What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Link (1986)

A young student (Elizabeth Shue) goes to work as an assistant to animal researcher Terence Stamp who's work with chimpanzees is reaching a conclusion. On arrival she meets Link, one of three resident chimps, even though he's actually an Orangutan, who's intelligence means he dresses and acts like Stamp's butler. Following a glorious half hour in the company of a slightly dotty Stamp, things begin to unravel when he goes missing and Shue finds she's alone in the old cliff top mansion with only the primates for company.

Australian director Richard Franklin's film is fast paced with an energy and vibrancy that you don't often feel in modern films. His death age just 58 was a loss to the horror genre as in my opinion he had an excellent CV of diverse genre films including Psycho II (1983) and Road Games (1981. Franklin frames his shots beautifully in a film full of unusual camera angles.

There's a realism to Link that you won't find in Planet of the Apes (Humans dressed as apes) or it's two recent re-imaginations (All computer generated), that realization the apes are actually performing in this film and interacting with humans. In fact great credit must be handed to Shue and Stamp as it really cannot have been easy and possibly quite dangerous at times even though the apes were well trained. However they convince, especially Shue in showing us the threat from these primates is real and not just a chimps tea party. It also proves compelling viewing and completely grounded in reality. Link himself, the Orangutan dressed as a chimp dressed as a butler is brilliant. Endearing yet also steadily unnerving. The look on his face as he discovers a nude Shue about to take a bath is rather frightening as you can quite easily fathom what he's thinking about. The second half, thanks to a combination of great acting, superb filming and terrific simians, is a tour-de-force of psycho horror cinema with an extremely sinister final shot.

If anyone wants to pick up a delightfully quirky and wildly entertaining horror thriller from the Network sale then look no further than Link. At only £3.49 it's a steal.

Highly recommended.

Link is just such an underrated film. Kudos!

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Last week's viewings:

Premonition (1972)



64/100


This Transient Life (Mujo) (1975)



75/100


The Man We Want to Hang (2002)



60/100


Storytelling (2001)



68/100


Vulgaria (2012)



68/100


Death Race 2000 (1975)



63/100


The Pom Pom Girls (1976)



58/100


Endangered Species (1982)



49/100


The Final Terror (1983)



55/100

[iank]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Link (1986)

A young student (Elizabeth Shue) goes to work as an assistant to animal researcher Terence Stamp who's work with chimpanzees is reaching a conclusion. On arrival she meets Link, one of three resident chimps, even though he's actually an Orangutan, who's intelligence means he dresses and acts like Stamp's butler. Following a glorious half hour in the company of a slightly dotty Stamp, things begin to unravel when he goes missing and Shue finds she's alone in the old cliff top mansion with only the primates for company.

Australian director Richard Franklin's film is fast paced with an energy and vibrancy that you don't often feel in modern films. His death age just 58 was a loss to the horror genre as in my opinion he had an excellent CV of diverse genre films including Psycho II (1983) and Road Games (1981. Franklin frames his shots beautifully in a film full of unusual camera angles.

There's a realism to Link that you won't find in Planet of the Apes (Humans dressed as apes) or it's two recent re-imaginations (All computer generated), that realization the apes are actually performing in this film and interacting with humans. In fact great credit must be handed to Shue and Stamp as it really cannot have been easy and possibly quite dangerous at times even though the apes were well trained. However they convince, especially Shue in showing us the threat from these primates is real and not just a chimps tea party. It also proves compelling viewing and completely grounded in reality. Link himself, the Orangutan dressed as a chimp dressed as a butler is brilliant. Endearing yet also steadily unnerving. The look on his face as he discovers a nude Shue about to take a bath is rather frightening as you can quite easily fathom what he's thinking about. The second half, thanks to a combination of great acting, superb filming and terrific simians, is a tour-de-force of psycho horror cinema with an extremely sinister final shot.

If anyone wants to pick up a delightfully quirky and wildly entertaining horror thriller from the Network sale then look no further than Link. At only £3.49 it's a steal.

Highly recommended.

Link is one of my absolute all-time favourites! Loved it ever since I saw it in the mid 80s!

The Frighteners. Michael J Fox is a "psychic investigator" conman who makes a living out of ghostbusting haunted houses, when he's actually in cahoots with the ghosts! But his neat little scam plunges him into a dark mystery when a wave of mysterious deaths strike his community, seemingly caused by a sinister spectral figure that resembles Death itself... This mid 90s comic fantasy horror from director Peter Jackson is a hugely entertaining film, probably Fox's best flick outside the BTTF trilogy. Jeffrey Combs is hilarious as a paranoid loony FBI agent who becomes almost as dangerous as the ghostly killer, and there's a peach of a role for genre favourite Dee Wallace Stone (The Howling, the mom in ET) as a seemingly timid and cowed middle aged woman who, in her teens, may or may not have assisted her older boyfriend to commit a mass spree killing; the true nature of the villain adding a dark and genuinely creepy edge to the otherwise Ghostbusters-esque tone. The Frighteners is a classic.

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Girlhouse.

Not quite the blood and spunk epic it could have been. A Shaun Costello remake would be cool but as it stands, it is an okay slasher.

[gag]

Originally Posted by iank

Link is one of my absolute all-time favourites! Loved it ever since I saw it in the mid 80s!

The Frighteners. Michael J Fox is a "psychic investigator" conman who makes a living out of ghostbusting haunted houses, when he's actually in cahoots with the ghosts! But his neat little scam plunges him into a dark mystery when a wave of mysterious deaths strike his community, seemingly caused by a sinister spectral figure that resembles Death itself... This mid 90s comic fantasy horror from director Peter Jackson is a hugely entertaining film, probably Fox's best flick outside the BTTF trilogy. Jeffrey Combs is hilarious as a paranoid loony FBI agent who becomes almost as dangerous as the ghostly killer, and there's a peach of a role for genre favourite Dee Wallace Stone (The Howling, the mom in ET) as a seemingly timid and cowed middle aged woman who, in her teens, may or may not have assisted her older boyfriend to commit a mass spree killing; the true nature of the villain adding a dark and genuinely creepy edge to the otherwise Ghostbusters-esque tone. The Frighteners is a classic.

Great film, i remember having a lodger who loved this film, and strange thing was if i was out and he was watching it i always walked in on the exact same scene all the time. Bizarre

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by gag

Great film, i remember having a lodger who loved this film, and strange thing was if i was out and he was watching it i always walked in on the exact same scene all the time. Bizarre

So are you saying Bizarre_Eye was your lodger?

[keirarts]

Legend of Tarzan

While fans of the novels will still complain we have yet to see Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan, this film is far better than the dreary Greystoke and against all expectations is actually quite fun. It won't be making any best of 2016 lists and it has some issues, namely CGI and script issues as well as a bland Tarzan but overall this is actually reasonably entertaining and better than some of its harsher critics have made it out to be.

[Justin101]

Originally Posted by keirarts

Legend of Tarzan

While fans of the novels will still complain we have yet to see Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan, this film is far better than the dreary Greystoke and against all expectations is actually quite fun. It won't be making any best of 2016 lists and it has some issues, namely CGI and script issues as well as a bland Tarzan but overall this is actually reasonably entertaining and better than some of its harsher critics have made it out to be.

I'm on the fence whether to go and watch it, it's not going to cost me anything but time after all. Even if the film is a bust I get to watch Skarsgard half naked for 2 hours

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Justin101

I'm on the fence whether to go and watch it, it's not going to cost me anything but time after all. Even if the film is a bust I get to watch Skarsgard half naked for 2 hours

Its worth watching. As I said its far from perfect but I was expecting something dreadful and instead I got a film that was actually pretty entertainig.

[PaulD]

Ghostbusters - the new one. Really enjoyed it - was funny and engaging and has a really nice feelgood quality to it. Not all the jokes land but it's so much more rewarding than the trailers suggested

Independence Day - the new one. Tedious snoozefest. All of the spectacle of yer modern day blockbuster but with none of the charm or heart.

The Neon Demon - Breath-takingly beautiful, admirably superficial and yet surprisingly full of subtext. NWR proves to be an absolute master of genre manipulation and exploitation, and boy can he fill a frame with all sorts of wonderful things to look at. Shocking, darkly humourous, unforgettable and indebted to all the greats - Bava, Argento, Lynch - an incredible piece of work.