What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Curse of Chucky (2013)

An excellent reboot of the Child's Play series which sees a Chucky doll sent to the family home of wheelchair bound Nica (Fiona Dourif) as her bickering family gather the night before Nica's mother's funeral.

Second time of watching this and i loved it once again. It's basically Chucky set in a classic old dark house so we have a creepy setting and a maniacal doll gorily murdering the guests.

Adding to the Gothic horror atmosphere we have some lovely homages to Argento's Suspiria with music cues as Nica uses a lift in the house and also Mario Bava's Kill Baby Kill (1966) but instead of a ball bouncing down the flight of stairs it's an eyeball.

The script by writer / director Don Mancini is tight and characters are well rounded and come out with some choice put downs for one another round the dinner table, it's perfectly paced with some superior shocks and reasonable levels of tension. All round a great sequel which i'd argue is actually the best film in the series.

[nicholasrope]

Martial Law 2: Undercover

Jeff Wincott takes over the role from Chad McQueen and along with Cynthia Rothrock, investigates the Murder of a fellow Detective. It has some good fight scenes but the Villain and main Henchman were very wooden. It's passible but not one for repeated viewing.

David Brent: Life On The Road

Ricky Gervis is back as David Brent and in order to achieve an ambition, he gets a band together and go on a local, not so successful Tour. The cringe factor is there and I could feel what he was going through as it was not going the way he wanted. Glad the Producer finally gave him some home truths at the end but it's a decent watch.

Raw Force

Just your standard Martial Arts, Cannibalistic Monks, Human Traffickers on a Island flick. It was certainly something, it felt that every crazy idea made the Film. Not sure if that Sequel that got teased at the end got made.

[MrBarlow]

Cobra. 1986.

A model witnesses a murder lead by a cult gang and goes into witness protection with tough off the rule book officer known as Cobra.

Sly Stallone plays Marion Cobretti aka The Cobra, who is assigned to protect Brigette Nielsen from cult leader Brian Thompson and his followers. Andrew Robinson and Art LeFleur are the superiors who one allows Cobra to do what he wants as he gets the result while the other tries to go by the rule book. Reni Santoni and Lee Garlington are the Cobra's partners and assigned to protect Nielsen.

This is a decent 80s flick with a good soundtrack by Sylvester Levay that some songs were removed from the film. Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan produced this although their company Cannon isn't listed except Warmer Bros they did bring in George P. Cosmatos to direct but he had no control when technically Stallone was telling the crew on what to do, talk about having a ego boost. The film was to be released at the at the 2 hour mark but was trimmed down and does take out some of the character build up, does have plenty of action and some good one liners

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[MrBarlow]

Come Play. 2020.

Oliver who is autistic and has speech problems, uses devices to communicate with, is given a lost IPad that has the story of Misunderstood Monsters which one monster tries to come through into the real world.

Based on the short horror video Larry, writer/director Jacob Chase manages to bring a full-length feature to the screen. Through out the past few years we have had films that people claim to be the best horror film of the year etc and turns out to be shit, this was a good surprise. It does have the feel of The Babadook but the monster Larry is something different and decently created. The acting is good especially from Azhy Robertson who plays the young autistic lad. To be honest this is better watched in the dark, one id certainly say to take a look at.

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[MrBarlow]

The Retaliators. 2022.

A town preacher's life is turned upside down when his daughter is murdered. With the help of the detective he uncovers a darker underworld.

This was a blind watch for me and never seen the trailer, I thought this would be another revenge flick but becomes something darker. It seems to change its tone whether it be a thriller, revenge, or a slight rip of the evil dead meets The Crazies. The acting can be a hit or a miss with this one, but does make you think if the preacher will stick with his beliefs or will he turn his back on faith and go down a dark road. Not sure if a re-watch will happen.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Lisa and the Devil (1972)

Elke Sommer plays a tourist who wanders from her party and meets a stranger called Leandro (played by Telly Savalas complete with lollipop and clearly having a blast) who resembles a portrait of the Devil which Lisa has just seen. She is unable to meet up with her tour party and stays the night in a nearby mansion where it turns out Leandro is the butler. Lisa's stay at the mansion turns into a surreal nightmare as people begin to die around her and she falls under the spell of one of its occupants.

At first i was asking myself why i'd put this on last night but slowly Mario Bava's mysterious film drew me in once again. Lisa and the Devil is among his finest work and was his last ever masterpiece, the camera work is simply exquisite and the mood of the piece quite haunting with Elke Sommer as lovely as ever.

The Arrow Blu-ray whilst not perfect - it's clearly not been restored - shows off Bava's beautiful colours splendidly.

[Demoncrat]

The Mansefield Ghost (2022, Richard Mansefield)

FF.
Does he have to name them all after himself then?
An influencer spends some time at a haunted house for likes. She gets them ... and the rest.
I felt that this worked betterer than his last effort, either because it was more obvious a premise, or I just enjoyed it more ahem.



Les Patterson Saves The World (1987, George Miller)

Lewd, crude and very rude (ish), our favourite diplomat wreaks havoc on the world stage and then some. The Toecutter appears as an Arab etc. Feeling a tad poorly at the moment, so this one cheered up the demon somewhat.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Get well soon, D.

[MrBarlow]

12 Rounds. 2009.

John Cena plays the detective going a 12 Round challenge with psycho Aidan Gillen in order to save his girlfriend and being aided by F.B.I. agents. Did Renny Harlin get the idea of this by re-watchimg a few action movies and decide to splice a few things together and come out with this. Cena may never be the greatest actor but with this, he isn't too bad and is able to pull a decent role with some backing. Good for action, tense and explosions.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

I don't know if last night i was simply in the right mood but i thought this much maligned ninth X-Men installment was excellent.

I have seen it before but couldn't have told you a thing about it prior to putting on the Blu-ray so it was like watching a new film.

It's a fairly straightforward story about the first mutant the ancient En Sabah Nur aka Apocalypse is inadvertently revived in 1983, and he plans to wipe out modern civilization and take over the world, leading the X-Men to try to stop him and defeat his team of mutants which includes Magneto (Michael Fessbender)

The story introduces characters and allows them time to breathe such as giving Magneto a new life and then cruelly taking it away from him, before we get to some cracking action set pieces and a wonderfully constructed sequence where Quicksilver (Evan Peters) saves everyone from an explosion that destroys Charles Xavier's (James McAvoy) school for the gifted.

As extras in the fun department we have both Venom with Countess Bathory and Metallica (The Four Horsemen) on the soundtrack plus an obligatory and very relevant cameo from you know who.