[WraithApe]

Classic British Horror Sci fi Scripted by a Yanglese and directed by a German no less:

This list has some real gems in the vintage category. Village of the Damned should be obligatorily followed by These are the Damned IMHO.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/ga...est-british-science-fiction-films-in-pictures

Indeed. A few Americanisms creep into the screenplay actually - general store instead of village shop, for instance. Good list - thanks for that; I've only seen about half of them. Surprised to see V For Vendetta make the list though. It's something of a travesty of Moore's vision IMO. Watchmen is the only adaptation of his work I rate, but even then I'd rather dig out my comic books

 

[Hutnicks]

Indeed. A few Americanisms creep into the screenplay actually - general store instead of village shop, for instance. Good list - thanks for that; I've only seen about half of them. Surprised to see V For Vendetta make the list though. It's something of a travesty of Moore's vision IMO. Watchmen is the only adaptation of his work I rate, but even then I'd rather dig out my comic books

I actually liked Watchmen which was forever considered unfilmable. Had they gone with A list actors it would have been considerably worse. As it stands it is probably one of my all time favourate super hero films and I does not make me cringe when I go back to the original printed work. The spirit is still there even though the story line departed (and to be fair was more or less hijacked by Marvel)

 

[Planar_head]

The Big Sick: 9/10

I generally don't really do rom-coms, but I figured I should choose a more positive movie going experience than my typical go-tos.

It's got a lot of good giggles, with a good bit of drama in there to spice it up. It's an up and down movie, ending on an up. The story is good, and doesn't feel forced, thankfully. There's a ton a places where it could've majorly screwed up, but thankfully it all worked. The twist at the ending was a little bit of a surprise, but I'm okay with it. It really was the only thing that felt discontinuous in the entire movie. Every actor puts in an excellent effort, and the two leads have fantastic on-screen chemistry.

As with all of these types of movies, it's far from groundbreaking visually. It neither surprises nor disappoints in this regard. The camera is just that, an observer.

All in all, worth a trip with a friend. It's a good movie for a Sunday where you don't want to feel all the feels.

 

[Trihexagonal]

La Vampire Nue, or The Nude Vampire, by Jean Rollins.

This movie came up after the last one played while I was using the computer. I didn't expect much out of it given the title but it was the only one of his I had seen that day that was dubbed instead of having subtitles, so I let it play as I didn't have to concentrate on it to get what was happening. It had its share of lewd behavior and nudity, as all his films do to some degree or another, but not nearly as much as you'd think from the title, or as much as some, and the story surprised me.

It was about a group of rich people who had kept a beautiful young vampiress locked away in a cell her whole life, never having seen another human face (they all wore hoods when interacting with her), or the light of day. They were obsessed with learning the secret of her immortality by analyzing her blood but things take a turn when other vampires enter the picture.

One of the better, more coherent stories of his films I've watched. 5/5 for the story, and twin female vampires.

I also watched Belladonna of Sadness on TCM last night. Japanese anime done in storyboard style, it's about a girl who is taken by the king against her will on her wedding night. She makes a deal with the Devil to gain power and get her revenge, but the Devil always comes out on top in those deals.

I don't watch a lot of anime but it was well done IMO. 5/5



Edit: Today I only watched two movies, Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. Directed by Claude Berri, they are part one and two of the same movie.

Jean de Florette is about a greedy old man that wants to buy land from his neighbor so his nephew can farm on it, knowing there is a hidden spring on the land. When the landowner refuses to sell and insults him, there is a fight during which the landowner is accidentally killed. Thinking that this was their lucky break and they would be able to buy the land at a bargain price, they were disappointed when a relative of the landowner from the city, his wife and little girl move in to stay.

The man, Jean de Florette, was a hunchback with a heart of gold and big plans for the land. But the greedy old man and his nephew wouldn't tell him about the spring, and not only that, everyone in town knew about it but kept the secret because he was an outsider and the family status of the greedy old man.

Jean worked like a dog to make the land prosper, and for a while it did, but nature took its course and his luck took a turn for the worse. All the while the greedy old man, his nephew and the townsfolk looked on in jealousy and disgust as times for Jean and his family got harder and harder.

Mon Dieu! Do not even think about watching the first part if you can't see the second part, too. There would be no justice in the world if the movie ended there.

Manon des Sources is about the little girl, Manon, who some 10 years later has blossomed into a beautiful young woman and the love interest of the nephew. She's a free spirit who mostly keeps to herself and tends her goats. A wood nymph of sorts, she might as well be Karma because when she finds out what went down it comes back in spades for everyone involved before it's through.

A strong 5/5, the best movie I've seen in a long time and not to be missed.

 

[WraithApe]

I actually liked Watchmen which was forever considered unfilmable. Had they gone with A list actors it would have been considerably worse. As it stands it is probably one of my all time favourate super hero films and I does not make me cringe when I go back to the original printed work. The spirit is still there even though the story line departed (and to be fair was more or less hijacked by Marvel)

Yeah, I do rate Watchmen, as I said. Still think the comic books are better though. Watchmen was DC, not Marvel, and I would say they cleaved pretty slavishly to the source material, which is probably why it works better than any other Moore adaptations.

 

[WraithApe]

It's a good movie for a Sunday where you don't want to feel all the feels.

I don't understand what this means. What are "the feels", and why wouldn't you want them on a Sunday?

 

[Planar_head]

I don't understand what this means. What are "the feels", and why wouldn't you want them on a Sunday?

Hah, my mastery of the English language has certainly grown weaker...

In a nutshell, what I'm getting at is that this is not a movie you see to provoke deep, soul-searching thought. Thoughts that could possibly lead to late-night typed rants on a forum. Which, if you have a typical 8-5 M-F type of job, may not be particularly optimal.

 

[WraithApe]

Hah, my mastery of the English language has certainly grown weaker...

In a nutshell, what I'm getting at is that this is not a movie you see to provoke deep, soul-searching thought. Thoughts that could possibly lead to late-night typed rants on a forum. Which, if you have a typical 8-5 M-F type of job, may not be particularly optimal.

Thanks for the clarification. Not your language skills at fault, just my lack of knowledge! I dunno whether it's cos I avoid almost all forms of social media like the plague and am therefore out of touch, but "the feels" isn't a phrase I've heard anyone using over this side of the pond. Now I know what it means... I think.

 

[Hutnicks]

Yeah, I do rate Watchmen, as I said. Still think the comic books are better though. Watchmen was DC, not Marvel, and I would say they cleaved pretty slavishly to the source material, which is probably why it works better than any other Moore adaptations.

I meant Marvel hijacked part of the plot for their big otherworldly creatures take Manhattan film.

 

[Muinarc]

It: 7.6/10. Felt a little too long, showed Pennywise too early and too often..... relied on rooms with dark corners too much. They already have a creepy monster, he's creepier in broad daylight just talking....creepily, no need for cheap jump scares in contrived situations in dark rooms. Acting from the kids was solid, other plot beats were well done, camera work was above average for a horror film.

 

[Fox2twenty]

Finally watched

Pineapple Express

5/10, not as good as I wanted it to be.

 

[Trihexagonal]

Cartes sur table, or Attack of the Robots, a Jesus Franco film sans nudity. Starring Eddie Constantine, most known for his Lemmie Caution secret agent films, this is a more lighthearted secret agent farce, although not one of his Caution films.

More aptly named Attack of the Manchurian Candidates than robots, people with Type O blood are kidnapped, undergo a hypnotic treatment with the side effect of a deep, deep Coppertone tan that quickly fades upon their demise, and remotely controlled by black framed glasses that looked a lot like the ones I wear. A smooth operator James Bond type, Eddie, not me, ladies literally throw themselves at him and he is surrounded by likeable characters and intrigue.

4/5 for a light enjoyable film. I've seen one of his Lemmie Caution films, Alphaville, and have a few more on my playlist.


Zombies Lake, written by Jesus Franco and directed by Jean Rollin. Pure Eurotrash cinema about Nazi soldiers killed by the French Resistance and thrown into a lake only to revive years later to feast on the flesh of beautiful young women. Not worth the time it takes to watch it, word has it Rollin was ashamed of having anything to do with and denied having done so for years.

2/5 and not 1/5 only because I have the uncut version and the version eventually done by Franco, Oasis of the Zombies , is supposedly even worse.

 

[WraithApe]

Carrie - 8/10

Another film I've watched many times before, so inevitably the shock value has been replaced with nostalgia to a large extent. De Palma's adaptation of King's novel was the first to hit the big screen and remains one of the best, thanks mainly to great turns from Sissy Spacek in the lead role and Piper Laurie as her overbearing, religious zealot of a mother. Spacek was apparently so dedicated to the role that she didn't remove her costume for 3 days - including sleeping in it - so that she didn't break continuity during the shooting of the prom scene! There are some iconic scenes, particularly around the prom - the bucket of blood, precariously balanced, a blood-stained Carrie standing maniacally in front of a wall of fire - that have entered the horror hall of fame. Looking at the film critically though, I do feel it's a bit top heavy script-wise - until the last act, it's basically a high school drama with the odd freaky moment and maybe more could have been made of Carrie exploring her nascent powers.

Like a lot of directors, de Palma was clearly influenced by Psycho. From the school's name (Bates High - renamed from the book's Ewen High), to the violin stabs when Carrie mind state becomes agitated, the spirit of that film is in its DNA. Apparently De Palma even wanted Bernard Herrmann to do the score but unfortunately Herrmann died before that ambition could be realized.

The Changeling - 6/10

Came out in the same year as The Shining, and bears some similarities, not just in the main character being a father, estranged from his wife and child, but also the setting - the senator's house, like the Overlook hotel, is very much another character in the film. The way the interiors are filmed present an anatomy of isolation; low tracking shots exploring the topography of the building, as if tracing the neural pathways of the protagonist's troubled mind, in much the same way Kubrick did with the hallways of the Overlook.

For all its visual flare though, The Changeling struggles to rise above its mediocre plot and its dependence on genre cliches. There are so many haunted house cliches going on that you can almost check them off a list - creaking doors, hidden rooms, giant cobwebs, the seance, the restless spirit... George C. Scott is good in the lead role of melancholic composer John Russell, but even he can't save a story that is predictable and also plays its hand too early. After Russell has realized that the house's intentions towards him are not necessarily malign (which happens pretty early on), it's difficult for the house and its ghostly occupants to retain a sense of menace. It becomes more of a supernatural whodunit, playing out a rather far-fetched tale of familial scandal and deception.

It was a decent horror movie at the time, but not a classic in my book. I actually prefer the more recent The Orphanage, for a film that treads similar territory but which is considerably more effective as a supernatural chiller.

 

[Hutnicks]

I think Canadians are responsible for Changling being somewhat overrated If was one of the first featuring a major A list cast to be filmed here and was pretty much the darling of the industry here at that time.

Very good, but not great. Still well worth the watch.

 

[WraithApe]

Pet Sematary - 4/10

Capsule summary: man moves his family into a house opposite a spooky graveyard and bad stuff happens. The film's lynchpin isn't actually the pet cemetery (or 'sematary', if you prefer), but an old Indian burial ground beyond it, where the interred come back to life the following day, but are altered - evil and aggressive. It's all pretty hokey and none of it really makes much sense, especially the 'good' ghost, Pascow, who tries to help the father figure make the right choices. Even with ghostly guidance, Doc Creedy makes one bad decision after another, starting with moving his family, including a cat and toddler, into a house right outside a road where tanker trucks barrel by approximately every 5 minutes - to the point where, when it all goes to hell, you're thinking 'well you kinda had it coming." The acting is pretty bad across the board, especially from the parents - they're outshone by the kids, who give much more emotionally convincing performances. After thinking it was all fairly tame, the last act is actually quite gratuitous (but also pretty laughable), when little Gage goes all Chucky, as the film rams home its moral message, "sometimes, dead is better" - which Fred Gwynne is made to say at least three times. All in all, it's a muddled and not particularly well executed horror film that I would advise skipping in favour of something like...

Christine - 7/10

A possessed car, born to kill - on the face of it, it's a ridiculous premise, but John Carpenter, in a serious purple patch at this point in time, manages to make it cool... really cool! The sight of the '58 Plymouth Fury, its headlights burning and a lens flare shooting horizontally across the inky blackness of the highway is just great. Unsurprisingly, the practical effects are really good too - the way the car puts itself back together, Transformers-style - and the soundtrack rocks. Carpenter and Howarth's pulsing synth score competes with Christine's Rock n Roll play list, which she always pitches just right to suit the moment. The story centres around high school geek Arnie Cunningham and how, after impulse buying Christine as a wreck, his personality is gradually twisted to match the car's. There's probably a bit of social commentary in that - the product controlling and shaping the consumer rather than the other way around - but true to form, Carpenter is never po-faced about it. First and foremost, Christine is fun; bold, brash, stylishly shot and tongue-in-cheek without being silly. Definitely exceeded my expectations.