What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[nosferatu42]

I've always had a problem with the handy lever at the end of `Bride'.
Lancaster is great for the scant few minutes she appears.

[Justin101]

Originally Posted by nosferatu42

I've always had a problem with the handy lever at the end of `Bride'.
Lancaster is great for the scant few minutes she appears.

She is good when she doesn?t have to speak but as Mary Shelley in the opening scene she?s not great.

[Frankie Teardrop]

MERIDIAN - This Full Moon production is quite the weirdie, playing like a quasi-softcore Beauty and the Beast by way of 'Dead Ringers'. Since this is Band rather than Borowczyk, we're in Charlie's big Italian castle, which gets maximum exposure here in the form of many atmospheric up and down corridor shots (not complaining, I dig it). It's languid enough to be off-putting, but strange enough to entice - if the supernatural circus troupe, mysterious painting and heavy pop video leanings don't hook you in, you can still wallow in the pure early nineties mood. Or baffle at the names - Sherilyn Fenn, Pino Donaggio, Hilary Mason lend an unexpected sheen. Whilst its depiction of drug facilitated date rape is pretty stone age, I endorse any film that can cut away from a functional dialogue scene to linger needlessly over a pile of skulls in a vault. Choral synths by candlelight and a magical world that glows red behind a castle wall are all it takes for me sometimes.

THE HOUSE ON TOMBSTONE HILL - Typical horror teens visit the woods to do up a shunned house; the supernatural hag who lives there gives said horror fodder a makeover in return. 'The House On Tombstone Hill' was a late eighties Troma acquisition, one they amusingly mispackaged as a sort of hip-hop horror comedy. It's actually pretty straight, only veering towards (unintended?) laughs when the witchy beast at the centre of the mayhem makes an appearance, being obviously one of the twenty-something cast in very badly performed elderly drag. Apart from that, it's fairly nuts-and-bolts in staging its pilfered 'Evil Dead-cum-generic slasher'-isms, with lots of terrified running around and the youngsters turning one by one into the snarky undead. Location's as important in horror as anywhere; 'The House On Tombstone Hill' benefits both from its grotty interiors (lots of shots of mouldy corridors do it for me) and the foreboding presence of its stately pile. More importantly, it has that isolated 'trees 'n' shadows' upstate New York thing going on in the background, a great way of bringing in atmosphere on the cheap if you can wangle the real estate. Oddity and period charm come in the form of threadbare eightiesness, drifty electronics, grainy reels and a guy in hag makeup that isn't meant to be makeup. It's also surprisingly gory. I guess true regional horror was beginning to fade from the map when this one arrived, but it's a pretty entertaining example of the genre's dime store tendency.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Susan Foreman

It goes without saying, I disagree with all of you. I think that 'Bride of Frankenstein' is a masterpiece, and without doubt the best of the Universal monster cycle

The original 'Frankenstein' *is* a great film, but I love the wicked sense of humour and camp sensibility that the sequel has

For me, it's up there with 'King Kong' and 'The Wizard Of Oz' when it comes to the greatest films of the 1930's

I agree with Susan's take on Bride of Frankenstein, a film that takes the best parts of Frankenstein (macabre imagery, a flawed protagonist, threat etc.) and expands them into something more.

James Whale seems to build on his previous from, adding extra layers to Karloff's monster, slightly more nuance, playfulness, wicked humour, and improved as a filmmaker in the interim four-year period, so Bride benefits from Franz Waxman's superb score, John J. Mescall's cinematography, and John P. Fulton's special effects, all of which are superior.

I love Frankenstein - it's a brilliant piece of Gothic horror, but the sequel seems to improve each aspect a little bit and, with Dr Pretorius, one of horror's most interesting antagonists, and the framing device with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, gives this an extra layer of intrigue, especially with Elsa Lanchester doubling up as the novel's author and The Monster's Bride - a brilliant piece of casting.

After writing this, I now feel like watching a double bill of James Whale's two Frankenstein films, so thank you to all of those who have watched and discussed them for getting me in the mood.

[nicholasrope]

Bad Boys: Ride Or Die

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back and this time they are trying to clear the name of their recently deceased Captain, who was framed as corrupt. They are framed as well and they have to clear their names and save their families.

After the lackluster 3rd Film in the series, I was a bit apprehensive , however this is a return to form for the Franchise, it has the Action and Humor, you'd expect.

Didn't like how they filed the Action sequences though, nearly made me seasick, steady cam is a classic for a reason.

Intruder

Simple plot really, a Killer starts killing employees on the Night Shift of a Convenience Store. At under 85 minutes long, it's brisk but nothing happens for around the first 20 minutes but the kills are rather inventive but you can tell that the dead bodies are fake. But I did like the twist at the end.

Don't watch the Trailer because it gives away the killer's identity and I quite liked it. Back in the glory days of my Video Shop this would be the quint-essential wait till it's a older release and the rental price is cheaper along with the rental length (1.25 for 7 days or 5 films for 5.00 for 7 days) and I would have watched many times during the duration.

Mars Attacks

Tim Burton's take on the campy 50's Sci-Fi Film which sees Aliens trying to take over Earth. It's good fun with the Aliens the stars of the show along with an all-star cast. The Boxing scene cracks me up.

[iank]

Graduation Day. Track field stars start being picked off at a high school after a girl dies during a race. Mediocre but watchable enough early 80s slasher. Weirdly structured (the girl's older sister is set up as the protagonist but disappears for such long stretches she isn't really and I even thought she might be the killer instead) and slow between kills but the story is interesting enough.

[MrBarlow]

Talk To Me. 2023.

A group of teens play about with a disembodied hand and use it to summon the dead, what starts out as a laugh and joke to becoming terrifying.

Something different in the horror genre with ghosts and the supernatural, we have seen films use the Ouija board but using a hand that seemed to belong to a psychic that nobody knew anything about. At the start we are giving a glimpse of what may come, it is a slow start and a bit foretelling to what the end may be or is my mind working on overtime, who know's. There is a bit of a decent character build up which does slow the film down and then we are thrown into it with a game until someone else tries it.

Every game has a rule and never break the rules but these teens do and then there is some bad consequences and someone innocent has to pay, best rule in a horror...the innocent must suffer. Aside from a bit of blood splatter, original thinking of the plot this was not even a big scare factor but does give out the psychological of what is real and what isn't scenario. I wouldn't say rush out and buy it go into it with a open mind.

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[Justin101]

Those possession scenes in Talk To Me freaked me out it's a good film.

[MrBarlow]

Teenagers From Outer Space. 1959.

Three aliens disguised as humans arrive on Earth, one of them Derek breaks away with plans to save the Earth and kill the giant lobsters from his planet that have settled in a cave.

I think that is the jest of the plot for this and thrown in for good measure a love story between a human and alien that doesn't seem weird at all in this little B movie...must be was gave John Carpenter a idea for his film Starman. This really isn't a great film, considering the year or decade and with what funds were or could have been available, a toy gun that is used as a ray gun, a some weird effect for part of the giant lobster we are given and some bad delivery of dialogue is the reason we still watch these movies, not to mention the teenagers look like they are in their 20s, saying all that this may be viewed again.

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[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

Teenagers From Outer Space. 1959.

Three aliens disguised as humans arrive on Earth, one of them Derek breaks away with plans to save the Earth and kill the giant lobsters from his planet that have settled in a cave

Different film, but you gotta love a movie with a hero whose name is Derek