What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by nosferatu42

Watched the old Bela Lugosi flick 'Murders in the Rue Morgue', it was ok But not particularly impressive. Bela's a kinda freakshow type bloke with a gorilla who is given over to ranting about how we are all descended from apes, much to the disgust of the locals, and when he's not doing that he's abducting women.
He's injecting his victims with gorilla blood for some bizarre reason that i'm still not sure of.
Not a great film though the end was ok and it had some nice photography in places and seems to be partly influenced by 'Dr Caligari'. 5/10

Next was 'The House where evil dwells', a early 80's cheesy haunted house story starring Susan George and Doug Mcclure which i found quite disappointing.
A couple and their daughter move to japan into a house where a bloke killed his wife and her lover. Soon spooky(ish) happenings begin occurring, masks fall off walls, their daughter sees a screaming blokes face in her soup(?), and the couple keep getting taken over by the spirits who live in the house(who make them do stuff against their wills).
This could have been interesting but the ghosts all stand around being dull and are presented as normal people but a bit faded and blue.
The only scenes of interest are the initial murders, the final scenes that suddenly go a bit kung fu briefly, Susan George getting 'em out and a bizarre scene where the couples daughter is terrorised by crabs, who knew crabs could climb trees(?), even this quite creepy scene is ruined by weird overdubbing of the Japanese ghosts voices making strange noises.
This was directed by Kevin Connor who gave us the great 'From beyond the grave' and 'Motel hell' and the enjoyable 'At the earths core' and ' before time' films. I'd say watch those instead. 5/10

Ah, THWED. fell asleep, in the afternoon, during my only viewing of this. This also happened during "Of Unknown Origin" where a woman is terrorised by a rat??

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Dave Boy

You know, I was all set to go see the remake. Then recently the more I thought about it, the less interested I became. Why not revisit the original movie ? I'm glad I did. Such an awesome film and who ever can forget the first time they watched the end scene? Classic shock moment.
Watching the making of feature on the disc, with the cast interviews just made it a great experience.

Indeed. Tis my favourite High School film, favourite revenge film etc.

[trebor8273]

Originally Posted by Dave Boy

You know, I was all set to go see the remake. Then recently the more I thought about it, the less interested I became. Why not revisit the original movie ? I'm glad I did. Such an awesome film and who ever can forget the first time they watched the end scene? Classic shock moment.
Watching the making of feature on the disc, with the cast interviews just made it a great experience.

the end scene still makes me jump till this day, first time i saw it had nightmares for days afterwards

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by SShaw

I watched Old Boy for the first time in a couple of years this evening.While the film has lost some of its visceral impact it remains an extraordinary feat.

Fortunately I missed the U.K. premiere of this at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Fortunately because the director actually turned up late for the festival and so the best of the fest showing that I attended was the only screening in his presence. In the post film Q&A one audience member asked "Why did you make such an angry film?" and the answer "Because only by understanding one another's anger can be truly become friends" has stayed with me ever since.

If you haven't see Oldboy yet I urge you to see the original. Spike Lee's remake opens in Germany on Thursday, but at the moment I have no plans to go and see it because its being shown in the dubbed version

Oldboy has stayed with me since I watched it. when I heard they were remaking it for fortress disney, I felt like applying for a pilot's license cough.

[nosferatu42]

Originally Posted by trebor8273

the end scene still makes me jump till this day, first time i saw it had nightmares for days afterwards

When i first saw 'Carrie' i was about 10 and was lying on the floor close to the T.V and when the end scene happened i practically leapt across the room in shock.
It still gets me and whenever i watch it with someone who hasn't seen it before i always end up watching them out the corner of my eye for the reaction.
It always gets 'em.

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by Dave Boy

You know, I was all set to go see the remake. Then recently the more I thought about it, the less interested I became. Why not revisit the original movie ? I'm glad I did. Such an awesome film and who ever can forget the first time they watched the end scene? Classic shock moment.

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

Indeed. Tis my favourite High School film, favourite revenge film etc.

Originally Posted by trebor8273

the end scene still makes me jump till this day, first time i saw it had nightmares for days afterwards

Originally Posted by nosferatu42

When i first saw 'Carrie' i was about 10 and was lying on the floor close to the T.V and when the end scene happened i practically leapt across the room in shock.

SPOILER - If you haven't seen the film, do NOT watch the clip

Has anyone noticed how the ending of 'Carrie' was shot backwards?

Just watch the cars in the background!

[trebor8273]

Communion (Alice sweet Alice)

A very unsettling and disturbing film. And the scene of the end with the young girls face is truly chilling up there with the omen. 8/10

The howling

Might not be as good a film as the wolfman or American werewolf in London but its a lot better than the sequels. Mainly down too the direction and the cast which include Patrick macgee, john carradine, slim pickins, Kevin maccarthy. The effects in some places might of aged badly but the scene with Robert picardo transformation in the doctors office is very effective and sickening. 8.5/10

Watching bram stokers Dracula with either hardware or Chernobyl diaries (first viewing)

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Sleeper (2011).

Set in 1981, an uninvited guest, the Sleeper, watches from the shadows and studies every move of the girls of Alpha Gamma Theta sorority. One by one the girls are hunted down by the mysterious Sleeper, soon to become victims of his claw hammer.

I loved The Sleeper. For once it was great to watch a low budget horror film with decent acting and enjoyable performances, a well written script and believable characters. For me this was twenty first century independent horror at its best.

The films score is highly atmospheric and instantly brings to mind Halloween with its minimalistic approach, added to this the film effectively uses still camerawork and shows us the killers point of view whilst we hear his breathing again giving a big nod to Carpenter's classic. The Sleeper never resorts to the laziness of musical jump scares nor does it feature the frantic editing techniques mainly used in todays thrill free studio slasher films. Removing these lazy scare factors enables the viewer to digest the characters that bit more and enjoy their onscreen performances. For a change to the norm the sorority house is populated by seemingly normal, naturally pretty girls rather than the usual bimbo slasher bait.

What i really enjoyed about the film though was the fact it relied on old fashioned stalk and slash methods that were used in the 70's and 80's classics of the genre, including the use of prosthetics and real blood rather than computer created CGI which resulted in wonderful practical gory deaths.

If only the likes of Hollywood remakes such as Prom Night had been this much bloody fun. All in all i found The Sleeper to be a real breath of fresh air in a genre stifled by its own laziness.

[trebor8273]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

The Sleeper (2011).

Set in 1981, an uninvited guest, the Sleeper, watches from the shadows and studies every move of the girls of Alpha Gamma Theta sorority. One by one the girls are hunted down by the mysterious Sleeper, soon to become victims of his claw hammer.

I loved The Sleeper. For once it was great to watch a low budget horror film with decent acting and enjoyable performances, a well written script and believable characters. For me this was twenty first century independent horror at its best.

The films score is highly atmospheric and instantly brings to mind Halloween with its minimalistic approach, added to this the film effectively uses still camerawork and shows us the killers point of view whilst we hear his breathing again giving a big nod to Carpenter's classic. The Sleeper never resorts to the laziness of musical jump scares nor does it feature the frantic editing techniques mainly used in todays thrill free studio slasher films. Removing these lazy scare factors enables the viewer to digest the characters that bit more and enjoy their onscreen performances. For a change to the norm the sorority house is populated by seemingly normal, naturally pretty girls rather than the usual bimbo slasher bait.

What i really enjoyed about the film though was the fact it relied on old fashioned stalk and slash methods that were used in the 70's and 80's classics of the genre, including the use of prosthetics and real blood rather than computer created CGI which resulted in wonderful practical gory deaths.

If only the likes of Hollywood remakes such as Prom Night had been this much bloody fun. All in all i found The Sleeper to be a real breath of fresh air in a genre stifled by its own laziness.

Sounds good might pick up if I can find it cheap

[Zann]

Only God Forgives

First off this looks gorgeous. A very clear and effective Kubrick influence in composition and camera work....also reminded me of Argento in the use of colours and colour filtering. Really graphic violence for a mainstream picture, quite sleazy at times with predominantly morally ambiguous or downright nasty characters. A kind of shoehorned ooh taboo dynamic between three of the characters which seemed a bit contrived but adds to the sleaziness nonetheless. I think I'll need to see this another time to really make my mind up about it because I found the pace to begin with frustrating and I did think "not another movie with Gosling staring silently and enigmatically" more than once. I haven't read any reviews on IMDB but I did see it got 5.9 which is way to low for this highly stylish and pitch black revenge movie.