What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Justin101]

Challenge the Devil (1963) ★★★



That was a weird one, it starts off as a spy thriller with some story about extortion/blackmail and then some guy describes the thing that happened to him in a castle with his friends that made him become a monk... for an hour-long flashback. Christopher Lee appears for around 10 mins as an old man in a castle, who turns into a young man in a castle with very hairy hands.

There is also an extended nightclub scene, like a cross between a musical interlude from a Japanese gangster flick made by Nikkatsu and something Jess Franco would give you in a lot of his movies, only it keeps focus on two couples that aren't even part of the narrative (but one does the best 'not impressed' face at the 3 acts we see).

We also get a full on existential crisis with men screaming and crying and panes of glass being smashed with candelabras and a large spider who's spying on our group of young delinquents.

I quite liked it!

[trebor8273]

When a family's mother dies after a long illness , strange things start happening amongst them they start seeing the dead mother . Soon people begin too die and the family find out there mother was a member of a satanic cult. Lots of strange noises and people hiding faces behind eyes. Found it slow and not partially scary. Something I won't watch again.

Now watching .

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

The first hour of this two hour twenty minute film is a load of guff that would have been widely and rightly mocked had it come from the pen of L. Ron Hubbard for example but because the Wachowski's were big business thanks to the original Matrix film it was all taken in people's strides, but in reality in 2021 it's a load of old bollocks.

However things take a step in the right direction after that and we go from Oracles and Zion and architects to classic sci-fi action in particular a freeway chase that lasts a full sixteen minutes and is wonderfully executed.

Except that on Blu-Ray the effects look faker than ever before at times, in particular when Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) fights atop a moving truck.

On the whole The Matrix Reloaded is poorly paced but largely saved by that freeway action set piece.

[MrBarlow]

Andy Warhol's Frankenstein. 1973. (AKA Flesh For Frankenstein)

Baron Frankenstein decides to create a male and female Zombies to mate in order to create a master race.

I'm not the biggest Frankenstein monster movie fan, except for the 1930s film and Young Frankenstein, this has it all, body parts stitched together, necrophilia, incest, rape, sex, nudity, and a creature ripping his own guts out in order to commit suicide. This does have a homage to the dark gothic atmosphere that was created by universal in the 30s which was pleasant to see. Udo Kier stars as the demented...pervert Baron Von Frankenstein with a heavy German accent who is obsessed with science and madness and is able to fit in the role.


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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Resort (2021)

I was grateful that the four young people investigating an abandoned Hawaiian holiday resort complex in the hope of finding the ghostly 'half faced girl' weren't the usual irritating bunch and were actually all quite likable, because the first 45 minutes of this 75 minute movie was basically a travelogue of the four making their way to said complex and talking a lot. A hell of a lot.

Once there it all became a bit humdrum supernatural horror by numbers. The actual resort and island setting was a pretty impressive setting, but for all the original use of it that was made other than a single scene, it could have been filmed in any old factory.

A couple of cool slices of gore aside this felt like a failure, even though it was a decently made, nicely acted and watchable failure.

[Demoncrat]

For Your Consideration (2006, Christopher Guest)

An unassuming family drama garners some "buzz" when a cast member takes notice of something written on that internet. Slightly milder this time what with yer actual film structure instead of the usual mockumentary thing. I'll be watching this Mascots (2016) shortly so that should be me caught up with Guest's work.

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by Justin101

Have you seen the TV series 'Schitt's Creek'? While it's not a full-on Christopher Guest directed mocumentary it stars Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara in a semi scripted improv about a rich family whose accountant didn't pay the taxes properly, they had everything seized except for a small back-waters town that Eugene had 'bought' for his son as a joke, so they move there.

It's very funny.

No - it's not one that I am familiar with

[Frankie Teardrop]

THE GAME – I was quite amused when they put out a Bill Rebane box-set, it’s not the most intuitive move in this day and age. But I’ve always had a real soft spot for ‘The Game’, which I never thought I’d get to watch in HD. Anyone familiar with Rebane will not be surprised to find that this regional production, in which a small group of dodgy millionaires get their sadistic shits and giggles from challenging some hard-up types to spend a night in a ‘haunted house’ without going mad or running away, looks very cheap and is moderately incomprehensible throughout. Rebane’s indisputable talent for curing insomnia is not in evidence, as the off-kilter vibe and steady accumulation of random incident manages to alleviate boredom. This is very much a personal opinion; I can only recommend 'The Game' to other masochists, but it’s one of his better films.

WINTERBEAST – Staying with regional horror done on a shoestring, here’s another one I never thought would make it over to the posh side of home-based media. We truly are living in a weird golden age of blu ray, even as its star slowly fades. Anyway, ‘Winterbeast’, it’s totally crackers. The stamp of rank amateurism is all over it, for good more than bad – just point the camera, focus and hit ‘record’, it’s bound to pick something up, that ‘something’ being in this case the best worst Harryhausan cast-offs this side of ‘Equinox’. The human characters (largely made up of incompetent park rangers) are only slightly less tangibly artificial than the stop-motion monsters ie the performances are very much ‘super-8’ compatible, but you probably already suspected as much. And I doubt you’ll care. ‘Winterbeast’ is peppered with odd moments and delicious bits of ‘stylisation’, and features such unassailable eccentricities as a character who looks like he’s wearing a slightly warped and ill-fitting Timothy Leary mask, then slips on an actual mask and does a mad little dance with some corpses to a scratchy old record. There’s also a random dildo bit, which… well, I didn’t get it. I could go on. A true indie labour of love, exactly the kind we’re all supposed to fawn over and get sentimental about, albeit this time for very good reasons. For god’s sake, make sure you see ‘Winterbeast’.

DAY OF THE ANIMALS – Animals attack, such was their wont back in the mid to late seventies. This time, some broadly middle-class Americans are off up into the hills on a nature trail, only to find a bunch of horrible focking brutes are going badass just cos the humes spilled some toxic radiation over the sun’s rays or something etc etc Lesley Nielson is around, and he’s an absolute cock. Everyone else is fifty shades of irritating. Well, usually I quite like this sort of thing, but I found my patience running a little dry. The build up seemed a bit too well behaved, although I always get a strange kick out of that flat kind of TV movie aesthetic you used to see in budget mainstream horror from around the time, the kind with parping easy listening on the soundtrack, and it’s worth sticking around to witness Nielson ‘going native’ when it all kicks off. A choice for that rainy day when you can’t find your copy of ‘Wild Beasts’.

FATAL EXAM – As much as I enjoy zero budget indie horror from the seventies, eighties, nineties (see ‘The Game’ and ‘Winterbeast’), ‘Fatal Exam’ was a bit of a hike. Many reviews have mentioned the slightly inordinate running time… yes, unfortunately it is a bit of a problem, as for a good amount of said running time jack all happens. Now, I am very easily sold on the charm of stiff acting, badly composed shots, weird incongruity and the lovely look of old cheap celluloid swimming in grain. But all these become incidentals in the absence of further novelty. ‘Fatal Exam’ has a heard-it-all-before storyline which follows the usual clean cut studes when they go to a house with a dark past and try to figure out whether there’s some psychic investigation they can do into a murder. It only really comes to life in a couple of scenes, one involving a stop-motion (again) demon right at the end. If only the rest of it hadn’t all been about kids in jeans swigging beer. Not sure what grade I’d give ‘Fatal Exam’, but it certainly isn’t graduating from my college.

[MrBarlow]

The Ghoul. 1975.

Two couples decide to have a race, when one car runs out of petrol and goes in search of a garage, the female driver goes to find shelter, she finds a house owned by a former priest who hides a secret.

Set in the 1920s-30s this has classic British horror all over it, dark foggy countryside, a house shrouded in mist and Peter Cushing playing a sinister character. John Hurt plays the caretaker to Cushing and can be quite a asshole at times that you want him to meet a bit of karma. Veronica Carlson plays the damsel in distress who doesn't heed the warning of "Don't go in to the house", hearing that really should be a good tip. Ian McCulloch plays the somewhat hero who goes in search of his friends. This is a dark gothic atmospheric chiller that to me is still entertaining from start to finish and Cushing's performance is always great to see.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

The Ghoul. 1975.

Two couples decide to have a race, when one car runs out of petrol and goes in search of a garage, the female driver goes to find shelter, she finds a house owned by a former priest who hides a secret.

Set in the 1920s-30s this has classic British horror all over it, dark foggy countryside, a house shrouded in mist and Peter Cushing playing a sinister character. John Hurt plays the caretaker to Cushing and can be quite a asshole at times that you want him to meet a bit of karma. Veronica Carlson plays the damsel in distress who doesn't heed the warning of "Don't go in to the house", hearing that really should be a good tip. Ian McCulloch plays the somewhat hero who goes in search of his friends. This is a dark gothic atmospheric chiller that to me is still entertaining from start to finish and Cushing's performance is always great to see.

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It's desperate for a blu ray release but i doubt it will ever see light of day.

I've still got it on vhs along with the crappy Legend of the Werewolf.