal movies out there, but here and now in 2021, some 33 years later, Above the Law is still pretty good violent fun.

I like Above the Law, but the problem I have with it is that it just seems to fizzle out. I remember watching it for the first time amd was surprised when it just sort of ended.

I think I probably like the trailer for this one more than the film

[MrBarlow]

The Blood On Satan's Claw. 1971

17th Century England after a partial skull is found in a field a small village comes under a spell and children slowly convert to a coven of devil worshipers.

Is it just me or is this what Friday night's are all about, relax, chilling and watching a good classic British horror flick, don't know why but every time I watch this one I just feel submerged to my seat and really can't take my eyes off the screen with the atmospheric tone of the film. The acting in this is brilliantly done and how the evil that has been unearthed and a curse has been released and effected people along with a eerie background score.

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[Frankie Teardrop]

SILENT SCREAM – A bunch of college kids get stabbed in an old mansion by the sea. It’s a picturesque mood piece that goes more for a sense of windswept mystery than bloodbath excess – I was reminded of ‘Black Christmas’ in a way, that kind of pre-slasher feel together with a certain off-handedness of tone, the setting and the back-story both lending a semi-gothic accent. It’s maybe a little too drawn-out to be utterly engrossing, although there are plenty of long shadows and cobwebby corners for those who, like me, enjoy a certain kind of atmosphere. The whole thing shifts up a gear when Barbara Steele enters the stage. She’s just such a magnetic persona that her presence can’t help but transform the very nature of the film.

THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD – Yet more early eighties American college students, this time doing something in an old campus building, I forget what exactly. Everything’s closing down, there’s a vague ‘Assault On Precinct 13’ feeling in the air; that’s as far as the comparison goes, this is strictly by-the-numbers-slasher territory when all’s said and done. What marks it out is a kind of grotty feel. Its landscape is made up of deserted buildings of a concrete brutalist hue, and the 16mm production brings a gritty, slightly soiled texture to everything, amping up a rote exercise into something that seems a bit more atmospheric. There is a little bit of gore alongside your basic corridor-wandering.

WE SUMMON THE DARKNESS – Despite an interesting setting (late eighties US, at the height of the ‘heavy metal is satanic’ debacle), ‘We Summon The Darkness’ doesn’t quite pull it off. There’s a bit of gore here and there, a few nice curveballs and a satirical (but not very well elaborated) context that seems to want to deal with the horrors of the religious right, but the main flaws are around narrative clunkiness and an abiding sense of ‘it just wouldn’t happen that way’. I’m obviously no stranger to films where ‘pretty much all of this shit just absolutely would not happen in any way whatsoever’, but WSTD is well-made and aspires to present a cursory realism for its audience to sink into whilst the horrors unfold, so something a bit tighter and less ‘convenient’ was required. For those willing and able to overlook such drawbacks, WSTD may still hold a bit of entertainment value, so I say it’s worth checking out.

SCREAM FOR HELP – Speaking of unlikely stories… what the f*ck was Michael Winner on when he made this?! I might have to rewatch it sober just to be certain, but from what I recall, ‘Scream For Help’s’ utter bizarreness seems beyond doubt. And it all sounds so basic… a girl in a small town is convinced her step-father is scheming to off her mother, so she goes detective to find out what’s going on. The conventional plot is a Trojan Horse whose strange interior is as hard to define as it is to fathom, but in the end the weirdness is about tone – ‘Scream For Help’ is shrill, disjointed, and has the same cloying unreality as a couch made of marshmallow in a lounge overstuffed with foul trinkets and strange statues… come to think of it, that might even have been a scene in the film. There is a sudden and decisive shift in atmosphere as we head into the film’s latter phase, and the fact that the last half hour is nothing other than a straight, tense and well-oiled home invasion sequence reveals the first hour as a deliberately contrived exercise in bad-taste baroque… but why? A hugely enigmatic movie, please someone else out there watch it and give an opinion to prove I’m not going mad.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

I like Above the Law, but the problem I have with it is that it just seems to fizzle out. I remember watching it for the first time amd was surprised when it just sort of ended.

I think I probably like the trailer for this one more than the film

I agree. In a way there's no big finale. One of those films where the best set pieces - the church bomb and Seagal on top of the car - ended up in the middle of the movie.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

SCREAM FOR HELP – Speaking of unlikely stories… what the f*ck was Michael Winner on when he made this?! I might have to rewatch it sober just to be certain, but from what I recall, ‘Scream For Help’s’ utter bizarreness seems beyond doubt. And it all sounds so basic… a girl in a small town is convinced her step-father is scheming to off her mother, so she goes detective to find out what’s going on. The conventional plot is a Trojan Horse whose strange interior is as hard to define as it is to fathom, but in the end the weirdness is about tone – ‘Scream For Help’ is shrill, disjointed, and has the same cloying unreality as a couch made of marshmallow in a lounge overstuffed with foul trinkets and strange statues… come to think of it, that might even have been a scene in the film. There is a sudden and decisive shift in atmosphere as we head into the film’s latter phase, and the fact that the last half hour is nothing other than a straight, tense and well-oiled home invasion sequence reveals the first hour as a deliberately contrived exercise in bad-taste baroque… but why? A hugely enigmatic movie, please someone else out there watch it and give an opinion to prove I’m not going mad.

Is this out on disc, Frankie? Sounds up my street being a British horror...and Winner makes at a winner.