DVDs and Films You Have Watched Recently #2

[Devon Malcolm]

Eden Lake from what I have read seems like one of those films that is nasty for the sake of it which is why I have avoided it for so long but I will get around to it after I finally get around to watching The Mist.

 

Well, Eden Lake's a horror film - and haven't many of the even very good ones contained elements of being 'nasty for the sake if it'?

 

Funny you should mention it in the same breath as The Mist, though, as that's another film I would never watch again as well.

[Thunderplex]

The Mist was excellent, and the black and white version made it even better.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

Watched The Human Centipede II last night. It was just ridiculous and impossible to take seriously. As a black comedy it was great but as a shocking horror film it was a great black comedy. I think I'd recommend it, it's a unique idea for a sequel as far as I'm aware and the main character is one of the most grotesque people I've ever seen on screen. I also like the fact that it looks and feels completely different to the first one.

 

I saw the UK version which I believe is about 2 and a half minutes shorter than the fully uncut version, it was still pretty foul but not scary or anything, just silly and gross.

[The King Of Swing]

Eden Lake from what I have read seems like one of those films that is nasty for the sake of it which is why I have avoided it for so long but I will get around to it after I finally get around to watching The Mist.

 

Well, Eden Lake's a horror film - and haven't many of the even very good ones contained elements of being 'nasty for the sake if it'?

 

Funny you should mention it in the same breath as The Mist, though, as that's another film I would never watch again as well.

 

Fair point, I will watch it eventually.

 

Speaking of horrors I just ordered Event Horizon on blu-ray.

[Astro Hollywood]

Watched The Human Centipede II last night. It was just ridiculous and impossible to take seriously. As a black comedy it was great but as a shocking horror film it was a great black comedy. I think I'd recommend it, it's a unique idea for a sequel as far as I'm aware and the main character is one of the most grotesque people I've ever seen on screen. I also like the fact that it looks and feels completely different to the first one.

 

Part III is on the way. The casting of it seems like they're going with the same idea as II, that a fan of the film is trying to recreate it for realz, except that in this story, II was just a movie too, and this one is really really real. I haven't seen the second one yet, but I love the silliness of the meta-meta stuff.

 

One movie I did see today and recommend avoiding altogether is Evidence. It's a decent enough found footage horror for the first 2/3, but then it does a complete genre flip and

 

<-- click on 'spoiler' to show/hide the spoiler

basically becomes a first person shooter, with half an hour of noisy running through hallways in the dark while everything from zombies to bigfoot, to giant bug things like the ones in Half Life II scream and get shot. It's just so relentlessly noisy and pointless, with that 'digital error' noise you get in newer found footage flicks when the camera gets shaken, constantly, which is like being hit by half-second blasts of a ZX Spectrum loading screen. It's one of the most insane turns a movie's ever taken, because up to that point, it's the usual 'annoying people camping in woods' flick, then suddenly there's a massive hidden base and a bunch of shit cribbed from first person shooters that makes no sense, and is just incredibly annoying. You can't see a fucking thing that goes on in the final third, and the closing credits are the most epilepsy inducing thing I've ever seen

 

[close spoiler]

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[Halitosis Romantic]

I thought Eden Lake was a cracker, actually, and it really stayed with me. What's the problem with horrible for the sake of it? That's the backbone of a lot of great horrors.

 

And the ending didn't imply rape at all to me. It just seemed like they wanted the best way to get rid of the woman, and that was probably the quickest and quietest way. I don't think, with all that they thought she'd done, that they'd be like "Don't worry, wives and mothers, we aren't raping her in there, it just sounds like it". I wager that Woy sees rape everywhere.

[Vamp]

I remember having a night with a few friends where we watched Jerry Springer the Opera, Black Sheep and then Eden Lake. We'd joked our way through the first two but everyone was pretty hypnotised by Eden Lake. I think the distinction you have to make with exploitation movies (I've watched a few) is the same one you have to make with any art; is it all style (and exploitation is its own style) or does it actually have something of real value to say. Eden Lake does, I think anyway, enter a discussion about the paranoia in this country in regards to youth and class. I mean films suggesting that adults in authority don't understand teenagers is as old as Rebel Without a Cause, and its been done a lot better and a lot less violently too, and films suggesting that if we don't understand teenagers better then there's going to violent outcomes have also been done, but its not like Eden Lake's nasty just for the sake of it. And I quite like the movie for mocking the two victims when they try and fight back through morally wrong methods. Although at times you do get the sense the message of the movie would be better put if it was just a video of a David Cameron look a like trying to hug a hoodie and getting stabbed. I also quite like the fact that film's kinda like a moaning angry teenager itself. It grumbles that people don't understand, it gets angry and hateful and it doesn't do anything itself to solve the problem because it doesn't know what to do.

 

All that said, most of what it does do has been done better elsewhere.

 

In a completely related note, Johnny English 2 is kinda fun. Better than the first. You get the feeling they have a much tigheter grip on things than the original. And if Bond's gonna be all gritty (which I've got no problem with) then there needs to be some form of mostly silly, warmly mocking, kinda naff British spy film with gadgets. The third one needs an ancient Roger Moore as a bad guy though.

 

I also watched Tenebre today and thought it was pretty decent. I thought I'd like it more though. I just prefer Suspiria and Opera.

[Halitosis Romantic]

Definitely prefer Suspiria and Deep Red (and probably Bird with the Crystal Plumage) - I'd say that Tenebrae is his fourth best movie, and from there, it was downhill.

[Amazing_Red_Fan]

Suspiria and Deep Red are just absolutely stunning pieces of work. I would say however, that my favourite Argento film (at least right now) is Inferno. It's an overlooked masterpiece, just absolutely outstanding.

 

Finally got to see Four Flies on Grey Velvet the other day and it is very good, even though Michael Brandon is just woeful in it and undoes a lot of the good work. Also re-watched Tenebrae a couple of nights ago and ended up enjoying it a lot more than I did the first time. Got the new(ish) Arrow release of Phenomena to re-watch in the next couple of days, which should be interesting.

[Halitosis Romantic]

You know, I completely forgot Inferno. That's a cracker, too.

 

Apparently, George Romero was in for a Deep Red remake - I don't like this idea, but he dropped out anyway, when he heard that Claudio Argento hadn't even informed Dario. I bet there was such a lot of hand gesturing over that.

[Devon Malcolm]

The Mist was excellent, and the black and white version made it even better.

 

Agreed, although I haven't seen the black and white version. But they ruined it with its nonsense ending.

[NEWM]

Watched Hard Candy last night. Thought it was okay, but nothing that great and nowhere near as artistically astounding as the director seemed to think it would be. Ellen Page just okay again. Still waiting to actually love one of her performances, starting to think it will never come.

 

SPOILER - Highlight the black box to read

If anything though, I suppose when Woy is found hanging from his house, we'll know how it all went down.

 

[Bellenda Carlisle]

Watched Trollhunter last night, my heart sank when I realised it was going to be a "found footage" film. Massive spoilers ahead...

SPOILER - Highlight the black box to read

 

I didn't like the general storyline at all, it was some miserable cunt going around killing trolls who pretty much minded their own business, some of the trolls were over a thousand years old, they didn't deserve to die just for killing a couple of hikers or sheep. And he was only doing it for the government which is hardly noble, I hated that aspect of it and I was rooting for the trolls the whole time. Would've rather it had been about the kids going round trying to film the trolls and escape them with maybe one troll getting caught in the sun for the cool "turning into stone" effect rather than them all be needlessly killed, I hate stuff like that.

 

 

The trolls looked interesting though, I didn't hate the visual effects. SPOILER - Highlight the black box to read

Especially the ones in the cave

 

[Devon Malcolm]

Watched Hard Candy last night. Thought it was okay, but nothing that great and nowhere near as artistically astounding as the director seemed to think it would be. Ellen Page just okay again. Still waiting to actually love one of her performances, starting to think it will never come.

 

Might watch this this week. I've still not actually seen her in anything yet, but I really don't fancy Super, Inception or Juno so this might be my best bet.

 

Tesis

 

Been wanting to see this for years and as I'm currently on a Spanish thrillers kick, I thought it was the best time to watch it.

 

This one's a bit older than the ones I have seen in the last few months and I think it showed, mainly in the fact that Eduardo Noriega really doesn't suit being young looking. That sounds a bit homoerotic, but I know what I mean.

 

It wasn't nearly as good as I was expecting or hoping. For a start the central character, who otherwise is played pretty well by Ana Torrent, makes at least two really stupid decisions in the film that just leave you completely baffled. It also isn't helped by the fact that it almost falls apart in the last half an hour with the film basically implicating every single main member of the cast as the possible killer before it takes you, essentially, back to square one. I don't get on well with that brand of storytelling.

 

It's one of those films that doesn't hold up very well when you actually think about it too much although you quite enjoy it while you're watching it. It was also surprisingly bloodless for a film about snuff films.

 

6/10

 

Coma

 

Excellent little late 70s medical thriller, directed by Michael Crichton, who really has never been given nearly enough credit for his film directing as he should.

 

Michael Douglas is great as ever but steps aside for a really impressive Genevieve Bujold turn. Richard Widmark is always a good bet for a slimy support role and the chases through the hospital and around the Jefferson Institute are still really well done to this day.

 

It does feel like a TV movie in places, but that's no bad thing as it's still great fun and I doubt many people would feel let down by it. The ending's slightly abrupt but this is about the fourth time I've seen it and it still holds up well.

 

7/10

Edited March 4, 2012 by Gladstone Small

[The King Of Swing]

The Mist was excellent, and the black and white version made it even better.

 

Agreed, although I haven't seen the black and white version. But they ruined it with its nonsense ending.

 

Just finished The Mist and take away the shit characters and insulting ending and it's a really good horror, at times it really is the stuff of nightmares but fucking hell that ending stinks.