What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Nordicdusk]

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Actor Jake Scullys world id turned upside down when comes home to find his girlfriend in bed with another man. Now Jake tossed out on the streets must try find somewhere to live while doing his best to hold on to a role in a low budget vampire film he is staring in but his claustrophobia had put that in jeopardy. Going between auditions and acting work shops Jake keeps bumping into Sam another actor and the two get chatting and Jake explains his predicament to which Sam has a quick but temporary solution he is going out of town for a bit and he needs someone to house sit a place he himself is house sitting. Jake jumps at the chance its like all his birthdays have come at once but the day gets even better when he is taken to the house which is up in the Hollywood hills over looking the city its an absolutely stunningly beautiful house and the location aint so bad either. Just when he thinks it cant get any better Sam lets him in on a dirty little secret he has himself his neighbor like to put on a little show each night at the same time and Jake can have a front row seat through a telescope and Jake is immediately entranced by her beauty and he sultry moves. The next night while tuning in for the show Jake witnesses an other peeping Tom and after that in the matter of a couple of days his life is turned upside down again.

I fell in love with the film the first time i watched it and after not watching it for a long time i still feel the exact same about it its just a wonderfully shot film and filled with suspense and intrigue its all very Hitchcockian i really like that word it just rolls off the tongue makes me feel like a film critic not someone who heard a word and thought one day ill use that in a sentence and people will be impressed . There are a few moments that made me laugh like the ridiculous way Jake stalks the neighbor around the shopping mall steals her underwear from the bin and the obvious and awkward way he watching her on the beach but all that aside Body Double is a brilliant film its very dreamlike and matched with an equally dreamlike soundtrack your taken on a very mysterious journey.

I love that poster its simple but beautifully effective and now everyone thinks im a pervert

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Cell (2016)

John Cusack stars as a Boston artist struggling to reunite with his young son after a mysterious signal broadcast over the global cell phone network turns everyone using at the time into mindless savage animals... or 28 Days later zombies for a more accurate reference.

I'm thankful i'd only just read the Stephen King novel of this because it definitely made more sense than going in cold. It felt really rushed and compromised. Huge swathes of the book are missing especially ones that deal with the effect the signal continued to have on the 'phoners' as they were nicknamed and how they evolved along the way losing much of the mindless savagery. Several characters are discarded completely and others might as well have been especially Stacy Keach's headmaster.

It's hugely flawed but i did like it as it depicted some sequences from the book such as the burning of the 'phoners' on the playing field just as i imagined, however had i not read said tome Cell would have been a proper garbled mess to watch.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Third Eye (1966)

A hugely enjoyable modern day (Well the sixties anyway) Gothic chiller in which Franco Nero, in an early role, plays a count living with his domineering mother who descends into madness following the death of his fiancee in a car accident.

The young Nero is excellent here and you can tell why he became such a huge star across Europe with his matinee idol looks and intense persona. Just as impressive is Erika Blanc in a dual role as the dead girlfriend and her look-a-like sister who turns up at Nero's country residence out of the blue much to the chagrin of his housekeeper (Gioia Pascal) who had her eyes on the count herself.

Quite strong for it's time, with it's bloody knife murders shot in crisp black and white and it's overarching theme of necrophilia and the deranged mind whilst clearly inspired by 1960's Psycho, The Third Eye was a truly pleasant surprise for me on first viewing last night and was obviously the inspiration behind Buio Omega(1979)

One thing did strike me, and it's not solely to do with this film either, is the accident in which the girl dies. Her car brakes were sabotaged prior to setting off and 'spoiler alert' she ends up careering off a cliff top road and plunging down a ravine to her death. I mean. Does nobody in the movies use their brakes. When Blanc drove away from the house down the drive, through the gates and onto the main road, did she not brake once and thus notice that her car was faulty? Is it purely a game of Russian Roulette that she pulls onto the road and doesn't get hit by a passing eighteen wheeler?

[gag]

As the gods will,

I've been wanting to watch this for years, and forgot all about it until a lad at work said he had it so lent it to me,

Let's be honest when it comes to being creative, different, bonkers, and using your imagination then you can't beat the Japanese for that,

That alone is enough to make you realise you're going to get something different, Tokyo gore police is a prime eg of that,

And then the fact it's directed by Takashi Miike,

The film was bonkers and off the wall but in a fantastic way,

I know the squid game came out years after the film but it's like a cross between a squid game and an escape room, they've to play games of survival based on Japanese culture like a Belling Cat and a Daruma doll,

A lad who wishes his life was different is suddenly in the middle of a survival game with a Daruma doll,
While the film is bizarre, bonkers and highly entertaining there are quite a few flaws with it,


There's no real storyline, after wishing his life was different its then just smack bang in the middle of a survival game, and as soon as its finished just directly into next game, and so on, no in between, storyline, character building etc,


And the ending was kinda eh, what?


Despite the flaws its fun and totally recommendi if you like squid game, Japanese films and something different.

I am a bit puzzled at first game tho when ppl are dying instead of actual blood its like marbles but red, I'm not sure what that's all about.

[Frankie Teardrop]

ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH - When did zombie movies stop being fun? I resent the incessant avalanche of post-apocalyptic survivor angst that passes for the genre now, in a world where rubbing someone's face in oatmeal and shoving a raw steak in their gob could never be enough. Maybe it's pointless looking back, but I'm so glad there's none of that "let's build a wind turbine and think about the future" attitude here. ZCF is a revel in total idiocy (of course it is, it's a Bruno Mattie flick), complete with shameless Romero steals, use of stock footage so blatant it tilts toward the avant-garde, utterly crass jungle nudity, and a fairly mind-blowing agenda that seeks to critique Third World genocide whilst delivering dialogue that sounds like it was written by a zombie in the first place. Gunked-up and brainless, how fab to revisit this total anti-classic.

A BLADE IN THE DARK - Well regarded enough as a late entry, but this fascinating Lamberto Bava giallo just seems so strange. I don't know what it is... I think it's the house, the way it feels a bit boundless and indefinable, a succession of endless corridors and empty rooms that makes the random encounters of our musical protagonist appear weirder than they are. Everything's shadowy and a bit dreamy, the kills odd and disjointed, and what's happening with all those tennis balls? It was made in 1983, a year when I imagine lots of people in the arts were going on about postmodernism as they sipped their wine, and you can see Bava is slipping in the same kind of clever-clever meta-tactics he used to con the audience of 'Demons' into thinking they were watching Baudrillard's fave flesh ripping zombie flick. Putting that to one side, and also the by-the-numbers resolution of a mystery that for a time did seem genuinely mysterious, 'A Blade In The Dark' leaves a haunting impression that pulls me back for repeat visits, even if it's all about interior design in the end.

PUMPKINHEAD 2: BLOOD WINGS - I've never really clicked with the original. It's thoughtful, I like Lance Henrickson, I like rubber monsters and flashy lighting and storms, but there's just something a bit ponderous about it all. 'Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings' made it easier on me by getting straight to the shitty basics - vicious fifties kids murder a small-town outsider and unleash primordial vengeance. 'Basics' is the word though, for Pumpkinhead 2 offers little beyond a rote slasher-style one-by-one as transgressors fall victim to some KNB effects, and again, that's stuff I usually like, but it all felt a bit tired. I did appreciate little bits here and there though, like the way the makers hung the interior of a barn with carcasses just so as to make the inevitable chase / struggle / hurtling about seem a bit more visually interesting.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Pearl (2022)

Ti West's prequel to his own X in which Mia Goth plays the younger version of Pearl the deadly protagonist of X.

I was a little disappointed in this. Playing out more as a 1918 set melodrama of a young woman having to deal with the repression caused by a domineering mother and paralyzed and infirm father, with the horror only really coming to the fore in the final third, it wasn't what i was expecting so i'm hoping to enjoy it more second time round.

Mia Goth gives another excellent performance as the title character and West's technicolour photography gave the feel of The Wizard of Oz and other Hollywood classics and yet i came away a little bemused and lacking enthusiasm.

As first viewings go i much preferred X.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Peter Jackson's first film in his prequel trilogy to Lord of the Rings is a very pretty looking piece of celluloid with a good cast but for all it's Goblin action never feels as gritty or vital as The Rings films.

Aside from the opening half hour which is pretty much a get to know you with the cast of characters - Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit of the title, a bunch of dwarves including Richard Armitage, James Nesbitt and Ken Stott and Ian McKellan's wizard Gandalf. Martin Freeman's Bilbo is a fine companion
on this lengthy quest but Armitage's Thorin - the leader - somewhat uninspiring. However it's Sylvester McCoy's wizard Radagast the Brown who was the most fun and appealing character in this first instalment.

It felt like it lacked genuine peril despite it's many lengthy action scenes with the first as the group are captured by Trolls especially silly, doing nothing more than adding twenty minutes to a film already too long gorging itself on excess. Despite this it's all fairly forgettable stuff.

Thankfully things take an upturn with the next outing The Desolation of Smaug .

[Justin101]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Thankfully things take an upturn with the next outing The Desolation of Smaug .

Unfortunately the only good one in the trilogy. I often think about what GDTs version would have been like.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Blazing Magnum (1976)

A genre straddling Italian / Canadian co-production that fuses the classic poliziottesco crime thriller with a giallo murder mystery.

Stuart Whitman, John Saxon, Martin Landau, Tisa Farrow and Gayle Hunnicutt lead a strong cast in this entertaining thriller. There is action galore including a couple of tasty car chases created by the legend that is R?my Julienne, and Whitman's cop brawling with virtually everyone he comes across whilst untangling the murderous plot which thankfully isn't labyrinthian (Unless i missed a bunch of intricacies, which isn't out of the question).

Also known as Shadows in an Empty Room which suits the giallo aspects perfectly, it's UK Blu-ray title Blazing Magnum thankfully does not lie and tells you all you really need to know about this gung-ho exploiter from director Alberto De Martino.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Gaslight (1944)

The American remake of Thorold Dickinson's British psychological thriller film from 1940 in which Ingrid Bergman won her first best actress Academy Award for her performance as a socialite slowly being driven out of her mind by new husband, the smarmy Charles Boyer.

Glossier than the British film and slicker in the direction by George Cukor, this captures the essence of Victorian London arguably better, especially with it's interior set design and larger budget for outdoor scenes in the foggy London streets.

Naturally Bergman runs away with the acting honours but the longer the film goes on the more of an utter bastard Boyer becomes. I was praying for Rick Blaine to come along and put a couple of bullets in him for his treatment of poor old Ilsa but it wasn't to be.

Look out for Angela Lansbury in her movie debut as Boyer and Bergman's scene stealing maid. She's terrific.

Hugely enjoyable, recommended.