films we just saw

lupogirl · Post by **lupogirl** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:58 pm

giles edwards wrote:

Rosemary's Killer/The Prowler is a genuinely creepy picture that really unnerved me when I saw it for the first time a couple of years back. Someone needs to put that out here...

Watched this again recently. Which I own on VHS. Agree there ,it is creepy. Without giving too much away. For me it does follows a formula but does have a sting it's tail. One of the things I liked is the use of percussion in this film is something you don't hear alot of these days. Plus there are long scenes which are played out building the tension. Which these days would be edited to such a degree you blink and miss. Always a pleasure to spot a star of the silver screen Farley Granger - Strangers on a Train.

One of a cartload of reasons I won't be throwing out my vhs are those corny 80's trailers for those Mad Maxesque films like on Rosemary's Killer vhs. Corker!

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 2:29 pm

lupogirl wrote:
giles edwards wrote:

Rosemary's Killer/The Prowler is a genuinely creepy picture that really unnerved me when I saw it for the first time a couple of years back. Someone needs to put that out here...
Watched this again recently. Which I own on VHS. Agree there ,it is creepy. Without giving too much away. For me it does follows a formula but does have a sting it's tail. One of the things I liked is the use of percussion in this film is something you don't hear alot of these days. Plus there are long scenes which are played out building the tension. Which these days would be edited to such a degree you blink and miss. Always a pleasure to spot a star of the silver screen Farley Granger - Strangers on a Train.

One of a cartload of reasons I won't be throwing out my vhs are those corny 80's trailers for those Mad Maxesque films like on Rosemary's Killer vhs. Corker!

tell us what nuggets of gold trailers are on the vhs tape?
the new barbarians im sure is one there.

lupogirl · Post by **lupogirl** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 2:41 pm

Yep that is on there. Also a trailer for a spoof film called Hysterical starring The Hudson Brothers, and Funny Money which looks kinda naff. Which stars the Elizabeth Daily from the only film I have seen her in Entity Force. Now that is a GOOD film.

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 2:46 pm

lupogirl wrote:Yep that is on there. Also a trailer for a spoof film called Hysterical starring The Hudson Brothers, and Funny Money which looks kinda naff. Which stars the Elizabeth Daily from the only film I have seen her in Entity Force. Now that is a GOOD film.

Hysterical oh i saw that back in the day,"your all doomed"
EIV vids were full of class trailers.

oh entity force aka One Dark Night i had that on its original vhs,i thought the director did mausoleum as well,but thats another title of this film,but also a different film as well,the Bonkers 80s eh

streetrw · Post by **streetrw** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 9:36 pm

Two films today that are okay, entertaining enough but ultimately nondescript and generally forgettable. The Bank Job suffers from not knowing what it wants to be: a jokey period caper flick which is pretty harmless and no-one gets hurt, like an episode of Minder, or a serious underworld crime thriller in which the bad guys can actually kill. It doesn't really gel. (There's also the increasing use in movies of the dreaded C-word which tends to rankle with me for some reason, and takes a smidge of the fun out of movies which are otherwise genial and affable enough.)

And I finally managed to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets which is more fun, with its car chases and all star cast, but it's very silly and adheres very closely to formula from the first one. Nothing to get that excited about.

Right. I'm going to do myself a coffee and start wading through my Argento DVDs, starting, naturally, with The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (R0 uncut widescreen!!!).

rawshark · Post by **rawshark** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 11:47 pm

Recently caught up with (Rec), which I have to say really disappointed me. Not sure if it was over-hyped, or whether I'd had to much of the fizzy stuff prior to seeing it, but for me it was unengaging and the kinetic (abstract) camerawork jolted with me as I was trying to read the zip-speed subtitles...

Dunno, I actually think The Zombie Diaries is a better film, but it is evident that this first-person shaky-cam filming style is a trend not destined to last too long...

Also saw Fido, which although I didn't love, I did really enjoy. Billy Connolly gives the best zombie performance since Bub, and the script has some nice subversive touches, despite (or maybe because of) it's 'innocent' 50s setting. Why Lionsgate are sitting on the UK release of this film baffles me...

giles edwards · Post by **giles edwards** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:17 am

Grindhouse wrote:Dust Devil,been along while since i had seen this,and its wonderfully shot,but a glorious failure,at best.
Hardware was a good small sci-fi horror flick,but theres very little menace in Dust Devil,where there should be nastiness and evil,it lacks,if you like sweeping vistas of land and desert its great,but it just doesnt deliver,anything substantial,that you can grasp or be returned to you for watching it.
all im left with after watching it is what could the director Richard Stanley really do?if he didnt piss people off in the film companies or crew,and had a budget that never ran out.most likely the same kind of films.
Still mushnt grumble!

Have to disagree about Dust Devil. I got the astonishing 5 disc set from the US last year and it's...it's an amazing picture. Stanley's love of Tarkovsky and Leone shines though in every lovingly crafted frame It's beautifully shot, fantastically scored by Simon Boswell eerily, ethereal, sensual and genuinely unnerving -- something that can be said of perhaps 2 or 3 British horror pictures since Stanley was shamefully outcast for not conforming to expected generic patterns of storytelling. I'm at a loss as to why more people didn't use the brilliant Zakes Mokae more often -- in both this and Serpent & The Rainbow he's got a gravity and presence that rivals the weary humanism of Morgan Freeman. I'll cop to a huge crush on Chelsea Field from that time as well...but she's also got that superb Romero/James Cameron-esque strength to her performance.

Honestly, I kind of don't want to see what Stanley could do with a budget because he manages such marvellously innovative things without one.

Just another picture from him might brighten up my 21st century no end.

giles edwards · Post by **giles edwards** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:19 am

rawshark wrote:Also saw Fido, which although I didn't love, I did really enjoy. Billy Connolly gives the best zombie performance since Bub, and the script has some nice subversive touches, despite (or maybe because of) it's 'innocent' 50s setting. Why Lionsgate are sitting on the UK release of this film baffles me...

Sounds like a great companion piece to Bob Balaban's fantastically twisted Parents?

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 12:57 pm

giles edwards wrote:
Grindhouse wrote:Dust Devil,been along while since i had seen this,and its wonderfully shot,but a glorious failure,at best.
Hardware was a good small sci-fi horror flick,but theres very little menace in Dust Devil,where there should be nastiness and evil,it lacks,if you like sweeping vistas of land and desert its great,but it just doesnt deliver,anything substantial,that you can grasp or be returned to you for watching it.
all im left with after watching it is what could the director Richard Stanley really do?if he didnt piss people off in the film companies or crew,and had a budget that never ran out.most likely the same kind of films.
Still mushnt grumble!
Have to disagree about Dust Devil. I got the astonishing 5 disc set from the US last year and it's...it's an amazing picture. Stanley's love of Tarkovsky and Leone shines though in every lovingly crafted frame It's beautifully shot, fantastically scored by Simon Boswell eerily, ethereal, sensual and genuinely unnerving -- something that can be said of perhaps 2 or 3 British horror pictures since Stanley was shamefully outcast for not conforming to expected generic patterns of storytelling. I'm at a loss as to why more people didn't use the brilliant Zakes Mokae more often -- in both this and Serpent & The Rainbow he's got a gravity and presence that rivals the weary humanism of Morgan Freeman. I'll cop to a huge crush on Chelsea Field from that time as well...but she's also got that superb Romero/James Cameron-esque strength to her performance.

Honestly, I kind of don't want to see what Stanley could do with a budget because he manages such marvellously innovative things without one.

Just another picture from him might brighten up my 21st century no end.

i have been looking at that 5 disc set,i wasn't disputing the way the films shot its sound or look,but the story loses all real coherence depending on which cut you watch and theres very little menace,Zakes Mokae should have been the devil,& Robert Burke the cop,Zakes has sooo much menace about him,you just have to watch the serpent & the rainbow,which i liked very much,to see that,its a glorious failure,but an epic cult film.

Chelsea field was great in The Last Boy Scout,one of Bruce Willis best film s,i saw that at the cinema in a virtually empty screen.

streetrw · Post by **streetrw** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:12 pm

I was looking at that 5-disc Dust Devil as well, but I'm not that bothered about the two documentaries. And I have the (extraordinarily rare) soundtrack CD already - played it just the other day, by chance. So I'd personally just go for the UK version. It's a lovely film, though: I'm always interested in African-set movies, and I'd like to see this particularly strange one again.

Anyway, it was a pleasure looking at The Bird With The Crystal Plumage again last night: I'd forgotten so much of that film. But it looks great, for one thing: the photography is fantastic. Censor cuts and pan-and-scan really hurt it. And it's keyed me up to look at DA's next: Cat O'Nine Tails, which I haven't seen in 20 years or so, at the Scala (and I'm positive the print they showed was massively cropped to 4:3 but the DVD is in lovely lovely widescreen). Except LoveFilm have sent me some stuff, I've got three discs out from Blockbuster, I haven't seen There Will Be Blood or Untraceable yet....

Team Banzai · Post by **Team Banzai** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:20 pm

i just got the german dvd (very grey market) of 4 FLYS ON GREY VELVET which i had held off from seeing for years even though i've got an old bootleg vhs in a cupboard somewhere.

if it's good enough quality i will watch it (finally)

i also waded through another 10 submission features over the weekend... a couple of crackers and a lot of (you can guess)

giles edwards · Post by **giles edwards** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 5:18 pm

I was lucky enough to see Four Flies... in 35mm in Hampstead on the big screen at 3am during Eurofest 1996. It was incredible, even at that ungodly hour.

Paul, you'll love it!

Team Banzai · Post by **Team Banzai** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:28 am

when the flies start to crawl so will your flesh..

a film i have waited 27 years to see !

like many, i have never seen argento's FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET. this is finally available on a bootleg dvd from retrofilms of germany.

spliced together from about four wildly variable print sources but on the whole a more than acceptable disc. 95% seems to be taken from a correct ratio print, with a few inserts from what appears to be a 4th generation bootleg vhs tape (albeit still in the correct ratio).

dario's 1971 production is like a checklist of his recurring themes and obsessions: red herrings, premonitions and dream sequences, strange animals, an unknown killer, chic and not so chic 70's fashions, incredibly beautiful women, technological fetishism (in this case telephones), an over the top homosexual private eye and most importantly some striking violent set pieces.

this is an essential film for all fans of the maestro's work. the dvd includes a couple of trailers for the film, an alternate opening and ending (although i could not tell the difference) and a couple of trailers for his other works.

FINALLY a watchable version of the lost film from his canon. this is an essential purchase for his fans as the rights are still in horrific legal limbo. i spoke to bill lustig about this years ago, as he has always wanted to release this on his blue underground label. it is perhaps going to remain forever on the shelf as there is some confusion between the italian production company and paramount.

not a masterpiece but well worth tracking down.

Team Banzai · Post by **Team Banzai** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 12:34 am

thanks giles, i did.

from the disc i would say that the print you saw (or a version thereof) is what makes up the bulk of this release.

however there are some really strange scenes added in from different sources to make this version as complete as possible.

it's quite fun to see what exactly was trimmed out of the film version.

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:26 pm

Thanks for the info on four flies,i have been scouting around that dvd release for some time,as its often on Ebay.
its a shame that this film is still in limbo between the 2 companies,and it does lend itself to the question,why?
if blue underground cant get a release shreik show or anchor bay then thats serious,after all money does talk loud and clear,& a full official release would sell very well for a film thats pretty much lost to the majority of people.

but its great when u see a film that you haven't seen before after such a long time waiting.

I caught up with Cat O Nine Tails the other night,never seen this before,and it was a pleasure to watch it was the UK prism release but still not bad quality,few extras but thats to be expected,groovy ST from Ennio Morricone,fabulous fashions,just a real trip back,and some fabulous scenes, not sure the violence deserves it an 18 rating,but a classic in every sense.of the age,genre and style.
must get to work my way further through my volumes of Argento's work
probably not in any chronological order just random