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Halloween

Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 11:31 am
by danthsmith
Thanks Guys. Films were better than last year (a bit). Headshot was the best so it was a shame to have it on last when many missed it because of trains and the subtitles were a screw up. a generally good mix. i'm sure people will pick over the individual movies. The one where the scooby-doo gang remade Fincher's Game was amusing.

thanks, see you in January presumable

Re: Halloween

Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 12:49 pm
by Bigcat
Thanks for a fun day at the PCC. Much better line up than last year. Every film had its merits and its flaws but I genuinely enjoyed all of them.

I thought Bed of the Dead would be awful, but it was actually very entertaining; Don't Hang Up was a great premise and well made; Cold Moon was my film of the day; Fear, Inc was what I hoped for - fun and knowing; Noomi Rapace was an excellent lead in Rupture and Headshot was well worth staying up late for.

Re: Halloween

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 12:18 am
by ChrisReynolds
From best to worst IMO:

Headshot definitely the best of the day: good action, no glaring faults, storyline OK. It was very much in the shadow of The Raid, though the use of long takes and inventive cinematography for the action scenes is much better than fight scenes appear in Hollywood blockbusters these days.

Fear, Inc. was likeable fun most of the time despite the structure and twists being lifted right out of The Game, so as the film moved towards the end it became a matter of waiting for the unravelling of the twists I knew were coming. It's also let down by big problems with the believability of the plot (problems which The Game also had).

Rupture got mixed reactions, but I liked the interesting sci-fi ideas that were introduced, and Shainberg keeps the film moving along at pace. Less clumsy explanation and a better ending were badly needed.

Don't Hang Up. An interesting idea for a modern cautionary tale, but every twist was copied from somewhere else and obvious to the point where it felt like I'd seen the film before. The story got boring as the jocks ran around the house panicking.

Bed of the Dead laid out its attitude of promising more than it delivers early on as two couples enter a sex club to have a foursome on the haunted bed, and then the women complain they don't want to have sex and go to sleep on the bed fully clothed. Badly acted and badly written, but at least there were some gory deaths.

Cold Moon was a rote ghost story with no surprises. It was weird how Furst insisted on making visual references to Beetlejuice in the appearance of the ghosts. Presumably these are to be used in the trailer to trick people into thinking this will be a bit like Beetlejuice.

Re: Halloween

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 10:23 am
by WraithApe
Same thing from my perspective. Enjoyed the day - thanks to FF and PCC for putting it together!

Fear Inc.

Best film of the day for me. Comedy horror chock full of references to other films but with enough ideas of its own to draw you in. The script is smart enough to preempt obvious comparisons to Fincher's classic The Game by having the characters talk about it in the film. Fear Inc. walks a tightrope between amusingly knowing and meta-overload but just about pulls it off.

Rupture

A sci-fi horror whose ideas sometimes outstrip its budget but whose ambition you have to admire. Decent acting, well paced... it's mainly marred by some really cheap and obvious looking CG. It's clever how the exposition is done: you never know any more than Renee throughout the film and so share the lead's character's bewilderment at the situation she finds herself in and put the pieces together gradually. The ending was slightly weak, but not a deal breaker.

Don't Hang Up

Two incredibly annoying teen phone pranksters get a cathartic ass-whooping courtesy of 'the pranked'. A traditional cautionary tale, updated for the social media age.

Headshot

If you thought The Raid was the epitome of action films, you'd no doubt like this too. Personally, I found it to be a tedious ultra-violent slog through a series of match-ups between the hero of the piece and increasingly competent end of level bosses. It's basically Street Fighter II. Yes, the fight choreography is fantastic, the cinematography is above par, with lots of gorgeous super slo mo shots of impacted faces trailing blood like strawberry laces, but it gets so boring to watch after a while. The plot (such as it is) is ludicrous and given the massive levels of stylized violence on display throughout the film, the ending is laughably sentimental and cheesy.

Cold Moon

Dull ghost story with large quantities of ham and a male lead whose mystifying ability to attract members of the opposite sex is inversely proportional to his charisma. Must be down to his massive truck.

Bed of the Dead

Film about a possessed bed with a god complex and an old testament sense of justice. Every bit as stupid as I expected and then some. It wasn't even played for laughs, which might have made it a little more bearable.

Re: Halloween

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 10:40 am
by Paul1968
I only managed 4.

Bed of the Dead was so badly acted (especially by the cop and his boss) and ludicrously plotted; I liked how they instantly guessed they would be killed if they got off the bed.

Don't Hang Up - such unlikable protagonists. There's probably a good film in there somewhere.

Cold Moon - seen it 100 times before. The producer guy who introduced it was great though, I really liked him.

Fear Inc - loved the first half ("he must be the old man version of Drew Barrymore in Scream") and it got less involving the more it went on for me.

Re: Halloween

Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 1:48 pm
by Oswald Cobblepot
Definitely a better line up than last year, and good to have the short films and accompanying guests, especially Matthew Holness.

Same gripe as last year, due to it being a day event I had to miss Headshot in order to be able to get a train home as I live outside London (the same is true of Fright Fest proper) I know the all-nighter is an endurance test, you can get better guests to attend a day event, and you probably sell more tickets, but I used to be able to see all the films (subject to staying awake) without having to worry about trains/hotels under the all-nighter regime. My only concern was wandering around '28 Days Later' London avoiding random nutters while waiting for the tubes to start running after the event had finished.

Bed of the Dead - started badly with annoying characters, but got a bit better as it went along and I ended up thinking it was alright. Slightly muddled plot mechanics, and I don't understand why it was kind of safe to stay on the bed. Loved the way the drunk policeman managed to get from the club to the prison, arrange a visit with a prisoner and get her to spill her guts, and get back to the club all in the space of 50 minutes, and at 6am !

Don't Hang Up - Once over the initially extremely irritating characters (which they had to be) I generally quite liked this although it was all fairly predictable. Looked great considering I guess it cost bugger all to make.

Cold Moon - This was ok, and I liked the introduction but it was pretty bog standard and by the numbers. Christopher Lloyd and Candy Clark were basically awful and I couldn't understand most of what Christopher Lloyd said. What was up with that Beetlejuice snake monster in the cemetery, it seemed totally out of place ?

Fear Inc - As others have said the self acknowledged The Game structure made it fairly obvious what was going to happen, but it was fun, well put together and I liked all the main characters. Good stuff.

Rupture - I didn't buy Noomi Rapace as a suburban single mom, and the ending was a bit of a non event, but other than that I loved this. The weirdness and unpredictability kept me hooked all the way through. I didn't think I was scared of spiders, but the 2 spider therapy scenes had me wincing.

A good day overall, roll on January