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Poor Zac he's not that bad! I started last week with Fulci's The Black Cat a film which I do enjoy despite it's flaws, mainly that the story is bloody bonkers and makes little sense. I really liked the new transfer on the Arrow 'Black Cats' set and watched a couple of the supplements too, I always enjoy Stephen Thrower talking about movies and Kim Newman too! After that was a Hammer triple, I didn't watch these all in one night, it was one a night for 3 nights First up was Dracula Prince of Darkness which I will admit I was slightly disappointed by, however this is probably because I went in with expectations that were simply not met, but also because the finale was a limp fish! I did enjoy it though, it was a romp from start to finish and the touches like the carriage with no driver and the creepy butler were great fun! I followed that with Plague of the Zombies which has quickly become one of my all time favourite Hammer films. I think in part because it's unlike any which I have seen and unlike an zombie film I have seen. It was almost perfect for me apart from the thing which really annoys me about 60s/70s films and that's day for night filming. I think it's worse on the DVD than it is on the bluray but it's so obvious that the night scenes are filmed in daylight, even to the point of the some characters having shadows The Nanny followed these and you know what, I bloody loved it. Nothing at all like I was expecting and I warmed to it right away. At first I just enjoyed the boy being naughty and upsetting Nanny but then the flashbacks started and everything got even more interesting! Naughty Nanny! I also watched 3 films which aren't particularly Cult-Labs so I wont talk in depth about them. Fassbinder's Querelle the story of a sailor on shore leave who gambles with a brothel owner and after fixing it to lose has to sleep with him, to see what it was like obviously... Very interesting film with art direction like you've never seen, looks like one of those old French postcards. A quirky film staring Lukas Haas and Winona Ryder called Boys which starts with Ryder waking up with a hangover to the police knocking on her door asking about a stolen car, she goes for a horse ride to clear her mind and gets thrown off the horse only to be found unconscious by Haas, a local student at the all boys boarding school in town. It's a gentle film that's easy to watch but not great by any means. Also Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, I'd never seen it... Admittedly I was put off by the running time of 3 and half hours but I took the plunge yesterday when I found out there was an intermission after 1hr 45 mins. I LOVED IT! Seriously the pacing is so good the time flies by. Everything about the movie is right. The acting, the direction, the editing, the action, the story, everything! Finally, I watched Class of 1984 another first time for me. Awe Michael J Fox as a chubby short-fry with a bowl cut! I loved this one too, I went in with misconceptions, I thought it was an 80's exploitation actioner but it was actually played straight. A social commentary on Reagan's America? It's coming out very soon on BD in Australia, I'm going to grab it I think - I'd be able to watch this film pretty often I think!
__________________ Triumphant sight on a northern sky |
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An excellent post Justin. Glad you are enjoying the Hammer films. Personally i really like Dracula Prince of Darkness. For some reason i find the throat slitting sequence quite gruelling even though you don't see an awful lot. Perhaps it's one that grows on you over time. I've owned the film on vhs, video and now dvd. I was going to watch Boys last night but it got too late so watched a Children's Film Foundation film called Night Ferry instead. |
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Creepshow George A Romero teams up with Stephen king to give a terrific anthology film based on EC comics. Anyone familiar with the earlier Uk efforts Vault of Horror and Tales from the crypt or the now infamous comics on which they are all based should get the gist but I'm sure everyone here already knows that. I really love this and its sequel and the stories are mostly pretty damned good. Its got a terrific cast including Ed Harris, Adrienne Barbeau and Hal Holbrook as well as a surprisingly good turn from King himself as Jody Verill, a low IQ petrol station owner who finds a meteor that's both tragic and actually pretty funny. Creepshow 2 Not as many stories here but they are all gold including George Kennedy as the kind hearted store owner who gets avenged by old chief wooden top, the absolute classic The Raft as well as some terrific black comedy in the hitch hiker. The animated interludes are well done and the film feels admittedly better paced than the first. Knife for the ladies A frontier town is beset by a serial killer in a film that's no were near as sleazy and nasty as promised. It's still a fun film in its own right but these days feels tame. Nice to see a western horror once in a while though I still recommend Bone Tomahawk that I championed last year. |
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