What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[re.form]

I watched 'The Motorcycle Diaries' tonight. Great cinematography but did get a little bored.

Re-watched Frankenhooker as well. Crap cinematography but didn't get bored once.

I lone Henenlotter. The dirty bastard.

[Gojirosan]

To please my Predator-obsessed girlfriend I bought a box-set of the AvP films, which she has never seen.

I put on the first AvP: Alien Vs Predator and selected the "Extended Version" which I had never seen before. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Previously I had thought it an OK action film that wasted some time well enough, but this time I really got into it! I ended up thinking I probably prefer it to the rather up-its-own-arse Alien: Resurrection.

I am planning on buying the Alien Tetralogy set soon to re-evaluate them as well!

[antmumford]

Originally Posted by re.form

I agree. The push this one got on horror websites was overbearing. When I watched I found myself laughing at all the projectile blood spray and how 'try-hard' it was. It wasn't intense or shocking. I liked it, but it's an example of internet promotion gone silly. I had a similar experience with 'Martyrs' - which again is by no means a bad film - but it was pompous and ultimately lacking in depth considering how profound it was meant to be.

Of the recent french shockers, I liked 'Frontiers' the best. That new it was an exploitation picture and went to town providing some nice cheap frills.

I've got all those films mentioned and I agree that Inside was lacking something but it was still enjoyable. Frontiers was good too but I think Martyrs is my favourite of these frenchies. It wasn't a great film by any stretch but it's one tha has stuck in my mind since. In some ways it's scarred it. Some of those images have left an imprint on my mind.

[nekromantik]

Originally Posted by antmumford

I've got all those films mentioned and I agree that Inside was lacking something but it was still enjoyable. Frontiers was good too but I think Martyrs is my favourite of these frenchies. It wasn't a great film by any stretch but it's one tha has stuck in my mind since. In some ways it's scarred it. Some of those images have left an imprint on my mind.

I agree, from the "new wave" of french "extreme cinema" my fav is Martyrs as it has that shocking ending that lets you make up your own mind. So at least it has something to leave u thinking about at the end instead of just thinkin wow that was gory like u did with Inside.

Just watched Night of the Demons last night, was enjoyable but not that great overall. Was fun and kept me entertained overall.
Also watched Planet Terror again and was as awesome as last 2 times I saw it . I love that movie.

[Gojirosan]

I thought Frontières had something lacking. For me it got a bit lost in its attempt to balance exploitation with serious political comment. I liked it, but thought it wore its flaws more obviously than and was not in the same league as Martyrs, Ils or Haute Tension.

Not seen À l'intérieur yet, but may watch it today and tell you what I think.

[iluvdvds@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Gojirosan

I thought Frontières had something lacking. For me it got a bit lost in its attempt to balance exploitation with serious political comment. I liked it, but thought it wore its flaws more obviously than and was not in the same league as Martyrs, Ils or Haute Tension.

Not seen À l'intérieur yet, but may watch it today and tell you what I think.

Totally agree! Frontiers was quite a good film but simply isn't up to the standards of the others. Although IMO I didn't really think that much of Ils - I saw it at the cinema and for me it was just terribly cliched - although the twist at the end was nice.

I'm sure you'll really enjoy Inside!

[Gojirosan]

I loved Ils, though I do appreciate the "cliché" criticism - I've read it in others' reviews too. There's just something about the set-up and the short, sharp execution (a film that runs under 80 minutes in the 21st century!!! More of this please!) that chilled me to the marrow. The "under siege in a penetrable building" scenario is a meme that almost always wins me over be it Ils, Night Of The Living Dead, Rio Bravo or whatever! I am also fond of the "psycho kids" thing.

[nekromantik]

Ills was awesome too and for me best french horror is Haute Tension.

[Gojirosan]

OK, so I watched it:

À l'intérieur/Inside

The film did not take the angle I thought it would, being a straight on horror flick rather than a crime/horror film investigating the rare but real crime of Foetal Theft. I say "straight on" horror film, but it isn't so simple. It is quite arty in its intents and quests to rise above the usual stalk'n'slash gorefest which it at first resembles.

[spoiler] It starts very much laden with the influence of David Cronenberg, in my opinion, both visually and thematically: washed out colours, steely blues and greys, autumnal shadows, fear of the flesh and changes of the body through either injury or pregnancy and so on. However, this all turns about as The Maniac gets in the house. The film then becomes a very harsh exercise in claustrophobic horror - the small house offering little in the way of refuge or safety mirroring the (on-screen) trials of the foetus in its by now cramped uterine home being bashed about by injury and rapid movement. This works very effectively, in my opinion, and you spend the last hour or so of the film longing for space and the ability to take a deep breath! It's been a while since I saw a horror film so efficiently depict spatial constraint in this way.

Beatrice Dalle is quite superb as The Maniac - a wronged woman driven insane by the loss of her strived for baby. Hers is a performance of cold malice and laothing, yet with some vulnerability and pain evident. One of the best performances as The Psycho in a slasher filme, well, ever!

The film is mostly relentless in its pacing, but does feel a little stretched and overlong. The idea would have been an explosive hour but even 80 minutes feels too much. You can't help but think that towards the end it starts repeating itself or is unnecessarily pponderous in its camera moves just to stretch it all out to feature length. This is not a major problem, but it's one that struck me.

I found À l'intérieur to be a powerful film, and it is one I am glad to have finally seen. In regards its place amongst the so-called "New French Horroer" or whatever, I would rate it as one of the best. Martyrs still edges it on account of its almost surreal aspects of cosmic horror, but I'd hold À l'intérieur up as a pretty close second alongside and possibly above Haute Tension. I reckon it is going to be one of those films that haunts you long after the viewing. We shall see. [/spoiler]

[42ndStreetFreak]

I love (or not) "Inside".
I think it's stunningly nasty, bleak and uncompromising and is just kick in the head intense.

I'd rate it easily above (****ed itself up its own arse ending) "Haute", much better than "Frontiers" (though I did like that) and even above "Martyrs" (as I for one don't rate the final part of it that compared to the superb rest of it).


"Paintball"

http://www.beardyfreak.com/rvpaint.php


A group of multi-national thrill seekers are blindfolded and dumped in the woods to take part in an extreme paintball campaign against another, unseen, team.
Suddenly one of the team is shot not by a paint pellet, but by a bullet.

Fleeing from the now lethal fire the team, with no idea where they are, must fight for their lives before it’s game over for all of them….


First things first.
“Paintball” (a Spanish production, though filmed in English) blasts off right into the action as soon as it starts.
Initially we're thrown right into the chaotic, frenzied paintball game (which is actually rather fun to watch and here played with some amazingly fancy looking guns) which 10 minutes later slams us into the ‘real threat’ part of the movie and it literally never lets up again until the end credits.

Thankfully the screenplay manages to deliver a distinctive bunch of characters who are all well acted by the cast who all manage to sketch their roles out despite the endless fleeing, fighting and dying.
This is also a well crafted bunch of people.
Most of the team are very driven, they have never met each other before and suddenly they find themselves being hunted by an unseen enemy of unknown origin and number.
As such their is almost no team aesthetic here. They argue, they back-bite, they betray and they do all they can to personally survive.
It's a bleak sketch of humanity, but to me it rings totally true for such a situation.

The killer's POV is the major idea highlight in the film.
The killer wears thermal imaging goggles which give the scenes a bright white/grey look, which in of itself is not unique or that stunning. But the way it’s used here is very clever and visually important to the movies entire aesthetic make-up.

The film is pretty violent in general, but the real nasty, messy, kills are shot POV through the thermal goggles, as such we can still make out the nastiness happening but it now has a unique feel.
The way such scenes now look, the way the bright white blood outrageously shoots and spurts out of people for example, is really memorable.

But the best use of the killer's thermal imagery is when it’s used to reveal things we (or the other characters) can't see.
There are two superb ‘thermal reveal’ scenes, but the best is the first and it's a really effective surprise and such a great visual trick.

The movies only real problems come in the plotting of the main set-up.
The first ‘thermal reveal’ scene also reveals more of what is happening plot wise, and although it’s a different slant on the idea, we have been here before.

The, rather low key, finale is also a bit of a mess even if it still works.
This is where the plot unravels as we now have a couple of holes left unfilled (though you can sort of fill them yourself if you think outside the screenplay).
This confusion is made annoying by the fact there was no need for it, as without the final moments all was fine and the film had reached a perfectly fine conclusion.

So be prepared to feel a bit at a loss and a bit unsatisfied as the credits roll, but thankfully it's not a movie destroying problem by any means and the rest is so fun, tense, well staged, visually clever, and just violent and bloody enough, to ensure a real good time is had.