What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[bleakshaun]

Watched Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension. Our film begins with our hero Buckaroo performing surgery before having to hop into a jet car to prove a dimension traveling theory. This unfortunately brings the attention of some evil aliens, all of whom are named John, and its up buckaroo and his gang of scientist rock band members to stop them from escaping the earth.
This has to be one of the most ridiculous sci fi films I have seen. However despite this its still a great film. The soundtrack is good, the effects are fine. But what makes it is the cast, Peter Weller, Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Lloyd all stand out with the characters they are playing.
8/10

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[Frankie Teardrop]

MONSTER DOG – Well, it's a Claudio Fragasso movie, so make of that what you will. In some ways, 'Monster Dog' is a thing of real bizarreness – it centres on Alice Cooper (who for a good half of the runtime looks like someone's dad), a familial werewolf curse, and a town full of runaway dogs which kill people now and then. Alice is back on his home turf to re-shoot a rock video with some pals who all suffer from an extreme case of Euro-woodenness (I'm talking about the acting). His enthusiasm takes a dive when he finds out that he might be the son of a wolf-man, but, being a seasoned pro, he does the video thing and changes into his stage gear, which at least gives him an excuse to run around looking like a middle aged Alice Cooper impersonator for the rest of the film. A posse of dudes who look like they might be in a sort-of Spag Western turn up and do some shooting until the tragic end. 'Monster Dog' has all the ingredients necessary for essential late Italian trash badness, but it doesn't quite ripen into the classic bilge it might've been. There's a little too much lag in places, and the exploitative aspects aren't mined fully. Nevertheless, being a Fragasso film, it wears its lameness on its sleeve and delivers plenty of threadbare charm.

ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH – Been a long time since I last touched base with this Bruno Mattei baddie – I was worried I might be bored, as I'd pegged ZCF as a bit of a yawner. I really liked it, actually. Whereas Fulci furnished his rip-offs with an atmosphere that was his and only his, ZCF has no real style or vibe, apart from that belonging to late seventies / early eighties cut throat Italian exploitation. Actually, being a Bruno Mattei film, it has an additional layer of nonsensicality, which as always borders on the unintentionally surreal. It's a movie of set pieces and moments – between these, downtime, made up of jungle trecking, bickering conversation and stock footage of wildlife (hardly necessary to pad out a film over ninety minutes long). Some of the 'pivotal' sequences are eerily effective – the bit in the native village has a strange air about it, reaching into Mondo territory with its shots of tribal gatherings and people picking maggots out of corpses to eat. Really lurid, leering stuff, and all the more brazen when you consider the film's wraparound narrative about third world exploitation. But ZCF has no coherent ideology, it's pure pulp, pretty much summed up by the scene where one of the SWAT team guys goes into the basement of a house riddled with zombies and does what anyone would do, puts on a tutu and starts dancing around.

HALLOWEEN 3 – No MM in sight, but IMO easily the best of the Halloween sequels. OK, we could have endless debates about that, but let's not. It's such a great film though, I almost prefer it to the original in some ways. You could stick it in the dictionary as the definition of “Eighties Horror”. Just the mood, the way it's shot, the atmosphere. So ironic that it feels quintessentially Carpenterian when the latter didn't direct. His stamp is all over it though, from the bass heavy synth growl to Cundy's compositions. I always feel there's a really downer vibe to it, a suffocating sense of time collapsing, something dark on the horizon... well, that was the eighties for you. In fairness, it's also the film, with its bizarre conspiracy to bring about mass child sacrifice via deadly Halloween masks when the clock strikes midnight on the big day. 'Halloween 3', along with being oppressively dour and humourless and bleak, is also incredibly mean spirited – that bit where the kid's head implodes under the mask as snakes and bugs do their work still disturbs me to this day, as does the scene where that retailer fiddles with the device on one of the masks and gets her face blown open by an unholy laser blast. Creepy. A film I return to endlessly.

[keirarts]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

What, like Femmes De Sades ??

Even his erotic movies I wouldn't always class as the standard sex picture. I think they still are very much Franco pictures. Obsessed with ideas about sadism, sex and death.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Carnival of Souls (1998)

I'd never bothered with this in the past due to it being a remake of an all time classic horror film and it having quite awful reviews. However i have to admit i was pleasantly surprised.

Whilst my familiarity with the original meant i knew exactly what was playing out here, this version, produced by Wes Craven was also sufficiently different to maintain interest with it's sexual abuse sub plot, creepy clowns and Hellraiser Cenobite style imagery, giving you more actual horror than the atmospheric eeriness provided by Herk Harvey.

Bobbie Phillips is fine in the Candace Hiligoss role as is Shawnee Smith as her sister, in a film which is a re-imagining of the 1962 shocker rather than a straight up remake.

[keirarts]

spider

Not the Cronenberg one but an oddball Russian film released by Mondo Macabro. It's about a young girl approaching womanhood who is sent to be the model for a local artist with connections to the local Catholic school. The young woman flees the artists home after realising he and his strange bourgoise entourage have designs over her. She flees to a rural farmstead where she attracts the eye of both the farmer and his handsome son. Unfortunately the forces of good and evil vying for her soul will soon be locked in mortal combat.
Spider is an odd little film. However for fans of eastern European surrealism in films like Valerie and her week of wonders and Black Moon will find a lot to like here. The title stems from the symbolism of the spider in relation to femininity and as a weaver of fate both good and bad. It blends in a lot of strange imagery, especially in the final act. At times the film plays like a strange fairy tail. If you get the chance give this one a go.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

HALLOWEEN 3 – No MM in sight, but IMO easily the best of the Halloween sequels. OK, we could have endless debates about that, but let's not. It's such a great film though, I almost prefer it to the original in some ways. You could stick it in the dictionary as the definition of “Eighties Horror”. Just the mood, the way it's shot, the atmosphere. So ironic that it feels quintessentially Carpenterian when the latter didn't direct. His stamp is all over it though, from the bass heavy synth growl to Cundy's compositions. I always feel there's a really downer vibe to it, a suffocating sense of time collapsing, something dark on the horizon... well, that was the eighties for you. In fairness, it's also the film, with its bizarre conspiracy to bring about mass child sacrifice via deadly Halloween masks when the clock strikes midnight on the big day. 'Halloween 3', along with being oppressively dour and humourless and bleak, is also incredibly mean spirited – that bit where the kid's head implodes under the mask as snakes and bugs do their work still disturbs me to this day, as does the scene where that retailer fiddles with the device on one of the masks and gets her face blown open by an unholy laser blast. Creepy. A film I return to endlessly.

It's the end of August... i mean, really, couldn't you have waited another month?

[keirarts]

fox with the velvet tail.

Ruth leaves her dying marriage and takes up with a new lover. Unfortunately for her the romance is short lived when she realises someone is trying to kill her.
An interesting Giallo that morphs into a battle of wills and intellect between Ruth and her new lover Paul that becomes perverse when Paul's other lover enters the mix. One for Giallo fans, there's very little on screen violence and it's in some ways a lot tamer than later entries. It holds up however thanks to some great locations, great performances and a twisted plot.

[Susan Foreman]

Originally Posted by Frankie Teardrop

MONSTER DOG – Well, it's a Claudio Fragasso movie, so make of that what you will. In some ways, 'Monster Dog' is a thing of real bizarreness – it centres on Alice Cooper (who for a good half of the runtime looks like someone's dad), a familial werewolf curse, and a town full of runaway dogs which kill people now and then. Alice is back on his home turf to re-shoot a rock video with some pals who all suffer from an extreme case of Euro-woodenness (I'm talking about the acting). His enthusiasm takes a dive when he finds out that he might be the son of a wolf-man, but, being a seasoned pro, he does the video thing and changes into his stage gear, which at least gives him an excuse to run around looking like a middle aged Alice Cooper impersonator for the rest of the film. A posse of dudes who look like they might be in a sort-of Spag Western turn up and do some shooting until the tragic end. 'Monster Dog' has all the ingredients necessary for essential late Italian trash badness, but it doesn't quite ripen into the classic bilge it might've been. There's a little too much lag in places, and the exploitative aspects aren't mined fully. Nevertheless, being a Fragasso film, it wears its lameness on its sleeve and delivers plenty of threadbare charm

Alice was going thru a bad period when 'Monster Dog was made. He was drinking much too much, was not eating and had become dangerously thin. His family had checked him into a hospital, but before Doctors could treat his alcoholism, they had to stablise his physical condition - he is critically malnourished and close to death. He was diagnosed with Cirrhosis of the liver, and was in hospital for two and a half weeks, drying out, and he realised that he had to stop drinking and went cold turkey. A few months later, his wife Cheryl had moved out of the family home, and had filed for divorce. Alice had 'lost interest, and was considering retiring from the music business and one of the motivations behind him doing the 'Monster Dog' project was to regain a zest for life, and to get him back into a working mode

[bleakshaun]

Brides of Fu Manchu
Fu Manchu steals women and hold them hostage and then kidnaps their scientist fathers in order to develop a weapon which uses audio messages to produce massive amounts of energy. His intention is to use it to murder a bunch of military top brass.
Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu is great, especially with his moustache. The film itself is ok, but the plot is laughable at times; it doesn't detriment the overall entertainment value you get.
6/10

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[Cinematic Shocks]

Annabelle (2014)

** out of *****