Movie Tab II

I can't say enough how good the movie is. Sure, it's no Oscar contender, but it's a side-splitter. I went to a matinee to see it, so it wasn't the $12-13 you would normally pay, but it was worth the $6.50 I paid.

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

For me and my Wife to go to see a film, with travel (no car, so bus) and snacks, can cost up to (and these are much lower than London prices) £27, about $42.
I can buy the DVD from America for half that.

We shall see...Thanks for the heads-up anyway. I like a bit of Woody Harrelson in yahoo mode.

Can you not sneak your own snacks in? When my wife would go watch a movie with me, I'd make sure she took her big purse.

Yeah, we do sneak (have to!). But we still have to buy them from other places.

Any old winkle...


"Insanitarium"

Okay, we have a plot hole filled script that at times annoys with how silly it all is, but also some finely crafted chaos.

Guy wants to see suicidal Sister in Psychiatric Hospital.
Guy pretend to go nuts in the local park, gets sent to Psychiatric Hospital.
While there he finds out the the loony head of it, Peter Stormare, is experimenting on the patients by removing the higher brain functions (!) so he can get to the lower brain functions (those pesky primordial suckers like to hide) and cure madness.
On top of this he's also been injecting himself with the experimental serum for some reason never really made clear.

Despite the fact a load of the patients now have seriously weird eyes, act like wild animals around blood and rip the heads of cats, no one thinks anything is wrong until it's too late.
Too late means lots of primordial nutters escaping their very chic glass cells and eating everyone...or themselves!

Extremely bloody, well made, violent, gory with a splash of exploitative goodies (2nd best blood covered bared breasts in cinema after the mighty "Alucarda") this moves at a good pace as it builds the (very silly and unlikely) 'lunatics running the asylum' plot towards its manic, blood caked conclusion.

Some moist deaths and munching scenes are here for our delight (plus a groovy cleaver to the face demise that is something we see too little of in Horror cinema these days) but very little actual flesh biting is seen. Thus showing just how cutting edge, and stunningly extreme, Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" was and still is in this department.

The film's problems though are the aforementioned plot silliness and glaring stupidity (for example a Nurse gets bitten, in a hospital no less, but simply wraps an increasingly blood dripping bandage around the wound and carries on without a care), some very bad dialogue and needless, 90's style Horror, one-liners.
But the real drop in quality comes from a truly annoying turn by the ever barking Peter Stormare.
Hell fire and cobble stones! This makes his turn in "Armageddon" look like the height of subtlety.
He's an eye-rolling, word slurring pain in the ass! And that's before his character really starts to turn psychotic!

A pretty good twist ending caps off what is a very retro feeling Horror movie (has that 80's Euro trash/gore film feel) which delivers a no-nonsense, if rather silly, viewing experience but utilises lots of modern and well executed gore FX to really drive the crimson covered carnage forward during the balls-out last half.
We needed more mayhem though, and less Peter Stormare, who needs to see The Cohen's again for a lesson in the difference between an annoying, hammy, silliness packed performance and an effective, off the wall, exciting and scary performance.
Otherwise though..We have another good, graphic, 21st century Horror flick.
Check this out for cannibal carnage galore.



"Tenebre"

Still an absolute gem.
Simply one of his best, this is top 3 Argento.

It's also the first Argento I watched, like 22 odd years ago, and it was unlike anything I had seen.
The, utterly pointless as far as plot goes, camera pan around and over the house, as this great music blared out, had me goggle eyed and riveted to the TV.
What the hell was this?
No plot, no dialogue, no story progression...just a cacophony of sound and vision that built up a dam of expectation and excitement that Argento then skilfully blew apart to completely swamp the viewer as the majestically composed slaughter reached it's conclusion.

Seriously underrated at the time, this is perhaps good as Argento gets for me.
Great finale as well!

Children of Men

Let's get it out of the way - Cuaron's immense takes are awesome. You spend acres of time with the characters, whether they're shooting the breeze or getting shot at from all sides. Otherwise very British in its dyspeptic futurism, the 'hollywood flair' nicely counterpoints the downtrodden theme of a world collapsing in the absence of childbirth. Hope isn't springing eternal, the well of humanity runs dry.

There are some clunky aspects that hurt the flick (some of the exposition is downright awful, saved only by a natty joke from Caine early on), but the elan of the presentation and a set of strong leads mean it's pretty much a visual and narrative feast all the way. I can forgive any number of mashed violence motifs (from rescued Guernicas to jihadists sprouting fully-AK47'd from the ground) in the face of such enjoyable, twisty storytelling, that's almost as involving when it's pausing for breath as when charging towards its climactic final scenes.

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oh man! when the boyfriend and i were in London last year, it cost us and a couple friends over $80 to see a film. i was shocked.

what's weird though, is when we went to the iMax in London, it was only about $20.

Evolution

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Suspect's Reviews

I much prefer The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, Suspiria, Inferno and even Phenomena to Tenebre. Great soundtrack though.

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100 Favourites From The Future: REWIRED

Hmmm....
I would have to go (those I have seen):
"Tenebre"
"Suspiria"
"Bird"
"Deep Red"
"Inferno"
"Opera"
"Phenomena"
"Cat O' Nine Tails"
"Stendahl"
"Sleepless"
"Trauma"
"Four Flies"
"Mother of Tears"
"Two Evil Eyes"


"Reckoning Day"

The first feature film from Julian Gilbey who would go on to make the equally violent and bloody, but far better made in every other way, "Rollin' with the Nine's" and the more famous "Rise of the Footsoldier".

Shot over 3 half years from 1998-2001, it's basically a souped up, micro-budget (not much over £7000), student action film.
The budget, the inexperience and the technical limitations do sadly hit the film hard, especially in the dialogue scenes and general plot mechanics, but there is still much to enjoy here.

The various action scenes are spectacularly visceral and violent (these are superbly created, bloody as hell, squibs that would look at home in a Hollywood blockbuster) and generally very well directed, shot and edited with some wonderful stunt work.
And unlike every other zero budget film I have seen with gunfights (where the scenes are truly awful and never work) the gun battles are brilliantly handled in every way, from how they look, sound and feel.

Add some full on car violence, a chainsaw fight and a brutal axe/electric saw execution to the splattertastic gunfights and you have a film that delivers as far as brutal thrills go.
But sadly we have all the bits in-between.

It was a huge mistake to have a guy spend the last half of the film, parts of which were shot a year apart, in a blood soaked white t-shirt. Continuity problems anyone??
See the shirt switch from total crimson, to simply blood spattered but still very white, and then back again in the space of one scene.

Sadly the lack of live sound recording also means that, a near crippling blow as far as the non-action scenes go, all dialogue is dubbed on after.
This would be bad and distracting enough anyway even with good actors, but here we have some very bad actors, reading often bad dialogue.
It's extremely hard going, not helped by a very messy, overly complicated plot (that needs some deadeningly long exposition scenes).

Anyone who knows the UK comedy/homage show to badly made TV called "Garth Marenghi's Dark Place" will cringe whenever these cheesy/bad actors read cliche hard man and/or melodramatic dialogue, that does not quite fit the lip movements and sounds like it was all recorded in the same studio.

So "Reckoning Day" is too long, has too many dialogue heavy plot exposition scenes, features bad acting, bad sound recording, technical black holes and a dodgy script.
And yet...The numerous well crafted action scenes, the full on gore and violence, the ambitious ideas and the sheer enthusiasm that runs through the entire thing do make for an ultimately rewarding viewing experience.

And with the better budgets, better actors, more experienced writing, professional crews and technical improvements that would thankfully arrive for his next two films (cliche though they may often be) Gilbey certainly came good with the promise he showed here.

To know just how hard these guys worked and the hurdles they overcame to make some of these brilliant action scenes, just look at this;
A single fight sequence on a cliff top utilises the following;
Footage shot in two completely different locations, featuring shots filmed a year apart and with a total of three actors/stunt guys playing one character.
That takes commitment. We salute you.

My order

15. The Phantom of the Opera
14. Mother of Tears
13. Opera
12. Sleepless
11. Trauma
10. Cat O' Nine Tails
9. Four Flies On Grey Velvet
8. Two Evil Eyes (The Black Cat)
7. The Stendahl Syndrome
6. Tenebre
5. Phenomena
4. The Bird With the Crystal Plumage
3. Inferno
2. Deep Red
1. Suspiria

Blimey! I'm surprised by how many films you put before "Opera'!
"Four Flies", "Two Evil Eyes", "Sleepless" "Trauma"? Really!?

Oh well. Move "Tenebre" up one though, and we pretty much agree on the Top 5.
Go on...Move it up. You know it's better than "Phenomena".
Go on...Go on.....I'll give you a smiley if you do.

I really hate Opera. It's the horrible inappropriate heavy metal music (which granted Argento uses in other movies) and that stupid ending in the alps. Plus, come on, those pins under the eyes look ridiculous.

Critics and fans may rate Tenebre higher, but I think Phenomena is a lot more interesting, both visually, and in terms of narrative (I rate The Stendahl Syndrome higher than most for similar reasons - and Asia Argento *drools*). For me that movie blends giallo and horror perfectly, and features some of Argento's finest visuals. Shame about Iron Maiden being on the soundtrack, but hey, at least we get Jennifer Connelly and Donald Pleasence, not to mention a cracking finale. So no, I won't move it up one, not even for ten smilies.

You don't like the needles? I love that idea and image!
I don't mind the metal music either (I like it in "Phenomena" too).
The ending? Yeah...we agree here.
But I think only partly.
I agree the villain part of the ending is weak and anti-climactic and the 'fire trick' used before it was absurd!
But I do like the 'back to nature' speech at the end. For me it shows a total submission into the madness so long and hard fought against.

But I agree on your praise for "Phenomena".
It was a very close thing indeed between it and "Opera" (another point against "Opera" is that it has the 2nd worst, non-English speaking parts, dub job after the travesty dubbed over "Sleepless").
But "Opera" won out because of the stunning set-pieces, that trump "Phenomena"...And in fact one of my favourite set-pieces in "Phenomena" is scored with "Flash of the Blade".

Suspiria is highly overrated.

Welcome To The Dollhouse

Hey it's not like we said it's the best movie ever made...

...I mean everyone knows that's Death Wish 3, right?

Is there a cineworld near you?

Anyway Monster House fun animated film about a haunted house I love it really good and quite tense in parts.

Amytiville Horror I'm probably going to get flamed but I found it quite dull and anticlimatic. There was geniune scary moments and some suspense but i felt it was poorly paced and dragged on.

Hewhew, well I hear that In the Realm of Senses is "more fleshed out", if that's what you mean.

Irma Vep
Old Boy
Monsters vs Aliens

No. Is that an American thing though?

I agree on "The Amytiville Horror" (I gather you mean the original) never did a thing for me at all. Dull indeed.
The sequel/Prequel was more interesting and #3 was quite a lot of fun too.

i liked Amityville: the possession a lot more. incest!

the remake is terrible, but i do have to say that the day after i watched it i woke up in the middle of the night, looked at the clock, and it was exactly 3:15am, which is like a major plot point in the story. that freaked me out a lot.

I would need a Xanax after that!

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