films we just saw

streetrw · Post by **streetrw** » Wed May 20, 2009 9:11 pm

A cheapo curiosity from 1971: Meat Is Meat, aka The Mad Butcher, aka The Strangler Of Vienna, starring Victor Buono as a butcher sentenced to three years in the asylum for throwing some liver at an old woman but who is now out and opening up his old butcher's shop. It's a sort of very broad horror comedy that comes across as Benny Hill doing Sweeney Todd: occasional moments of farce, some leery nudity, comedy idiots in police uniform, no gore, and a sub-Morricone score with an annoyingly catchy theme. Don't have the sausages.

capthowdy66 · Post by **capthowdy66** » Thu May 21, 2009 9:05 am

watched a cool 70's spanish horror 'Satans Blood', awesome!

sherbetbizarre · Post by **sherbetbizarre** » Fri May 22, 2009 7:47 pm

Tormeneted
Aimed squarely at the 14 year olds who crashed my screening. This was rubbish, but not without one or two decent moments. The female lead was good. Also, the film is confused as to how much of a comedy it wants to be.

streetrw · Post by **streetrw** » Fri May 22, 2009 8:37 pm

I didn't realise until today that there are a load of movies available free on LoveFilm if you're a subscriber. Most of them look pretty awful but there are a few interesting titles on the list.

Since it was there and there's no way on Earth I'm going to pay for it (and I don't have any DVDs currently at home) I picked Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla. Poor Bela. Worse even than playing second banana to Old Mother Riley and the rubber octopus Ed Wood made him pretend to fight in a swamp - here he's the only ray of sunshine in the sole screen outing for a very poor man's Martin & Lewis: Duke Mitchell (familiar name, can't sing) and Sammy Petrillo (squawking imbecile, not funny). Even by my standards this is absolutely terrible.

Much, much better is Phase IV, the Saul Bass ant intelligence movie made in 1974, and I was surprised to find it available as the BBFC haven't classified it in 24 years and it's not on DVD in this country. Given its genesis with the legendary title designer, it's visually quite splendid in places, and the macro-closeup work with the ants is effective enough to make you keep your feet off the floor while the movie's playing. Oddly chilling.

rawshark · Post by **rawshark** » Sat May 23, 2009 5:44 pm

Yay - glad you liked Phase IV, one of my favourites since seeing it quite by accident on TV many years ago..

Here's the Eatmybrains Zombie Club report;
http://www.eatmybrains.com/showzc.php?id=68

Post by **Rue-morgue Jay** » Sat May 23, 2009 6:37 pm

sherbetbizarre wrote:Tormeneted
Aimed squarely at the 14 year olds who crashed my screening. This was rubbish, but not without one or two decent moments. The female lead was good. Also, the film is confused as to how much of a comedy it wants to be.

I'm sorry, but rubbish doesn't quite cut it when describing this film.

My friend liked it but not in the conventional sense. He thought it WAS a comedy?!

Me, i was appalled that i shelled out for this! I may not even have enough to go up to forbidden planet and the ICA to see sam raimi because of this tosh!

To top it off, the movie reviewer for the METRO gave it a good review?! Practically EVERY horror film that has graced the screen so far this year the reviewer has bashed to pieces. This according to them is:

'a decent british slasher film!'

ghouldrool · Post by **ghouldrool** » Sat May 23, 2009 8:40 pm

... i was appalled that i shelled out for this! I may not even have enough to go up to forbidden planet and the ICA to see sam raimi because of this tosh

Surely going to see any film last night ,regardless of if you liked it or not, would have had the same impact financially?

Personally i rather enjoyed Tormented , and never saw it as anything but a brain dead comedy/dumb friday nighter. its target audience is people of the 14-19 age range after all and it shows.

It had severe pacing problems and highlighted a problem with many modern horrors. They spend too much time populating horror flicks with vulgar or unendearing ciphers that its just about waiting for the next kill rather than actually wanting anyone to live. This is Tormenteds major flaw as it seems ages between kills and sometimes seems quite infatuated with its vain bullies.

Tormented took an unsual route in not giving any explanation for the supernatural shenanigans - no psychic ladies appearing mid movie. A spattering of decent kills with one particularly mean spirited pool based one. Its also free of the mobile phone cliches we have come to abhor.

kitkat · Post by **kitkat** » Sun May 24, 2009 11:27 am

Phase IV is a great film and has not been on the telly for ages. I did not know about the lovefilm deal but will def check this out over the bank holiday as my DVD of martyrs won't arrive until tues at earliest.

streetrw · Post by **streetrw** » Sun May 24, 2009 11:45 am

Well, even though I don't have a ticket for the movie I was going to come down today (May 24th) and say hi to all the nice people outside the ICA. But due to a two hour delay on the trains last night I didn't get to bed till gone three so I'm in no fit state to do the trip again. I know, I'm weak and feeble....

The main reason I went down to London was to grab a couple of screenings at the Terracotta Far East Film Festival at the Prince Charles, but the titles I was interested in didn't start until after 6 so I decided to catch the latest cult brainscrambler Synecdoche, New York. because I'm not actually stupid and I'm all in favour of movies that try to do something different or unusual or even innovative. Hell, I liked David Lynch until he went completely tonto with Mulholland Drive (Inland Empire sealed it and I've now no interest in anything more he does). As for Synecdoche - I found myself checking my watch several times, leading to one of those "oh hell, there's still another hour to go" moments because I'm afraid I was just bored by it. Looking at a lot of the comments on the IMDb I think I understood it, or bits of it, or at least bits of what I was supposed to understand. I just didn't care for it, or any of the characters in it, and it did nothing for me.

I also tried my hand at 60s French New Wave at the NFT with Claude Lelouch's A Man And A Woman (Un Homme Et Une Femme) and, despite it being a genre I don't particularly enjoy and in all honesty try and steer myself away from, rather half-liked this slight romance between a script girl (Anouk Aimee) and a racing driver (Jean-Louis Trintignant). The most disconcerting thing was that the racing scenes are scored with the music that the BBC later appropriated as the theme to Panorama.

So to the Terracotta: Legendary Assassin is the kind of no-nonsense thudfest that used to get shown at the Scala in their Eastern Heroes festivals in the 80s and 90s : a throwback to contemporary (rather than period) martial arts crime thrillers thet would have starred Donnie Yen and Cynthia Rothrock (I've gone all nostalgically warm and fuzzy just typing the names!) or a pre-megastardom Chow Yun Fat. The presence of the Jackie Chan stunt guys lining up to literally have their heads kicked in ensures the fighting is satisfactorily crunchy; it genuinely looks like a lot of people got badly hurt in the process. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Malaysian movies tend not to get significant distribution in this country and indeed I've never actually seen one, even on video. Well, I have now: an apparently satirical number entitled Zombies From Banana Village. I don't actually get much of the satire and social comment, unfortunately, but I do get the living dead beseiging everyone in the schoolhouse and demanding "Brains!". There are some funny bits, a zombie with a chainsaw, and a couple of fourth-wall-breaking moments that I liked. On the other hand there's not a lot of gore, and the humour is of the very, very broad variety: a lot of yelling and camp squealing and flapping around in hysterical panic. It is a bit of a mixed bag overall but I'm loath to slam it very hard, if only because even at 118 minutes (a length that a zombie movie can usually only sustain if Romero's directing it) I wasn't actually bored. Unlike certain movies seen earlier in the day....

Then I went and hung around St Pancras International Station for over two hours waiting for them to fix signalling problems at West Hampstead, and that's why I'm not trekking down to hang around the ICA today. (Besides, I have Mountain Of The Cannibal God to watch on DVD. Go on, enjoy yourselves. Don't worry about me....)

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Mon May 25, 2009 10:27 am

hey where's the posts for yesterday? come on,those of us that couldnt make it,want to know all about it

orlovsky · Post by **orlovsky** » Mon May 25, 2009 11:01 am

Grindhouse wrote:hey where's the posts for yesterday? come on,those of us that couldnt make it,want to know all about it

Oh, Ok then

Drag Me To Hell

Very good, in fact better than I was expecting, but it's really Evil Dead Jr. Which isn't a bad thing, and I'm happy there's a decent alternative to The Tormented out in time for half term.
No signing though. boo.

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Mon May 25, 2009 11:38 am

No signings,Boo indeed,FP must have used up all his energy.

maxmum · Post by **maxmum** » Mon May 25, 2009 12:30 pm

Yeah, excellent movie great fun Drag me to Hell.

Boo to no signing. He used up all his energy? So did I travelling 300 miles to see him. lol.

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Tue May 26, 2009 12:07 pm

crammed in a couple of movies over the weekend,Splinter i fell asleep during this at the allnighter,but really enjoyed it on doovde,extras packed for the price its on shelves for.
An old favourite on laserdisc still sealed from a collection that turned up,Videodrome the directors cut,my favourite Cronenberg movie way ahead of its time and influential to many i reckon,long live the new flesh.
will console myself with StarTrek this week and Drag Me To Hell On wednesday

kitkat · Post by **kitkat** » Thu May 28, 2009 9:41 am

Went to see Drag me to Hell last night. Easily Raimi's best film in years (not a fan of Spiderman 2 or 3). Enough gross out moments to appeal to the younger crowd and lots of comic horror to appeal to those (like me) who wanted to see a return to the Evil Dead form. Don't feel quite so disappointed at missing the great man himself at the ICA.