VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[Merzbow]

Havoc (2025) has zero plot and not enough Jessie Mei Li but there's some stellar action in here, some of the grossest gunplay I've seen in a while even though it makes zero sense and everyone has infinite bullet cheats... until they don't. It feels more like a US lengthy episode of Gangs of London than anything and miles below either The Raid movie.

Wouldn't really recommend unless you want the most mindless shit ever.

[Merzbow]

Fréwaka is not what I expect from Shudder, a streaming service that often fails hard with it's exclusive films.

A molasses slow "folk horror" that's an allegory for generational trauma and mental health isn't exactly original right now but this manages to hit far more than it misses with some of the most beautifuly strange and oppressive atmosphere as it crawls along to it's final act. Both leads are outstanding and I love the use of the Irish language, the audio is the standout here when it starts to batter your senses.

[FLips]

Popped to the big CEX in the Metrocentre earlier. They have a much bigger range, moreso infact by the time we finished scouring the Film section we couldn't be bothered to check the £1 section.

Came away with the following:

• The Lord of The Rings Extended Trilogy - £15
• Once Upon a Time in America - £2
• Street Fighter: The Movie - £3
• Scarface - £1.50
• Fright Night (1985) - £5
• Carlito's Way - £1.50
• Blade Runner 2049 - £2
• Death Becomes Her - £3.50

We almost got Beetlejuice Beetlejuice for £6 but it was only £6.99 brand new in HMV so we went back and got that from there for the extra 99p. My wife also put Lost Boys and Chicago back because they were both that awful 1:25:1 letterbox VHS rip thing.
Chuffed with the LOTR Trilogy as it's been hard finding the extended editions and the whole boxset is Like New condition which in itself is a miracle in CEX. Fright Night as well, which I saw for the first time last year and loved, so glad I have that as a halloween staple now. We almost got the Nightmare on Elm Street 1-7 boxset too but weren't too bothered seeing past 1-3 so held off.
I've worked out as well from the Beetlejuice and Once Upon a Time in America DVDs too that even if it doesn't say anamorphic we can get away with 1:85 and 1:85:1 ratios. It's the :25 and :35 we have to watch out for.

All in all for what we did get it was £30.50 if my maths is right, but half of that was LOTR which is fine. £15 for all the rest of it, including the new-ish Beetlejuice and Fright Night,  is a steal.

---

We also watched The Untouchables last night which was a weird one. It seemed like it was a good film in spite of itself, as daft as that sounds. At times it was like everyone was working from different drafts of the film so none of it really fit together.
Kevin Costner plays it straight the entire time, but Robert DeNiro sticks on a wild baldy hair peice and hams it up as Al Capone, like they were leads in two completely different films. It gives off kinda comic book 1930s chicago detective vibes almost as though it's a parody, but then Robert DeNiro smashes a guy's head in with a baseball bat and Sean Connery puts a gun in a corpse's mouth and splatters his brains all over a window like it's Goodfellas. It's like a tug of war where for every moment nothing is happening and it feels like it's too light hearted, they slam a violent murder in it to make up for it. That being said, it has a weird charm to it and I enjoyed it overall. I suppose you can't go too wrong with Costner, Connery, and DeNiro as the leads. Definitely one I think I like now but will love on repeat viewings.
Ennio Morricone does the soundtrack as well, and again, it's like he's scoring two different films at times. It starts with some thumping, almost Danny Elfman style peice over the opening credits, then you'll get some beautiful low key pieces in there and suddenly it plays Al Capone's mad theme with blaring drums and trumpets and saxophones or whatever the fuck it is. I mean, I love it, and me and my wife were bopping all over the place when it played, but what on earth is it.

 

Edited May 3, 2025 by FLips

[TibBo]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

We almost got the Nightmare on Elm Street 1-7 boxset too but weren't too bothered seeing past 1-3 so held off.

7 is pretty good from what I remember? I think 7 and the original are the only ones that Wes Craven actually wrote on his own, so some effort was put into the plot/story on those two…

[Merzbow]

7/New Nightmare is excellent and probably my favourite of the lot, a rare great "meta" horror that pisses all over his other attempt, Scream.

[FLips]

Once Upon a Time in America

Just finished the first disc and already there’s been multiple rapes, child nudity, child abuse, child sexual assault. 

However good the rest of the film ends up being it won’t be worth the disgusting and uncomfortable child stuff through the first disc to get to it. Not gonna be watching this one again. Weird and gross shit.

Edit: Disc 2 opened with a big long rape scene. This film is fucking shite and if we hadn’t already put over 2 hours into it we’d have turned it off.

How do you go from making beautifully shot, exciting cowboy films to a 4 hour film full of child nudity and rapes? It’s genuinely making me mad how insultingly awful this film has been. What a let down from every single aspect.

Edited May 4, 2025 by FLips

[Devon Malcolm]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

Once Upon a Time in America

Just finished the first disc and already there’s been multiple rapes, child nudity, child abuse, child sexual assault. 

However good the rest of the film ends up being it won’t be worth the disgusting and uncomfortable child stuff through the first disc to get to it. Not gonna be watching this one again. Weird and gross shit.

Edit: Disc 2 opened a big long rape scene. This film is fucking shite and if we hadn’t already put over 2 hours into it we’d have turned it off.

How do you go from making beautifully shot, exciting cowboy films to a 4 hour film full of child nudity and rapes? It’s genuinely making me mad how insultingly awful this film has been. What a let down from every single aspect.

Yeah I don't like it either. Brilliantly made but the storyline is relentlessly unpleasant and misogynistic.

[LaGoosh]

I haven't ever gotten around to see it but I'm pretty sure I've read that the theatrical cut is shit but the Morricone directors cut is decent?

Edited May 3, 2025 by LaGoosh

[TheBurningRed]

Appreciate that boy deciding to eat the cake instead of getting a blowie though.

It has some really great moments that I love in that movie. Beautifully shot. Just a lot of terrible stuff as you say. The rape scene in the car was so long and unnecessary.

Max is in love with Noodles. That’s what a lot of people get from it. There are some hints along the way. 

[FLips]

58 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I haven't ever gotten around to see it but I'm pretty sure I've read that the theatrical cut is shit but the Morricone directors cut is decent?

This was the director’s cut and nearly 4 hours long. Beautiful music, wonderfully shot but the film as a whole was bleak, vile and it’s constant sexual violence towards women and it’s graphic sexualisation of children is really disgusting. The ending is absolutely naff as well. What a pointless twist. If it’s going to be that long at least stick the landing.

[Chris B]

I fucking loathe Once Upon A Time In America. Horribly misogynistic. And then it ends up with

Spoiler

the love interest that he raped APOLOGISING TO HIM. 

Honestly the most I've been put off a movie.

[Devon Malcolm]

Sinners (cinema)

Yeah it's excellent. I don't think I'm quite as big on it as most because I felt the second half was a largely standard vampire story. But the first half is a fantastic character build, the use of music some of the best I've heard for years, and the second half is still pretty good! The hype's deserved.

Warfare (cinema)

I'm glad I didn't pay to see this, I snuck in to see it after the end of Sinners. Technically it's an extremely good film, claustrophobic and brutal and difficult to watch. It's also unashamed military porn and I can't believe we're still making this sort of thing in 2025. Almost nothing on the terrified Iraqi family these Yanks bust in the house of when they shouldn't even have been in the fucking country in the first place. What the fuck is Alex Garland playing at here.

The Accountant 2 (cinema)

Is it as good as the surprisingly good original? Also surprisingly, yes it is. A fair bit more action, a fair bit less accounting, and some very funny buddy comedy between Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal. They're making another one, too. Superb.

Julie Keeps Quiet (cinema)

Excellent Belgian drama about a young female tennis player caught in a spot when her coach is suspended after one of his former students commits suicide. Slow burning but intense and very well acted. Captures a familiar scenario very believably.

Havoc (Netflix)

Tom Hardy's new Netflix original. a really decent action-thriller from Gareth Evans of The Raids. Slow to get going but the second half goes nuts and Hardy's much better doing this sort of thing than trying to act. Awesome nightclub scene, good little Jessie Mei Li and Timothy Olyphant performances. With UKFF favourite Luis Guzman!

Bullet Train Explosion (Netflix)

Another new Netflix original, a Japanese disaster film that is a loose sequel to The Bullet Train from exactly 50 years ago. Far too long and too obvious with its character reveal. A couple of cool spots but it's pretty boring.

Primal (Film 4)

Seen this one, @Bellenda Carlisle? Fun little action thriller set on a freighter where Nicolas Cage's wild animals get loose, and so does federal prisoner Kevin Durand. Not one of Cage's recent best but a good laugh.

Zebra Force (Plex)

Tremendous 70s crime actioner about some Vietnam vets who start ripping off a Mafia gang and get the blame put on black gangs. Sort of blaxploiation-y, a bit Dead Presidents, I'd never heard of this before but it's a blast and a half.

Sleepers 

Barry Levinson's always been a bit shit, really, and this isn't very good. A film of two halves that barely connect at all, a weird Mafia subplot that is unnecessary, and some mixed performances. Goes on forever as well. Now I know why it took me nearly 30 years to watch it.

Wichita (1955)

Excellent Jacques Tourneur western with Joel McCrea doing a really good Wyatt Earp. Cracking cast, some great gunfights, and only 81 minutes. Lovely.

Loser 

No fucking idea how someone can go from making Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless, two of the greatest teen comedies of all time, to this. Awful and miserable and never even tries to be funny.

James and the Giant Peach

Didn't realise this was a musical. Turned it off during the second song.

Revenge (1990)

The director's cut of Tony Scott's thriller, possibly the most Tony Scott film he ever made. The second half is mental. Is Madeleine Stowe one of the most beautiful women in cinema history? Yes, I think so. Enjoyed this.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

14 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Primal (Film 4)

Seen this one, @Bellenda Carlisle? Fun little action thriller set on a freighter where Nicolas Cage's wild animals get loose, and so does federal prisoner Kevin Durand. Not one of Cage's recent best but a good laugh.

It's actually his only one I haven't seen. I'm really soft about animals so I don't really like people vs animal films and I've been putting it off. I never saw the revenant or Idris Elba and Liam Neeson's them vs animal films. 

I would like to watch Primal for Nic Cage completion though so give me a heads up if the whole film is him gleefully slaying endangered animals so I can prepare myself! 

[Devon Malcolm]

7 minutes ago, Bellenda Carlisle said:

I would like to watch Primal for Nic Cage completion though so give me a heads up if the whole film is him gleefully slaying endangered animals so I can prepare myself! 

No, he's capturing them to sell them - which is not much better, admittedly! There is a bit of animal harm but not as much as you might expect. It's a good laugh, overall.

[Onyx2]

20 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Sleepers 

Barry Levinson's always been a bit shit, really, and this isn't very good. A film of two halves that barely connect at all, a weird Mafia subplot that is unnecessary, and some mixed performances. Goes on forever as well. Now I know why it took me nearly 30 years to watch it

Read and reread this for about two minutes trying to make sense of it because I thought you were reviewing Sneakers.