What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[MrBarlow]

The Deer Hunter 1978

The lives of Michael (Robert De Niro), Steven (John Savage) and Nick (Christopher Walken), From a small town in Pennsylvania change when the head to the war of Vietnam.

This is the first time I have seen this movie and what a great movie it was. It shows the characters before, during and after the war. It's not like any other war movie this depicts how it can affect the people of fighting and the effect of their friends and family with P.T.S.D. The performance of every actor in the movie is outstanding. Big 10 for this movie.

[J Harker]

Night of the Living Dead. 1968. George A.Romero

History uses two important abbreviations for distinction. B.C and A.D.
Horror cinema really should consider introducing B.G and A.G to indicate whether a film was made before or after Romeros absolute masterclass in moviemaking. Why? Because nothing prior was really anything like it and nothing since hasn't been influenced by it.
I've seen NotLD numerous times and yet for what amounts to a fairly simplistic and rather short film there is always something else to spot. I read an interesting article the other night from Kim Newman which at least for the first time i've personally ever read chooses to point blank mention the fact that our black hero Ben only survives the night of horror by actually employing the tactic of white hero Mr Cooper. (P.s if there are any spoilers here you really really shouldn't be on Cultlabs). I find this particularly intriguing given it's something I've wondered for a long time, that the BLACK hero not only survives but likely most of the other characters would have too if they had only done what highly unsympathetic WHITE guy Mr Cooper had been adamant about from his introduction.
I think the truth is the point Romero was making, intentional or not is that survival depends on unity, from the off Ben fails to communicate with Barbara, from there Ben fails to work with Mr.Cooper. Mr.Cooper clearly doesn't really work well with his wife. In fact the most rational character of the lot is ultra bland everyman Tom, who ends up dead because of pure random events. Which to me suggests that no matter how you cut it, shit happens...
I like Night of the Living Dead. Its easily in my top ten, maybe top five, but its bleak as f*ck and better than anything Romero ever did again.

If anyone's interested.
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/s...ampaign=buffer

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by MrBarlow

I have that in my shopping basket on Amazon didn't realise it was related to that movie

'Al Bradley' directed a few Star Wars knock offs
This is the most entertaining imho
I have the XXX version.

I have seen various things 'masquerading' as cinema over the years as well
Most have come from the land of the free

[Cinematic Shocks]

Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance (1972)

**** out of *****

[Demoncrat]

Greed Of William Hart (1948, John Gilling)
Tod Slaughter chews up the scenery as a graverobber. A brisk trade in medical cadavers hits a dry spell, so egged on by a rather highminded amoral surgeon, Hart and a willing accomplice set out to corner the market. Featuring some of the worst Skawtish accents I've heard in a guid wee file . Undemanding programmer from the man who later brought us The Night Caller, Night of the Big Heat etc

[iank]

A Christmas Horror Story. Liked this 2015 anthology flick just as much, if not a wee bit more, second time. Anything benefits from a bit of the Shat too!

[Rik]

Beyond the Gates (2016)

Two brothers find an old VHS board game (remember those, I still have Atmosfear somewhere?) while emptying their missing fathers Video Shop and decide to play it with the girlfriend of one of them.
Like the far superior The Void, this is a throwback to cheesy Horror films from the 80's (see the entire 80's Full Moon/Empire back catalogue), even down to the music. But, unlike those films, Beyond the Gates isn't even a "so bad it's good" film, it's just bad! Barbara Crampton looks bored as the "host" of the titular board game, trying her best to make the terrible dialogue she's been given remotely menacing, the acting of the rest of the cast is piss poor too.
The SFX are ok, but not a right lot happens, I actually paused it mid way through to go for a cig!

How this won the Audience Award at last years Los Angeles Film Festival is beyond me (no pun intended), the rest of the nominees must've been really terrible!
3/10

[Demoncrat]

Atmosfear
Now that takes me back .



sighs wistfully

[Rik]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

Atmosfear

Now that takes me back .







sighs wistfully

This guy used to scare the shit out of me and my mates

1B5D938E-ABAF-406B-9178-944CC0E98FEF-6857-00000420E93F4561.jpeg

[Frankie Teardrop]

HARDWARE – I've never been a massive fan of 'Hardware', but it's a shame Richard Stanley didn't / doesn't get to make more films as there's certainly vision in his work. In 'Hardware', this comes in the form of a future based on a dusty, metallic MTV video where a rad-zone artiste accidentally re-activates some kind of battle droid she's worked into one of her sculptures. Cue some running around and some carnage. 'Hardware' always leaves me with the feeling that not much has really happened, but it certainly ups the ante where stylistics are concerned. Everything's bathed in neon red, and the later scenes sometimes strive for a tripped out atmosphere. Fans of industrial culture should look out for clips of Monte Cazzaza and PTV playing on the television (or 'vid-screen' or whatever). I often want to like it more than I ever do, but there are certainly far worse ways to feel trapped in the early nineties.

GRAVE ROBBERS – Obscuro Mexican horror from the late eighties. It pretty much rehashes American genre tropes from around the time – it's basically a supernatural slasher, with an undead satanist stalking the usual crew of pesky teens. Some nice atmosphere and occasional gore can't quite disguise the slight plodding between 'events', but there's something likeable about it. Maybe it's the eighties creakiness, and the trans-cultural grave robbing of American video fodder. Highlights include a Krugeresque moment where a disembodied hand emerges from a bed (or a wall, or both, can't quite remember) to eviscerate one of the irritating college kids. Lesson learned: don't rob the graves of satanic zombies, they'll getcha in the end.

THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE – I've sometimes slagged this film off in these very pages for reasons that now seem quite foolish. I read a lot about it when I was a kid, and when I finally got to see it, my dashed expectations left me unreasonably bitter. After not having watched it for nine or ten years, I finally put it on the other day and was duly shamed. What a great film! How could I have been so dumb? This is so much better than a lot of Euro stuff from around the time. Not only is it pacier than most of its contemporaries, there's an eccentricity about it that really makes it stand out. It might be the Lake Distict-type locations, the paranoid, post-hippie atmosphere, the weird use of sound, or the creepy incidentals like the homicidal babies. There are moments and scenes that are genuinely eerie – the bit in the crypt where the dead rise from their coffins really put me on edge, just when I was beginning to think spookiness was something films aspired to, but never quite reached. Also, the gore is quite harsh for its time and spans heart munching through to mammary pulping. Forgot about that. Maybe strangest of all for a European NOTLD rip-off from the early / mid seventies, the characters are quite well drawn and interesting despite being fundamentally not very likeable, from Ray Lovelock's narcissistic pot-head to Arthur Kennedy's fascist copper hard-ass. Pretty much a genre classic, or near to one.

DON'T GO IN THE WOODS... ALONE – This, on the other hand, is no-one's idea of a genre classic. But it's got something. What, though? I won't go on about DGITW...A as I've reviewed it at least once before, but, for me, it's just one of those flicks which has a special magic about it despite itself. That's probably a very subjective opinion, because on any sane level DGITW...A is a big fail. Most aspects of filmmaking are poorly attended to or seem 'off' in some way, but let's just say I'm a sucker for shots of windswept locations accompanied by spooky electronic music – call it the 'Scalps' effect. DGITW... A is really tonally damaged as it seems to grope towards being a comedy of sorts, but then frequently lapses into unintentional atmospherics. Throw in plenty of cheap but somehow not very explicit gore and performances which are badly post-dubbed, and you have a pretty mashed filmic experience. Not the most relatable of movies, but one which has attained a certain stature in my mind.