While extremely low budget and with some technical issues, it does have a certain charm that reminded me of Peter Jackson’s early efforts, like Bad Taste and Dead Alive, and the central performance was solid. The issues were some of sound design was quite poor (the music sound design was good though), and some of the initial plotting was a bit juvenile. And character naming was from the Big Book of Carry On Movies.
Reasonably enjoyable but very lightweight zombie comedy.
Gleefully goofy Ghost Rider movie that’s propped up by Edris Elba as a French special ops monk and Christopher Lambert as a walking walloftext, we have the fiery spirit of vengeance going at it with Eastern European gangsters, arms dealers and Satan’s little helpers with glee. We also get Cage in more full-on crazy mode compared to the tamer Cage from movie 1.
However, it is a bit of a mess of a storyline, and the Crank-treatment doesn’t quite work as well here as the first Crank movie this was made by the guys that made Crank, if you don’t know what I’m going on about), but there are some hilarious odd bits and nice CGI/mad scenes.
Not quite the roasted turkey some reviewers suggested it was.
watched this at the cinema when it first came out and rather enjoyed it, but wanted to check it again, at it seems to be kicked around a fair bit.
I enjoyed it just as much this time, but to break it down
– the good: the presentation of Ghost Rider is fantastic. The flaming skull the bike, the chain weapon. All great. And Sam Elliott. Good visual direction and sound design during the action.
– the bad: the villains were weak,
far too weedy for GR. The execution of the nonaction elements was poor. satan’s CGI shadow.
– the odd: Cage’s displaced acting and his obsession about monkey videos, jelly beans, and The Carpenters.
This is a really interesting movie. It falls flat on a lot of the acting and dialogue, but really stands out for several reasons; the weird overuse of weird organ music throughout and indeed the whole sound design, which is a little rough, but fits well with the tone of the movie; the look, movement and charisma of the leading lady, who isn’t the most accomplished actress, but still gets across the weird nature of the character and her predicament; the cinematography is really very good, as is some of the editing – there’s a great edit in particular where we see the heroine jerk and suddenly appear behind the wheel of a car.
Interesting, as I say, and a real mix. Good, bad and odd.
This is a fun watch. I particularly like the Lovecraftian element that runs through it, and spotting which monsters are actually monsters we all know and love. I particularly enjoyed seeing the modified versions of Pinhead and Pennywise, but wished for a Freddy and Jason knock-off too.
I enjoyed the meta-nature of the story, but was surprised the whole underground surveillance and modification deal was shown so early – that could have come later, as a complete surprise – however, the guys in the bunker were a lot of fun to watch.
Rather enjoyable, lightweight, decently written, non-scary but otherwise very engaging horror tinged with ironic comedy.
There is an odd mix of poetic and delicate sensibility and gore in this movie. It has some quite haunting and striking imagery – and this, I think, is the thing that will stay with me above all else – but also quite jarring and wincey graphic surgery (oh, how they must have dropped their jaws in the 50s to this).
Its pedigree is obvious I think – It reminds me of both Cocteau (particularly La Belle et La Bete) in its lyrical bits, and Clouzot in its more graphic parts (I’m thinking of Les Diaboliques).
Still, with all this, it seems a little overrated to be on so many ‘top X horror movies of all time’ lists. It’s definitely one to see, and I’m glad I’ve seen it, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as it’s sold.
Alida Valli was rather good I think (I know her from The Third Man at a young age, and Suspiria at an older age), and really stands out as one of the main players.
That central performance by wraith-ish daughter is really elegant and ghostly though.
This thriller has a pretty great central performance, and like others have noted, owes more to the legacy of Italian giallo movies like Deep Red that Spanish horror. However, it is very engaging, and really keeps you tense for the first act and most of the second, but when you get a concrete idea of what exactly is going on, the logical flaws and ideas raised in the first act feel a little dishonest and inconsistent with the last act.
Given this, I don’t think the movie has a high level of rewatchability, but I did enjoy it enough, but felt a little disappointed in the last act, when what was going on became clear.
Didn’t work for me because of it, but as I said, the main central performance was terrific, despite this.
This movie holds up, and remains one of the great comedy-horror movies, for several reasons. The transformation scene, done entirely using practical effects, still looks pretty great (apart from some of the elongated hands moments, but I stress ‘some’), the writing is done with wit and the acting of the minor characters feels pretty real, and overall the story zips along in an uncomplicated way. There’s very little of that most common fault of horror movies -people have to act stupid at some point to drive the story (inadvertently leaving the road to go on the moors is something we’ll ignore for the sake of the entire plot, rather than a contrivance to help drive the plot), and the central performance of Jenny Agutter, David Naughton and Griffin Dunne are wholly believable.
I feel a bad moon rising.
Link to my podcast about An American Werewolf In London
Whilst not quite as good as some of the other great, weird horror movies of the 30s (Freaks, Island of Dr Moreau, The Black Cat), it really works well whenever the zombies are on screen. It works less well in the stagey, ridiculously melodramatic performances, the ridiculous pauses to indicate significance, and Lugosi being Dracul-ish at every opportunity.
However, I did definitely enjoy the zombie/walking dead parts, and can happily ignore the pointless scenes, the constant Lugosi hand-gestures to indicate he’s turning up his mesmeric power to 11, and enjoy the odd tension, the pretty ‘white zombie’ of the title, and the vulture that looked distinctly like an eagle. Oh and a pretty good ending.
This didn’t really work for me for the first half. I really enjoy another movie by Dreyer, specifically The Passion of Joan of Arc, but the silent screen aesthetics employed in this, a talkie, seemed retrogressive. The quality of the print also didn’t help. However, there were some really striking scenes in the first half that kept my attention, and I actually felt more immersed and less bored by the half-way mark, where the movie definitely picked up for me, and it was much more enjoyable.
I watched it because it’s on so many ‘great horror movie’ lists and I’ve been meaning to for a long time, and I can see why it’s on such lists, but it does take a little time to immerse yourself into.
This really looks like something that was a profound influence on David Lynch. I did feel Eraserhead lurked somewhere within its scenes and structure.
Such an electrifying movie in the last act, made so by the baffling, unsettling buildup throughout the film.
This staunch, upright policeman represents us, the viewer, as he first strides, then falters, through this strange island culture where everything seems sexualised and wanton and weird. He is as confused as us, the viewers. The villagers veer between odd and friendly, and almost everything said and done seems distinctly off-kilter.
We see this staunch Christian feel himself diminished and isolated as he realises he is in an environment like he’s never encountered, where the friendly words, and seemingly joyful music has an underpinning of debauchery, cruelty and barbarity he finds hard to cope with – from the beetle deliberately tied to the pin to go round and round until it’s tied up, to the little girl made to put a frog in her mouth to get rid of a sore throat, to the odd tricks the children play on the policeman.
The film itself is indeed a horror movie, but defies genre. It’s a dark, dark comedy of sorts – reminiscent of the old TV series The Prisoner in its disconcerting changing of familiar buildings and clothes into something alien – a musical (the music infuses the film almost wholly, with the only odd music being an out-of-place funky electric guitar score very near the end when Woodward is trying to escape pursuit), and a detective story.
The vacant smiles and constant digressions the villagers and Lord make when talking to the policeman just keep building and building the tension, until the nature of the old religion makes itself clear.
Finally, you feel that both Christian and heathen are equally wrong and equally impotent as the villagers sing and dance on the windy grassland. This sacrifice feels both dreadful (Woodward is amazing in the last act) and pointless, as the villagers cavort in the windy sunset, you feel the gesture they are making to nature is pointless, and nature will do what it will do, and the actions of men won’t change a thing.
A great film, horror or not.
The is amazing. Whilst there are some slightly better horror movies made in the 1930s (I’m looking at you, Bride of Frankenstein), this is definitely among the handful of really great pulp/graphic horrors of the 30s, before the Hays code kicked in. I’d lump this in with Freaks and The Black Cat as in that class of great 30s pulp horror that still stands up today.
The really weird makeup and dialogue, and memorable setups such as the panther woman, the ‘house of pain’, “The Law”, and the weird mudhut village in the jungle, along with Charles Laughton leering over his creations, the women, and his use of the whip really build to something special.
Here’s to never being in The House of Pain.
This is a startling movie about psychopathy. The acting is stagey and melodramatic (it’s based on a Stage Play, with most, if not all, the original stage cast), and there’s a lot of monologues, but hell, does it work. Central is the little blonde girl, who psychopathy is clear – she’s charming but forcefully and oddly so, confident to a degree it feels unnatural for her age, and completely devoid of remorse. She feels trivial setups completely justify her murderous actions. Her glee is scary, but scarier still are the moments we detect a vacancy and absence of…something…behind those eyes.
And it’s not just her performance that electrifies the movie. The mother, torn by knowledge of her daughter’s evil actions, but still loving her daughter, gives a borderline hysterical performance that’s terrific, only surpassed by a grieving mother whose little son is dead…and she suspects it wasn’t an accident. Also, there’s a terrific Southern gardener who reminds you of William H. Macy, who is on to the little girl at the start, and threatens and teases her throughout…and it’s very unsettling how the little girl handles the (true) accusations with such clear confidence and offhandedness.
What I thought was the ending was extreme and shocking (I’m not going to spoil it, but you’ll know it when you see it), but there are further scenes that feel tacked on (kind of like the end of Psycho?), but that are in their own way, almost as weird as the preceding 2 hours, and in a way more dreamlike and pushing the story into archetype fairy tale.
Would make a great double bill with Night of the Hunter for a great night of fantastic black-and-white gothic-thriller-horror.
Ridiculously long, but rather glorious documentary about all the movies of the Nightmare on Elm Street series (except the very recent remake). You get actors’ insights, special effects guys, producers, where the seed ideas for each movie came from, you get everything you could possibly want. And it doesn’t flag until maybe the last 10 minutes, where it turns into a love-in about New Line – but even this is redeemed by the closing titles, where various actors from the series deliver the best lines.
This documentary made me realise two things: The Freddy series is clearly the best horror franchise of the 80s; Robert Englund is fantastic.
Got 4 hours free? Watch this.
Pretty solid Hammer movie exploring Haitian zombie lore, with some tense scenes. The scene were huntsmen cut cards over a trapped woman is tense as was the scene where they hunt her down in the woods beforehand), and the old mine full of white-faced, white-eyed zombies was fine, as was the priest costume. Recommended.
Dark reboot of the original series, which is boring when Jason isn’t around, and pretty good when he is. There’s numerous references to the ‘classic’ movies, especially the first 3 (but there are definitely other visual references to other ones), but it has very, very baggy sections throughout. I also missed the whispering breath scoring of the original series (we get it a little at the beginning). I actually liked some of the minor characters (the Asian guy and the black guy), and also how at least 1 character was deliberately written to be a tool (thus making his death more satisfying), but I wasn’t that keen on the liberal borrowing from other horror franchises. There was borrowings from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, for example.
Overall, worth a watch if you’re a horror fan, but go in with low, low expectations.
This was really quite poor. It had the flashy graphics, the beats, but it felt lifeless, characterless and pointless. I felt sorry for the actors, who did a sterling job with what they were given, but this really felt like a Michael-Bay-Directing-Transformers version of a horror movie. I wondered if they felt they were trapped in a nightmare during the making of this movie. The whole child molester angle was also quite tasteless as it recalled the behaviours of real-life child molesters, and made you feel uncomfortable.
It had two moments I liked, which helped break up the monotony. The part where one of the characters dies, and Freddy explains there is brain function 7 minutes after death, so he still has time to play… and the part where the parents are hunting Freddy down and he’s fleeing, which was quite good. It too often left me bored or slightly offended.
Still, not as completely terrible as ‘New Nightmare’ though.
Okay, we’re now on the 10th Friday the 13th movie, and this alone should alert you you’re heading for a barrel of crap. If so, your film radar is suitably developed, but switch that beeping screen off. It’s misleading you. And don’t expect a full-horror fare – this is comedy/action with the horror being a simple springboard. This is to the Friday 13th Series what ‘Army of darkness’ is to the Evil Dead series.
What Jason X is is a fun, dumb film that has just enough wit, action and snippets of cool dialogue and self-reference to make it a tip-top popcorn movie. And believe it or not, no less than David Cronenberg apparently liked the script and premise enough to do a cameo. Good times!
So I think this is actually non-canon and doesn’t really follow on from number 9, and is set in the future, where a deep-frozen Jason is recovered from the now-uninhabitable Earth, but then circumstances and lack of attention allow the big guy to thaw out.
Okay, Jason comes back to life on a space ship, that happens to be carrying space-Special-Forces guys, a group of college kids, and a very cute lady robot.
After some fun dispatching the grunts in various amusing and ‘ouch!’ ways, it’s time for Jason to do that hoodoo he does so well. Along the way, he does his usual machete thing (of course), has a face-off with the ladybot who gets suitable software updates to turn her into a terminatrix (played by a lady that reminds me a lot of Karen Black), and he appears to be dead. But… he is rendered lifeless in the medic lab, where the nanobots used to repair damaged tissues have escaped, and the little fellows find their way into Jason, giving us… BIONIC JASON!
There’s lots of funnies that are even funnier if you know anything about the Friday 13th series, but you don’t really need this background to enjoy – it’s still pretty good without this. The most amusing is, when the few survivors need to distract Jason for a short time during escape, they create a holodeck around him of Camp Crystal with 2 hotties in sleeping blankets who say stuff like ‘we just love premarital sex!’ – suitably enraging the big lug while escape is attempted.
This is way, way better than it has any right to be.
Yeah, reasonably fun, but with long sections with too little Jason or Freddy, especially in the first half. When they actually were either fighting or terrorising the kids, it was decent enough, but a little more Freddy humour would have been nice. Decent turn in a minor role by genre great Katherine Isabelle (her from the Ginger Snaps trilogy, and American Mary).
Fine Hammer take on Sherlock Holmes from Peter Cushing. Christopher Lee is also present and rather good as Sir Henry Baskerville, and I liked that the Watson in this was rather capable and less of a bumbling audience-substitute who only serves to listen and admire Holmes. This is Hammer of course, so we get the bombastic school and more blood and violence than more conventional versions, but it’s good fun. Cushing was a great Holmes, it’s a shame he didn’t play Holmes again for Hammer.
I really expected this to be a rerun of King Kong, and for the first 2/3rd it mostly was, but it then wildly diverged into unexpected territory of a chase, followed by rescue that was genuinely exciting. The male lead was one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen, but the rest of the cast was solid. Pretty decent.
Completely bonkers Jason tale, that deviates wildly from the usual formula of kids in woods + Jason into a tale of body-jumping Jason hunting down a new body. Mixing elements of The Omen, Dog The Bounty Hunter, The Hidden and Child’s Play, this is bananas. But entertaining.
A very interesting experience, a live broadcast reworking of the original Quatermass story. I like Jason Flemyngs interpretation, but stagey (by design) and a little too old fashioned for its own good.
Mark discussing Quatermass on the Talk Without Rhythm Podcast
Another great Quatermass film, with some fine tension building, acting and set pieces. It gets baggy and dissolute in act 2, but hell, is act 1 and 3 great. PS. WE ARE THE MARTIANS.
Mark discussing Quatermass on the Talk Without Rhythm Podcast
Decent entry into the Jason tales, with some creative deaths and a little tension, but needed to spend more time in Manhattan to be properly fun. Enjoyable enough though. Best kill: Jason punching a guy’s head off.
Ridiculous sequel where, even though people find corpses throughout the woods, they act as if nothing has happened and decide to get some air in the same woods. It’s not completely without charm though, as Kane Hodder’s reanimated Jason gives us a steady stream of kills, and the premise of Jason vs Carrie is a decent one, even though the film doesn’t really deliver on it.
Another great British 50s scifi, dealing with mature themes of government conspiracy and control. It has something akin to the podpeople in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, but these podpeople are ahead of the curve, and have already taken over government. It really packs a lot into its 80 minute running time, so has some narrative shortcuts that are really massive coincidences, but there’s some great stuff here…the police inspector about to tell all to someone in power, and noticing the alien scar and quickly changing the story, the sinister guards in gasmasks and helmets wielding machine guns, and the realisation the aliens are blocking the pipes with human bodies to stop oxygen poisoning them. A great paranoia piece of the time.
Mark discussing Quatermass on the Talk Without Rhythm Podcast
Odd Italian thriller/horror that suffers the usual problem in Italian horror, in that the motiviation and speech of the characters seems slightly skewed compared to the narrative drive. The main actress was pretty committed, and the ending was pretty good (except the last 5 seconds), and it was fun, with a few atmospheric moments. The central relationship between a woman and a severed head doesn’t bear too close an examination.
A definite improvement on all the sequels (especially the terrible 5th one), this has some talent, wit and decent ideas going on, with some nice tension and jumpscares. I liked this Frankensteinian Jason, who walked fast, and seemed relentless.
Damn fine British scifi, made by Hammer before they went full-horror, with Brian Donlevy doing a great scientist-as-sociopath in his portrayal of Bernard Quatermass, and Richard Worsworth doing a great turn as Victor Caroon, a man slowly being overtaken by an alien intelligence in a performance often (rightly) compared to Karloff’s performance in the original Frankenstein. Some great touches, including rising tension in a zoo where the off-camera monster lurks, followed by the sight of dead, desiccated animals throughout the zoo the next morning, fine music, a documentary style that really serves to make you uneasy. One of the great scifi movies of the 50s.
Mark discussing Quatermass on the Talk Without Rhythm Podcast