What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Casablanca and Cool Hand Luke. You are watching some classics this Easter, Trebor.

Well said, that would be an outstanding double bill featuring two of cinema's coolest icons.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Candyman is a film I enjoyed much much more on my second viewing many years after the first. That was the thing that really struck me. It just felt like Virginia Madsens character was so so alone. Isolated while surrounded by other characters.

Yeah, she's very isolated that second half with nobody to turn to which is probably more scary than the bloomin' Candyman.

Poor Virginia. if she'd seen as many movies as me she'd have known Xander Berkley would turn out a complete tw@.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)

I've had a real love / hate relationship with John Carpenter's vampire western over the years.

When i saw it at the cinema i absolutely loved it. In my decade of regular cinema going only Robert Rodriguez' From Dusk Till Dawn (1995) came anywhere near it for visceral vampire horror.

However as the years came and went and with subsequent viewings on dvd my love for the film slowly dissipated. The only reason i bought it at Cex recently on Blu-ray was because it was there and i wanted to buy something. Had i not done i wouldn't have rewatched it the other night and thoroughly loved it all over again.

The things that irritated such as James Woods and his character's larger than life ego and Carpenter's, well basically Carpenter's style over substance approach suddenly became fun once more.

Woods is now typically laconic as Jack Crow, the vampire slayer on the payroll of the Vatican looking for a master vampire in the desert wastes of the Mexican border (Maybe he should have tried the Titty Twister) before said bloodsucker can find a holy cross that will allow him to walk in daylight. Carpenter meanwhile gives the suspense and gore a great twist of humour. When you add Sheryl Lee's delightful performance as a half turned vampire in the care of Daniel Baldwin it made me realise that Vampires was a better film than i'd given it credit for this last ten years.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Candyman (1992)

A very good review of an excellent film, Dem.

I really like Candyman as it's a smart and well-made horror film that delivers scarce and social commentary with Tony Todd's titular character almost a metaphor for urban decay and the sorts of social ills (drugs, gang violence, poor housing, substandard healthcare) that cause premature deaths.

It would have been a very different film, almost certainly an inferior one, if the film had a bigger budget and Bernard Rose had his first choice cast, with Eddie Murphy in the titular role.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

I never knew Murphy was Rose's choice for the role.

Eddie is a lot of fun but the idea of him as Candyman is terrifying and not in a good way.

I'll have a listen to Kim Newman and Stephen Jones chat track and see if they discuss it.

[Nordicdusk]

I love Candyman the way it's shot and the soundtrack really creates a very unsettling and creepy film.

We hear your looking for Candyman BITCH !!!!

[MrBarlow]

Sleepers. 1996


After a prank goes wrong and the accidental killing of a pedestrian, 4 young boys are sent to a reform school and abused by the staff. Years later 2 of the boys kill the main guard and stand trial for the murder.

This has good character build up of the 4 young boys growing up in Hells Kitchen and guided by a priest played brilliantly by Robert De Niro. It shows how boys will be boys running about, playing in the street and trying to pull a prank that goes wrong. Kevin Bacon as the main guard who leads his men on the spiral of abusing those in his charge. Jason Patric, Brad Pitt, Ron Eldard and Billy Cudrup play the adult boys who take a different path after their experience except Ron and Billy's characters who run the street.

This can be tough to watch even though nothing is seen but you can only imagine what is happening and hearing the sounds. The acting is on top notch especially in the court scenes with Dustin Hoffman as the defence lawyer who has a drink problem.

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[MrBarlow]

Kiss Of The Spider Woman. 1985.

William Hurt and Raul Julia play the main leads in this prison drama, Luis is a gay/transgender man arrested for immoral behaviour while cellmate Valentin is a political prisoner who was fighting against a cause. Luis tells stories about films he has seen and his life while Luis is coming to terms on what has happened to him.

Both main stars have great chemistry which helps build up their characters from different backgrounds who started out as strangers to becoming friends and respecting each other even though one has a different motive to knowing and getting close to the cellmate.

Hurt is such a great actor with his delivering of the dialogue and expressing the way his character tells the stories involving Sonia Braga as the main lead in the films showing in a film. Julia is the political prisoner who is intrigued by a new prisoner across the way, and is coming to terms in his life and commenting on the stories while keeping in some secrets that is slowly revealed and how he was incarcerated.

Director Hector Babenco does keep the pace going with the drama where most of the film is set in a jail cell. There is one or two comical moments with some comments then goes back to being a straight drama that can has a few good touching moments that are well acted out.

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[Frankie Teardrop]

BLIND SUN – An apocalyptic mood takes hold in rural Greece following a drought. Wanderer Ashraf, housesitting for some vaguely hostile rich people whose plush pad is a bit like a compound, starts to freak out after he realises he has a stalker. Shudder seems to have a liking for nicely photographed movies that substitute atmosphere for story. That’s OK by me, I like that too. ‘Blind Sun’ does well in evoking the eeriness of isolation in the sun, a feeling that takes on a vaguely supernatural edge when a nearby excavation uncovers fragments of a strange monument. True obliqueness might be a little beyond ‘Blind Sun’s grasp; the end is fairly pat, as is the implied “is it ghost stuff or is someone having a go… or maybe I’m just going mad” element. But all this ramps up the paranoia quite well, making it an enjoyable watch that matches lovely visuals with unsettling atmos and political subtext.

PIN – I’d forgotten what a strange little film this was. ‘Pin’ is about many things, one of them being the sadness of the passing time, another being the trauma resulting from premature exposure to mannequin-shagging nurses. It makes Hitchcock-type moves, but ever so clumsily, as if hoping to distract us from the very odd tone brewing in the background. I’ve only seen it three times (including this viewing), but on each occasion I’ve felt really absorbed, wrapped up in the offness of David Hewlett‘s dummy fixation, and in the black comedy and pathos as well; there’s a bit of heart inside that plastic shell. I’ve never been very sure whether it’s another one that wavers unnecessarily over the supernature vs madness angle, but that can either add to the charm or not. Considering it’s such an alluringly odd film and reasonably well-known, I’d say it’s been overlooked next to some of the eighties mediocrities given stellar workovers by the boutiques. In fact, there must be a reason why it’s not on blu ray, it would be an obvious choice for the likes of Arrow, who after all put it out on DVD back in the day.

THE ASPHYX – As much as I enjoy seventies UK stuff, I do find the whole drawing room aspect of period-based horror a bit of a drag, particularly if the visual style is as stuffy. ‘The Asphyx’ has several things going for it, including pseudoscience involving gonzo devices and the feeling of stage-craft, damnation through eternal grief, and the presence of Robert Powell, Jane Lapotaire etc. The Asphyx itself is a wailing phosphorescence somewhere between a bird, a lizard, and a skull with a gaping maw, but I guess the main theme, the whole tragedy of buying into someone else’s obsession, gets under your skin even more. It held my interest, but I kept wishing it’d been directed by Andy Milligan.

[MrBarlow]

Voices. 1973.

A woman recently released from a asylum is taken to a countryside manor by her husband and begins to think they are not alone.

Think this movie inspired two other movies, David Hemmings and Gayle Hunnicut play the couple who on a boating trip with their son, rather look after him they rather have a boat bunk up and as you can imagine he drowns. Wracked with guilt Hunnicut attempts suicide and several months later her dear husband takes her to a family owned manor, this part I thought may have inspired Lars Von Tier's Antichrist, hubby taking a wife away to a secluded area.

I got no idea if this was a theatrical or a T.V. movie but does have that look of being something made for a horror t.v. episode. Once inside after battling through a heavy fog, the voices begin to start. The main house does have the atmosphere and dark gothic appeal but towards the end more actors appear and then we get the big twist that feels like it was inspired a 2001 movie (sorry not going to spoil what film it is).

Hemmings and Hunnicut were married and reportedly had marital problems during the making of this which helped build up the reactions to their characters, but the pacing does go steady and slow through out the 90 minutes of this. There is no jump scares but does rely on atmosphere and is she hearing the voices, is the house haunted or the usual thing, husband driving the wife insane. I don't think I can watch this one over and over but may come back to it at some point.

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