films we just saw

streetrw · Post by **streetrw** » Thu May 28, 2009 11:46 am

Makes you wonder if Mr Raimi had his mortgage application turned down recently.... I also spent yesterday afternoon at Northampton's packed Cineworld (admittedly mainly packed with screaming brats interested in A Night At The Museum 2, which I haven't quite worked up the enthusiasm for just yet) and kicked off with Drag Me To Hell. Generally I did quite enjoy it but I think a few too many of the scare moments are cheap "boo" moments of just shoving a scary face into camera with a loud crash on the soundtrack; yes, it made me jump several times but it wasn't actually creepy in the way The Evil Dead was. That said, I did enjoy it, and I did like the ending. Interestingly, the score seemed slightly more upfront than they usually are these days and I might even be moved to seek out a soundtrack CD.

In Tormented, the elite crowd at a posh school suddenly start dying in mysterious yet entertaining circumstances following the suicide of a bullied pupil. Now, as one who was routinely picked on at school (though not to the extent seen here) I hated those years, and the trouble with Tormented is that I don't care about any of this crowd: they're arrogant thugs and sadistic bastards and I found it very hard to feel any sympathy for any of them when they got themselves brutally murdered. In fact it's mildly satisfying to see these odious people get what they deserved. (Curiously, a lot of teenage girls at the screening.)

Years ago Renny Harlin effectively remade Die Hard as Die Hard 2 (and subsequently remade it in spirit as Cliffhanger). Now he's more or less remade Die Hard With A Vengeance as 12 Rounds, in which John Cena (a wrestler, IMDb informs me) has to run around New Orleans at the whim of mastre criminal Aiden Gillen's increasingly outlandish demands, or Cena's girlfriend will be killed. It's a slick, enjoyable, straightforward action movie with lots of chases, squealing tyres, cars crashing into one other and things blowing up, though curiously little in the way of fighting given that Cena is a wrestling star. Still, I liked it.

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Fri May 29, 2009 10:55 am

StarTrek,really enjoyed this reboot,the cast were great,even though scottys accent dropped at times,but heaps of fun for non trek fans too.

mamawaldi · Post by **mamawaldi** » Fri May 29, 2009 7:22 pm

Scars of Dracula - Rubbish addition to the Christopher Lee dracula canon. Instead of Peter Cushing as Van Helsing we get.....Dennis Waterman as an idiot cockney toff. Lee doesn't have much to do - he only gets to sink his teeth into 1 buxom peasant lass - and meets his end from a fluke bolt of lightning; no stake/sunlight/crucifix, nope just a bit of bad luck with the weather.

Melvin Junko · Post by **Melvin Junko** » Sun May 31, 2009 7:31 pm

last week and a bit:

Aquanoids - crap in a good way, bad acting, some pretty bad continuity fuck ups, boom mic in the screen, great fun for £1,-

The Prophecy - Wasn't anything like I remembered, still liked it though, Christopher Walken just scares me.

Peach boy movies: Magic of spell and Kung fu wonder child were awesome, so many WTF moments. that 3rd one (is it called more Peach boy?) was ok, 4th one was great fun again, last one a bit sucky.

Slave girls from beyond infinity - good cheap fun.

G.I. Samurai - very long but liked it, the big battle at the end was epic! looking forward to Samurai commander now, which looks like a cheap rip off.

Organ - Weird Japanese shit from the guy from Tetsuo. Couldn't really get into it and kept dozing off. Will have to give it another chance sometime.

The Ninja Squad - Can't go wrong with Godfrey Ho, Richard Harrison and low expectations

Return of the living dead 2 - I thought it was shit. Some terrible acting (ginger bitch and the old graverobber), not funny and them zombies just talked too much. I definitly prefer 1 and 3.

Rock on Fire - pretty lame Hong Kong action/cop stuff, turned it off.

Swords of the space ark - badly dubbed Japanese low budget Sci fi, loved every minute of it.

A dozen ways to die - advertised as 'no budget supercrap' and it was just that. Good times.

Super mecha kucha happy fun monkey bash mixtape - We all know the Japanese are nuts, and this stuff is just more proof of it, though it's all quite tame. Clips from tv shows but no crazy sadistic stuff. That ass-dog had me in stitches though.

From Beyond - holy crap why haven't I seen this before, good stuff.

Death bed - the bed that eats - I had pretty high expectations with a title like that, but omg what a piece of crap. Ended up fast forwarding in the hope to find some good bith but gave up. Turned it off 2 minutes before the end.

B-video's 101 vol 1 - Another mixtape, clips were way too long, though the midget bits were great and the last 8 minutes with the girl 'painting' mde a deep impression on me haha.

Post by **Rue-morgue Jay** » Sun May 31, 2009 8:15 pm

Watched ken russell's 'lair of the white worm' last night. Man, is that some trippy shit!

hock:

Amanda donohoe, what a body! She was awesome in this. Hugh grant was amusing too!

This has got me in the mood for the film 'HISSSSS' that should be coming out soon.

streetrw · Post by **streetrw** » Sun May 31, 2009 8:45 pm

A mad scientist, having discovered a reanimation serum, persuades his ex-vaudeville assistant to use his impersonation skills and impersonate the coroner so he can make off with a corpse. The reanimation experiment is not entirely successful so the mad scientist hands his assistant a loaded gun and commands him to kill himself, and the mad scientist will then bring him back to life again, this time with a heart transplant as he happens to have a heart in a jar on his worktop. The assistant does the logical, sane and rational thing here and shoots the mad scientist, but can't reanimate him as Satan the cat has stolen the heart and eaten it. So he bricks the body up in the cellar and assumes the mad scientist's identity (though not before committing an act of mercifully faked but pretty shocking cruelty to Satan the cat that actually had me pausing the DVD in disbelief).

That's about the first 20 minutes of Maniac. Not the deeply troubling Joe Spinell epic, but a cheap quickie from 1934, which only runs a scratch over 50 minutes and includes lengthy scrolling definitions of various kinds of mental conditions and complexes. The acting is terrifying even for the early days of sound cinema: the audio technology was five years old but I'm guessing it hadn't yet filtered down from the big studios. Think Brian Blessed and Tod Slaughter, Topol and Robert Newton at their ripest and hammiest, and they're Radio 4 weathermen next to the delirious overacting of mad scientist Horace Carpenter. One of the joys of ploughing through boxes of public domain snoozers is the chance discovery of something genuinely nuts, and this kind of thing makes wading through old George Zucco and Bela Lugosi movies worthwhile. It is rubbish - but worth a look for the demented plot and even more demented thesping. Plus, it was made before the censorious Hays Code was introduced, so there are some boobs in it as well....

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:07 am

a cracking documentary midnite movies which is only £6 yes thats £6 from a fopp store and is a double disc set packed full of extras,comes with night of the living dead and reefer madness,the film is fascinating from El Topo to Eraserhead,this is one well worth having in your collection.
Bride of chucky an entertaining watch far better than i thought it would be.

Melvin Junko · Post by **Melvin Junko** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 5:08 pm

Grindhouse wrote:[/b] an entertaining watch far better than i thought it would be.

wow you must have had some REALLY low expectations then

ghouldrool · Post by **ghouldrool** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 5:22 pm

9 deaths of the ninja

In no way does that title make sense. In no way can this film fail to pull globulous laughs from your laughter flange.

Utter camp and fromage from the opening seconds. From the tittersome training exercise opening, through the dry ice OD of the ghastly bondesque credits, carried on by lesbian commandos, knife fighting prossies and bee gees looking sex pests.

A true jewel in this ones crown of velvet covered thorns is the incessantly laughing villain. Literally the man cannot seem to stop his evil laugh burst out every few minutes.

Of course the villains prove utterly useless against Sho Kosugi and his array of ninja weapons. So much for the mega fuckton of weapons the bad guys have. one has to wonder where they found a wheel chair capable of making harsh jungle terrain irrelevant.

its demented genius.

Another slice of delicious delerium is The Abominable Dr Phibes.

A truly beautiful movie visually and high gothic campery abounds.

Price is once more fantastic. The set designs and death traps are the films real stand out aspects though.

Melvin Junko · Post by **Melvin Junko** » Mon Jun 01, 2009 6:55 pm

Kevin you just convinced me to check out 9 deaths of the ninja

sounds like my cup of tea

Reanimator · Post by **Reanimator** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 10:58 am

I saw VINYAN and at times I thought it was going to be like Welcome to the Jungle but its much better than that and works very well as a psychological horror movie - stays in the memory long after the viewing and well worth checking out!

ghouldrool · Post by **ghouldrool** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 12:00 pm

Melvin Junko wrote:Kevin you just convinced me to check out 9 deaths of the ninja sounds like my cup of tea

and i didnt even mention the team of nasty midgets (dressed as if they are off to a micheal jackson tribute show) who pester our ninja hero.

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 2:25 pm

Melvin Junko wrote:
Grindhouse wrote:[/b] an entertaining watch far better than i thought it would be.
wow you must have had some REALLY low expectations then

yes i set my standards pretty low that way im never dissapointed.

Grindhouse · Post by **Grindhouse** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 2:38 pm

Twilight,which on further thought should be called no sex please im a vampire,but its a rather good film,if you can get past vampires in daylight.
an endearing film thats easily aimed at girls,and boys can enjoy it too but a lack of anything visceral doesnt damage the film too much,virginity, abstinence and waiting for the right one all themes this deals with.
fodder for teenage girls, i did feel some similarity with wolf lake the series.

Melvin Junko · Post by **Melvin Junko** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 4:50 pm

ghouldrool wrote:
and i didnt even mention the team of nasty midgets (dressed as if they are off to a micheal jackson tribute show) who pester our ninja hero.

Ja I read that in the torrent description, it's coming in well slow though, can't wait to have a ninja double bill with this and Revenge of the Ninja, which looks awesome as well.