What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Frankie Teardrop]

OUT OF THE DARK – A sinister clown is murdering sex line workers in this semi-slasher from the late eighties. What could be more golden than the combination of sleaze and evil clowns? But OOTD isn’t really interested in going full tilt about all that stuff, being a DTV-style DePalma facsimile with a come-on that feels more playfully tongue-in-cheek than squalid. Well, I’m a sucker for hazy neon, the city at night, choral synths, and Bud Cort and Devine – all present and correct. A nice time capsule that I always enjoy digging up and peering at.

FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE – The last of the ‘classic’ sequels and the nadir of their descent into silliness. We hop around between dream worlds and witness Freddy on a broomstick, murdering people via computer game (it plays even more ridiculously than it reads.) As with Part 5, the tonal wobbles of the series are amplified in that we get a lot of splatter panto mixed in with genuinely disturbing moments concerning Freddy’s traumatic genesis. An onslaught of special effects will entice anyone (ie me) who enjoys gawping at contrivances like Freddy’s Lovecraftian skull-faced ghost eel bosses from ‘the spirit world beyond dreams’, but as a whole its shattered reality is twice as baffling as ‘Videodrome’ whilst being half as smart at best. From the director of ‘Tank Girl’ and ‘Band of Gold’!

SOMETIMES AUNT MARTHA DOES DREADFUL THINGS – Floridan exploitation from the early seventies about two guys on the run. They’re hiding out in a down-at-heel part of town, and their ‘gimmick’, which they hope will help them sidestep the law, is that one of them is posing as the other’s aunt. SAMDDT mixes nebulous homoerotic relationship drama with post-‘Psycho’ edginess (though there’s less of the latter than you’d think). There’s maybe a pre-John Waters humour to it all, a sort-of glee in trashy camp, and blurts of cheapo psychedelic op fx whenever occasion demands a murder sequence (maybe to obscure the lack of $ for much onscreen gore), but it’s at its most affecting when the two are sat around bickering and squabbling in scenes of low key domestic strife. This film has a groovy attitude; I loved the bit when a pounced-upon hippie pauses to carefully pick up their bong before fleeing.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE – From the director of ‘Tank Girl’ and ‘Band of Gold’!

Rachel Talalay was the go-to director of choice for Steven Moffat during his time running Doctor Who with all the big series finales and she's also directing one of the upcoming specials. Her episodes have largely been excellent. Much better than bloody Freddy's Dead anyway.

[nicholasrope]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

Legion Of Iron (1990, Yakov Bentsvi)

Illegal fight club caper.
Young lovers find their night ends very differently to, I presume their smallish desires cough.
I digress.
An odd beast, and if I can find this on BD, a shoe in for Boxing Day.

The odds that 2 people watch some obscure, hard to find, 1990 B-Movie in the same week LOL

[MrBarlow]

Breeders. 1986.

A bunch of women admitted to a hospital that are impregnated by a alien parasite. A homage to a 50s B horror sci-fi genre except this has decent amount of blood and gore and a bunch of bad actors that makes it more comical than on the edge of your seat, nail biting horror but makes up with the ton of female nudity involved. Might be on a re-watch and become another one on the guilty pleasure list.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

Breeders. 1986.

A bunch of women admitted to a hospital that are impregnated by a alien parasite. A homage to a 50s B horror sci-fi genre except this has decent amount of blood and gore and a bunch of bad actors that makes it more comical than on the edge of your seat, nail biting horror but makes up with the ton of female nudity involved. Might be on a re-watch and become another one on the guilty pleasure list.

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Great slice of exploitation. Watched the dvd loads of times.

[Demoncrat]

Wonderland (2003, James Cox)

The dvd looked awfully dark in places, so this may get revised when I see it again. Val Kilmer goes for it playing John Holmes at the end of his career playing ... a different kind of part ahem. Fun double bill with Spun cough.
I digress. I saw this when it came out, it got lost in the swathe of druggy things that came out obviously. Fun seeing Eric Bogosian in something serious. Will revisit.

[MrBarlow]

Goodnight Mommy. 2022.

Twin boys Luke and Elias head to spend time with their mother who has had surgery on her face and begins to think she isn't who she said she is.

Remake of the 2014 Austrian film with Naomi Watts as the mother who spends most of the time bandaged up and barefooted but does a nice sultry half naked dance infron of the mirror. Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti play Luke and Elias, one a loving son while the other is very suspicious of the mother. I haven't seen the original so I didn't know where this was going, this had a good premise of being a good psychological film of is she or isn't she who the mother claims to be and one small child looking for answers and then it gives us a twist that has been done before a few times. The acting is decent from the main stars including the young actors who do a great performance, some good tense built up moments and then the almost 'holy sh!t' ending. May not be for everyone, for me this was entertaining.

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[MrBarlow]

Frauds. 1993.

A couple make a outrageous insurance claim and their insurance investigator who uses dice on a whim turns their lives upside down.

A weirdly bizarre film with Phil Collins as Roland Copping who certainly rolls the dice and takes a chance while investigating Hugo Weaving and Josephine Byrnes and their claims of theft that becomes a comical game of cat and mouse and trying to turn the tables. The film isn't perfect and moments that do drag on but Collins certainly does bring a bit of charm and some slapstick comedy to the film that makes it more worth while to watch.

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[Demoncrat]

Massage Parlour Murders (1973, Chester Fox/ Alex Stevens)

Two people directed this? Hmmm.
Coming off like if Andy Milligan shot an episode of The Sweeney, this odd wee thing did keep my attention, if only to see how it would be resolved ahem. A madman is stalking masseuses and the local fuzz are at a loss due to our antagonist's meticulousness ... until a rather boring church service leads one of the detectives to surmise on our maniacs motivations. Michty.

[Frankie Teardrop]

SLAVE GIRLS FROM BEYOND INFINITY – There’s a title that could only hail from the back of a VHS rental place in 1987. Elizabeth Kaitan and Cindy Beal are on the run from a galactic prison. Their stolen space craft crash-lands on a planet where Don Scribner, who’s obviously a fan of “the most dangerous game”, lulls visitors into playing the quarry in his fatal manhunts. It’s all as throwaway as you imagine, but the script is nicely sardonic, there’s an attempt at a steamy, jungle flavoured sci-fi gothic atmosphere, there are mutants, robots and, briefly, zombies. Likeable, all the more so for being quite short.

FRANKENSTEIN REBORN – An Asylum Frankenstein update from the early noughties. This one has a bit of a bad boy Dr F who likes to indulge in bondage, drugs and sexy mind games, although the vibe of ‘Frankenstein Reborn’ is more “stilted and workmanlike” than debauched. There’s a smidge of gore, some nicely gooey monster make-up and the odd laugh out loud moment as it lurches from bad science to predictable climax. Keeps to template and never transcends the typical, but if you have a disposable ninety minutes you may be as mildly entertained as I was.

HIRUKO THE GOBLIN – Shinya Tsukamoto ditches the monochrome hell of ‘Tetsuo’ to bring us the madcap adventures of two Ghostbuster types, who chase human heads on spider legs around an abandoned school. A background story about ancient evil within a lost tomb gives rise to some cheapo HR Giger-ism. ‘Hiruko’ swings between Raimi-esque camera silliness and moments of lyrical reflection, even letting in a bit of cloying sentimentality between moments of neck spurting and head severing. Like a lot of Tsukamoto’s early stuff, it gets a little exhausting, though it’s way less frenetic than ‘Tetsuo’ and is largely a lot of fun.