Wednesday 7 June 2017

Death Nurse 2 (1988)

Exactly the same as the first Death Nurse movie and with the same "plot", cast, flashbacks etc but with a little communism thrown in for some reason. To be honest, I didn't pay it much attention as a Twitch stream of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was far more interesting. At a push, I'd say that it's slightly better than the first... maybe... sort of?

Death Nurse review here

Letterboxd Review

Death Nurse (1987)

Just for Helen_S, here's a brief review.

A damning indictment of US Medicaid or a fucking awful SOV slasher film with zero plot, flashbacks that are edits from the director's previous film, loads of padding including ice cream eating and cat chasing, god-awful special effects and a cast of the oldest and ugliest people available (you'll be longing for the vapid, pretty, young things from modern films)? I'll leave that for you to decide. Never has an hour felt so long!

Death Nurse 2 review here

Letterboxd Review

Tuesday 16 May 2017

Wyrmwood: Road Of The Dead (2014)

28 Days Later, Mad Max, Bad Taste, The Paul Hogan Show, The 'A' Team and everyone's favourite book of the bible. Hilarious, bloody and ingenious.

An OckZomCom!

Letterboxd Review

Monday 1 May 2017

Don't Breathe (2016)

Get off my lawn!

The film would have been so much better if they'd kept it morally ambiguous by getting rid of the stupid kidnapping sub-plot. Multiple endings, glaring plot-holes, far too many jump-scares, the extremely irritating "Money" character needed to suffer far more than he did, the turkey baster scene was more hilarious than horrifying and that chase scene with the night-vision cam was just stupid.

Disappointing.

Letterboxd Review

Friday 14 April 2017

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The corpse of the age of Aquarius is butchered and barbecued. Perfect in every way.

Ellie said "s'alright". Kids!

Letterboxd Review

Saturday 8 April 2017

Predator (1987)

What more could you ask from a jungle-based action sci-fi movie? Schwarzenegger, guns, explosions, blood, guts, booby traps, testosterone overload, quotable dialogue and one-liners, a beautiful woman, magic mud, bombastic score, Jesse Ventura packing a minigun, an alien with a weird crabface and luminous blood. Perfect!

Minus half a star for killing Jesse way too early.

Letterboxd Review

Thursday 6 April 2017

The Boogey Man (1980)

A middling entry in the video nasty list. I don't really know why a slasher took a bizarre detour into haunted house and exorcism territory but I'm okay with that. Great soundtrack, decent gore, well shot and it's always a pleasure to see John Carradine even if the role is not his usual crusty old doomsayer. The end seemed a little rushed but overall The Bogey Man was pretty good.

Letterboxd Review

Monday 3 April 2017

This is England '90 (2015)

This whole sequence has been like looking at my life, my friends, my music, my politics, my misdemeanours, fuckups and triumphs. In turns, hilarious and deeply moving. Ken Loach for Generation-X. Woody is a legend!

Letterboxd Review

Sunday 2 April 2017

The Long Good Friday (1980)

Alongside Get Carter, this is the dog's bollocks of British gangster films and a veritable who's who of several decades worth of UK film and TV.

"The Mafia? I've shit 'em!"

Letterboxd Review

Saturday 1 April 2017

Jimi: All Is by My Side (2013)

Forgot to log this one.

Totally unofficial. No Hendrix music, even his Fender guitars were clones (slightly different headstock, no logo). Funnily, at one point our Jimi plays a Gibson Flying V and I'm pretty sure this was the real thing. It's nice to see that old rivalry is still going strong. Loved the editing.

Not bad at all.

Letterboxd Review

Friday 24 March 2017

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)

Steve G was right, this was really good!

Letterboxd Review

Star Wars (1977)

I was once talking to a colleague and made the mistake of saying that I didn't think that Star Wars was the greatest film ever made and that George Lucas was an overrated director. After spluttering for a good 20 seconds he responded "that's because you weren't the right age when it came out". In 1977, I was ten and queued around the block to see Star Wars when it was first released and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also read all the books, including "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" and watched the first two sequels at the cinema when they came out. I'm pretty sure that I was exactly the right age. My colleague, on the other hand wasn't even born in 1977!

Funnily, I'm pretty sure I enjoyed Battlestar Galactica even more because that was in Sensurround and it made your seats shake! I guess, that's kids for you :)

Important, influential and fun but not the greatest film ever made. George Lucas is still overrated and a cynical dick to boot.

Letterboxd Review

Tuesday 21 March 2017

The Painting of Horror (1994)

An ultra-low-budget SOV short, less than 20 minutes long.

In a grotty apartment, a woman dresses in sexy undies. The same woman starts to remove sexy undies for a customer. Another woman, in a completely different location, dances on a table. The first woman takes a shower. I think I can see a theme here! A box is delivered. First woman lets her towel fall. Back to the second woman dancing on a table, this time with a fat man watching. First woman gets dressed again. There's definately a theme here! Well, that's well over half the film gone and all I've seen is a box and someone getting dressed and undressed a few times. More table dancing. Another woman enters the apartment. Now, either woman two is wearing a wig or this is woman three... I'm pretty sure this is woman two. They discuss the box, open it and pull out a painting. At last! They then move another painting to a different position, discuss which way to hang the new painting and at long last hang the fucking thing. Five minutes to go. Woman one leaves the apartment to take over the job of dancing but this time not on a table but on a very small stage. Woman two (remember, she's in the apartment) is strangely drawn towards the painting... well she stares blankly at it and gets up off the sofa. The painting bulges towards her hand in a cheap Videodrome, hand poking from the other-side sort of way. A rubber dick pops out of a gash in the painting which then grows, grabs the woman around the neck and pulls her into the painting! The painting burps. Two minutes to go. Woman one is now dancing behind a parasol while stripping. The film then just ends. I'm sure something must have been cut at the end but it was probably more dancing, dressing or undressing.

If you think that because of the multiple dressing/undressing and table dancing, that this is a sexy little short, you couldn't be more wrong. It's not. At all. Nope.

If you really want to watch it you can find it here.

Letterboxd Review

Monday 20 March 2017

Fatal Deviation (1998)

A low-budget, Irish, martial arts movie?

If the best actor on set is Mikey from Boyzone then you really need to visit the local Drama groups and rustle up a few performers other than multiple Catweazle lookalikes and thick-eared farmer's boys.

Still, it's really not as bad as it sounds. It has structure, the shots are relatively well chosen, all the martial-arts and action tropes are present and correct, from training montages (including Van Damme's trademark splits), tournament fighting, gun-play, bar fights, car and bike chases, one-liners. It's a lot more professional and effective than Samurai Cop!

The film ends with a series of Jackie Chan style out-takes.

Good fun and nowhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Letterboxd Review