The X-Files: I Want To Believe - an interesting attempt to do something different, but it ultimately disappoints.
Yeah…The ‘all is forgiven Mulder’ plot device so he could come back was silly, and it seems that the full on alien invasion only a couple of years away has been forgotten about!
Not bad…more more like an extended middle of the series TV episode. Not the big comeback after the series finale it should have been.
“7 Men from Now”
It starts off with a truly awful song (in fact it seems both screenwriter Burt Kennedy and Director Budd Boetticher also hated it) but this moves into a very good opening sequence as Randolph Scott kills the first of the seven men who shot his Wife.
In fact the sequence is so good it should have been a PRE-credit sequence as it would have led into the film very well. Just as that wonderful opening scene of “Cahill”.
Randolph Scott is rigid, uptight, driven and pretty emotionless as the revenge seeking ex-Sheriff. It kind of works for the role, but i still say he’s a rather unexciting and non-descript actor.
Luckily though the mighty Lee Marvin is in support and he does a superb job.
His character is ruthless, scheming and dangerous…but thanks to Kennedy’s script and Marvin’s ever watchable style his character is also a likeble, charming rogue.
Kennedy’s, otherwise sharp, script messes up in one place for me though…Exactly why did a character not wait a paltry 60 seconds to let the bad guys ride out of town before walking over to the Sheriff’s Office!? It was utterly non-sensical.
The rest of the score is also non-event, being filled with cookie cutter strings and horns. It is at it’s worse during the ‘romance’ angle of the film, supplied by Gail Russell, as it drones out sickly sweet swelling violins.
The romance has an edge to it (as Russell is married) and is never actually sealed and the tragic Russell does a good job.
But I just don’t like ‘classic’ Western love stories as they bog the stroy down, are generally cloying and saccharine and (as here) are visually crafted like a Hallmark Valentine’s Day card.
But there is much to enjoy here, the action is pretty good, Marvin is a gem, Scott is rugged enough, there’s a good plot twist later on (that is beautifully ironic as far as Marvin’s character goes) and some of the dialogue exchanges are wonderful.
It’s not going to ever knock off any of my Top 10 Westerns, or make me love ‘clean and classic’ Westerns and their (it seems even here, inescapeble) dated style over later American Westerns from the late 60’s-70’s and many Spaghetti Westerns…
But it was a good, lean, solid film with many plus points and worth a watch for the great Lee Marvin alone.
Oh dear.
Something went wrong with the mix Grandma, this ain’t chocolate…it’s shit.
Barely watchable amateur Slasher fare with a crap killer and lots of tedium.
Has a couple of okay deaths, but mainly it’s just good old Tom Savini’s ‘machete with a half moon cut out of it’ type FX as annoying people get hacked in the arm or head.
Acting varies from bad to okay, with top marks going to a spot on ‘loony old fart who forewarns doom’ performance from a guy who seems to have trouble standing up straight.
The film’s real failing though is the Christ awful picture quality.
The video camera images are generally crisp and clear but the colour is shot to hell!
Red blood becomes either dull orange or a dirty gold colour resulting in seriously compromised FX and murders.
Skin-tones vary from green to yellow to yellowy-green and the rest of the colour spectrum seems to be missing.
So a weak home made Slasher flick (with a naff ending) slips even further down into the toilet and becomes almost unwatchable thanks to the dire colour quality.
“Man of the West” (Mild event spoilers)
A big surprise!
The often excellent Director Anthony Mann’s penultimate Western starts off like any old ‘classic’ Western, with an annoyingly cloying and jaunty score playing over shots of a town and it’s population that all look like they fell off a ‘pastel shades’ colour chart.
Legend of the Western Gary Cooper appears at first to be doing a lightly comic turn as the initially dull, if likeable, Link Jones. Added to how the film opened, I was fearing the worst.
But it seems Mann was playing a naughty game with us.
Suddenly (after an enjoyably farcical train ride..those were the days) Mann lets rip with his twisted gang of robbers led by Dock Tobin (a brilliantly mad and scary Lee J. Cobb).
From here on in this goes from a jaunty pastel paradise to a bleak, unforgiving plummet into pitch blackness.
Cobb has played tough, strict, rock hard characters before, but i’ve never seen him essay a character so deranged and twisted as here. Plastered in a grey old beard and ragged clothes Tobin lurches through the film dishing out spittle sprayed venom and ruthless violence.
Cooper also has a chance now to reveal another side of Link Jones, and suddenly the comic air about him has vanished and been replaced by shame, desperation and unleashed violence.
He bounces off Cobb just fine, but really gets his teeth into his scenes with a young Jack Lord as Coaley, the most unstable member of the gang.
Some good verbal sparring leads into a devil of a fistfight as Cooper, Lord and their stunt doubles go through an unusually extended and bloody duel.
But it’s not the fight itself that really shocks here, it’s the sudden madness that overcomes Cooper’s Link (we’re along way from “High Noon” here!) as he starts to literally (and very violently) rip the clothes off the bloodied, screaming Coaley until the man is reduced to a sobbing, blood caked wreck dressed now only in his long-johns!
Even today this brutal scene of frenzied retribution is strong stuff, especially coming from the likes of the normally clean cut and heroic Cooper.
This outstanding sequence’s retribution happens because of an earlier sequence where Lord’s leering gunman makes a terrified Julie London strip down to her corset, as he holds a knife to the helpless Link’s throat.
So even before this clothes ripping fistfight shocker, Mann had started to walk us into a very dark place indeed. And not a place you would expect to be in during a 1950’s Gary Cooper Western!
The entire sequence is an uncomfortable pre-cursor to the same sort of scenes (of a brutal, leering gang of psychopaths normally invading someone’s home) that would make up many a Grindhouse Exploitation film of the 70’s/80’s. Though she would have been stripped naked by then.
In “Man of the West” the striking (and excellent) Ms London only gets down to her corset, but this scene is amazingly close to the infamous ‘strip the blonde girl’ sequence in Ruggero Deodato’s “House on the Edge of the Park”, a full 22 years later.
When we add the generally dark plot of inescapable pasts and destinies, deceit, multiple deaths (a=one involving a wailing gut shot man really sticks out) and much twisted sadism (the reveal of an off-screen event during the finale…rather thrown away during the very end though sadly…is stunningly bleak, nasty and unexpected) you have one of the darkest, tough and (for the time especially) uncompromising Westerns you will ever see from Hollywood.
Some of the ‘Classic Western’ styling is still rather dated for my tastes and the very end scene (though any romance is explicitly ruled out, which is unusual) lacks the punch of what came before, something not helped by that annoyingly cheesy and jaunty score appearing again.
Overall though this is excellent, surprising and hard as nails film making done with a master’s touch.
In fact “Man of the West” was heavily cut upon it’s initial UK cinema release, and certainly earns it’s uncut ‘12’ DVD certificate today, and then some.
A couple is terrorised at home by a gang of hoodies!
Hmm….got rave reviews when it came out, but quite frankly I’ve seen better French Horror films recently
The main problem is the fact the director seemed reluctant to shout “cut”.
Scenes go on for too long, thus mutating the tension initially built up into something approaching tedium.
An effective opening for example loses steam when we spend a good minute with a girl calling out to her missing Mother. On and on she goes…
The same happens with an early driving sequence involving our main woman character.
We know nothing is going to happen to her yet! We all know! The director knows we know as well, surely.
And yet the car is filmed creeping along roads (with a sinister plinky plonky piano score for company) as we wait for her to actually get home and start the film!
The same extended into boredom, where initially we had suspense, problem happens in a sequence where the woman slowly creeps through a (rather bizarre) room hung with dirty plastic sheets. Again, it goes on and on and on.
The couple like to talk, walk and move in slow motion too, as they endlessly gaze into each other’s eyes in that cloying and sickly way good looking French couples seem to manage so easily.
And would anyone else like to see a home invasion/avoiding the psychos plot where the house isn’t a mansion!?
The terrorised couple have so many rooms, crawl spaces and corridors to creep around in it seems they could live in the same house as the killers and not even meet them!
How about seeing if you can keep the tension and suspense up by setting the film in an average home, made up of a sitting room, kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom! That would really be clever (and actually far scarier!).
And it goes beyond stupid to think that the couple would do what they do during the final chase as well. Idiots!
And talking of the final chase…where the hell did that gigantic, lit by a few hundred electric lights, underground labyrinth come from!?
It seems to be very close to their house and yet completely unknown to anyone, despite the obviously huge electric bill all those lighted corridors must chalk up.
But there are some effective moments here.
Some of the scare scenes are well done with a nice use of camera angles and sudden reveals.
And the thing that I noticed got the most criticism when the film came out (though the film did not get much and was certainly over-praised) I actually liked.
Many seem to dislike the eventual revealing of who the killers are, as if it makes it an anti-climax. To me though it gave the film it’s only real powerful and disturbing aspect.
“Camp Blood II”
Blimey! A large improvement over the first film. Who would have thought?
Not only does the picture quality look much better, especially the colours (Yay! no more yellow people and orange/gold blood) but this time it seems the makers have also added some okay intentional humour (the scuzzy film guys are fun), more action, more nudity (a very nice pair of breasts during the opening of the first film I have to say…but a full frontal shower scene here tops it) and much better and more satisfying deaths and FX.
Though the film still stinks as far as plot and dialogue goes (though the lead actress is doing better here than in the first film, despite still looking shockingly ungainly when running) and you have to wonder how a suspected, judged insane, multiple murderess is allowed out alone, back to the place she supposedly killed, to help make a movie!
But the fact the film shoehorns in lots of verbal plot explanation and footage from the first film at least means you don’t actually need to own the crappy first film to watch this. Hooray!
Whereas the deaths in “Camp Blood 1” were nothing but a bit of blood and a machete with a half moon cut out of the blade that was placed over arms and heads, in the sequel we actually have proper FX set-ups.
The deaths are all more violent and gory and even rather nasty.
Sure the effects work is primitive, but it still works, still delivers and it’s nice to see some good, on-set, CGI free, old school FX anyway.
Highlights are a messy machete through the mouth/back of the head, a pulpy burnt face, a hacked off hand with spurting stump, a machete through the chest and much general blood spraying.
It’s cheap, it’s got some bad lines for even worse actors to say, it has a major plot holes, looks cheap (though better) and has many moments of badness that should never have seen the light of day.
And yet i still quite enjoyed it! Unlike the first film.
The sometimes nasty deaths, large body count (also helped by the kills from the first film appearing again), the fun gore FX and an incident packed screenplay were all the positives that the first film never had, and here they help to counteract the many negatives.
Shucks! Give it at least one go, just avoid the first one.
Give me a break!
There are few things worse on God’s green Earth than freeform Jazz. But freeform Jazz in an achingly tedious, pretentious, plodding Euro Trash flick is indeed the very pit of hell.
A barmy plot about a man and a woman who, after a bizarre road accident, go to a strange castle and bump into evil versions of themselves all under the watchful eye of some man in a frock coat who waves a cane about.
Hysterically bad dialogue (spouted by enjoyably bad dubbing artists) annoying electronic chirps and cheeps, Jazz practice soundtrack, slow motion slow motion that moves so slow there is barely any motion at all and seemingly endless scenes of running around corridors and gardens all compete to try the viewers patience.
Laughable (but managing to become so bad they are good) highlight is the woman suffering a sudden plummet into blackness that ends with her crash landing onto a huge spider web, with her breast hanging out, before a spider (that looks like a horse dropping with twigs stuck in it) waddles up her body.
Take notice of that uncovered breast as well, as it will remain on display for the rest of the film.
In a gloriously awful bit of gratuitous Sexploitation goodness the actress now flees from haunting terrors, lies down and cries and sits around trying to work out what’s going on with her wayward breast hanging out.
The man with her is no Gentlemen either! No attempting to cover her up, not even a mention of the fact she’s popped out. Nothing.
He’s not stupid!
We do have some very welcome full nudity of course (I should hope so with a title like this) and it’s all very nice and hairy in that 70’s Euro way. Lovely.
But sadly these odd moments of wonderment are nearly always played out via slow motion scenes that suck the life out of any erotic hopes the visuals may give us.
And of course inbetween this occasional nudity we have to put up with the worst kind of ‘artistic’ Euro stodge, non-sensical philosophical plot explanations, camp overload, deadening direction and pacing and sequences of such mind numbing tedium you slowly lose the will to live.
Want to see a man spend 5 minutes running in slow motion around a garden, trying to catch up with a top hat wearing figure who turns out to be himself, all backed by tweeting noises and that hateful freeform Jazz noodling?
Well you’ll love this film then.
Everyone else should avoid it, or at worse simply wind through 70 minutes of arse water to get to the nude scenes. But quite frankly I wouldn’t bother.
Who says the Devil has all the best tunes.
Packed with the well loved elements we actually want from such a plot set-up, “Dying Breed” delivers them all with razor sharp, sadistic, unforgiving precision.
Nothing particularly original here but, some pacing and one FX fault aside, it’s a harsh, uncompromising, extreme and cruel Horror film that can sit proudly next to that other Australian nasty “Wolf Creek”.
Highly recommended.
“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.
Yesterday I watched “Tropa de Elite” (Elite Squad) on BluRay.
One of the best police films I have seen in years. The titular Tropa de Elite is the BOPE, a very select sub-sub-sub-set of the Brazilian police force, made to specifically fight drug kartels and dirty police. They are armed to the teeth, act with total immunity, have a very gruelling enlistment procedure (only 3 to 5 percent of applicants manage to pass) and a zero-tolerance for corruption. There are only several dozens of BOPE officers around for all of Rio de Janeiro but in videogaming terms they count as the hero-units of a Warcraft campaign.
Anyone who has seen last year’s “Incredible Hulk” should know how insanely cinematic the favelas of Rio the Janeiro look (and keep doing so in crisp BluRay…). Now, to keep in videogame-mode, imagine playing “Counterstrike” or “Quake” in such an area and you get a gist of the action scenes in this film.
But “Tropa de Elite” is no videogame. It tells a complicated story about a retiring BOPE officer looking through the new recruits to find his replacement. It may seem simple at first but the backgrounds of the candidates are intricately woven together and it all comes together beautifully in the end.
Some have criticized the film for being openly supportive of (extreme) police violence, as long as the cops are “good”. Look a bit further than that and see how all the characters have changed by the end, and wonder: is this really the loveletter to fascism it’s made out to be?
Hmmm…
With a script written by an actual ex-BOPE officer “Tropa de Elite” feels very authentic, but that is not something which will make you cheerful.
Very much recommended!
Yesterday I watched “Tropa de Elite” (Elite Squad) on BluRay.
One of the best police films I have seen in years. The titular Tropa de Elite is the BOPE, a very select sub-sub-sub-set of the Brazilian police force, made to specifically fight drug kartels and dirty police. They are armed to the teeth, act with total immunity, have a very gruelling enlistment procedure (only 3 to 5 percent of applicants manage to pass) and a zero-tolerance for corruption. There are only several dozens of BOPE officers around for all of Rio de Janeiro but in videogaming terms they count as the hero-units of a Warcraft campaign.
Anyone who has seen last year’s “Incredible Hulk” should know how insanely cinematic the favelas of Rio the Janeiro look (and keep doing so in crisp BluRay…). Now, to keep in videogame-mode, imagine playing “Counterstrike” or “Quake” in such an area and you get a gist of the action scenes in this film.
But “Tropa de Elite” is no videogame. It tells a complicated story about a retiring BOPE officer looking through the new recruits to find his replacement. It may seem simple at first but the backgrounds of the candidates are intricately woven together and it all comes together beautifully in the end.
Some have criticized the film for being openly supportive of (extreme) police violence, as long as the cops are “good”. Look a bit further than that and see how all the characters have changed by the end, and wonder: is this really the loveletter to fascism it’s made out to be?
Hmmm…
With a script written by an actual ex-BOPE officer “Tropa de Elite” feels very authentic, but that is not something which will make you cheerful.
Very much recommended!
Sounds good. And I for one am all for taking down bad guys in extreme ways.
“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.
Early John Woo flick is an interesting look into the future.
A pre-eye widening operation Jackie Chan is the highlight and the action choreography by Sammo Hung gives him plenty of moments to shine.
Sammo himself also delivers the film’s most horrendously grotesque aspect of the film….his comedy teeth!
Huge, shining white, goofy slabs that make him look like a psychotic rabbit who’s eaten all the carrots!
Away from those mighty gnashers though, Sammo has a few good fight personal moments, but really delivers for the other actors.
Talking of the others, a young Yuen Biao is the other star of the show…though you won’t really see him. Biao not only has a tiny acting role but does many of the stunts and doubles for various actors whenever acrobatics are required.
Aside from Sammo, Yuen and Jackie doing their early stuff (that would of course lead to some classic later pairings) there is little really outstanding about the film, but it delivers enough fight scenes to entertain and Jackie Chan really does shine.
Sounds good. And I for one am all for taking down bad guys in extreme ways.
Yes, now I remember.
You’re the guy who can’t stand the “Now-you’re-just-like-me” bullshit we always get in “conscientious” revenge-flicks, right?
That crap irritates the shit out of me too. Well, you’re in for a treat with “Tropa de Elite”. You are going to looove this film. Police brutality never looked so real, or so necessary. The normal Rio Police force is hopelessly corrupt in this film and despised by the Tropa de Elite. When they suspect that policemen are on the take, the BOPE guys do not hesitate to shoot the cops along with the drug dealers if they stray into the sniper crosshairs.
House-by-house searches in a street where a drugdealer lives and torturing the basically innocent occupants next door (because, let’s face it, everybody in a favela street KNOWS where their most famous resident went in hiding) is also not beneath them.
The glorious Angela Mao blazes a trail of vengeance against the men that killed her parents.
Perhaps the ultimate Angela Mao movie, this is packed with wonderful old school fights as Angela (the 2nd best thing in “Enter the Dragon” damn it) expertly uses her fists, feet, poles, swords and handy scorpion filled lace scarf (!) on anyone in her way. To dazzling effect.
The odd acrobatic doubling aside the fighting is all the work of Mao as well whose blistering spin kicks are a sight to behold.
We have a slight bit of under-cranking to speed things up occasionally (though only one bad moment, during the finale swordfight, that seems out of place) but basically this is majestic martial arts skill at its old school best.
We also have a bit of ‘Fire Breathing Fu’, which is a total riot, and wacky Chinese healing tricks that are totally la la land but fun.
But there is more!
Not only is Mao herself in top flight fight form but she is joined by a wealth of martial arts film greats, all working under the action choreography guidance of the legendary Juen Woo-ping.
The Demi-God that is Sammo Hung makes an appearance, sporting funny big black beard and wielding a great ‘double fan of knives on a chain’ weapon.
The much missed Lam Ching-ying (“Magic Cop”, “Mr Vampire”) has great fun as nasty Kung-Fu assassin who looks like Rob Zombie’s lost Chinese uncle. ‘Bruce’ Leung (“Kung Fu Hustle”, “The Dragon Lives Again”) has a reunion with Sammo and Angela following their stunning “Hapkido”, and has a great one-on one battle with Lam Ching-ying. Billy Chan (Award winning action choreographer on Sammo’s classic “The Prodical Son”) pops up.
And both Corey Yuen (future director of “Ninja in a Dragon’s Den” and “The Transporter”) and the superb Yuen Biao (“Prodical Son”, “Project A”, “Above the Law”) make early appearances…Biao more than likely doing much of the stunt and acrobatics work.
Even Dean Shek (who almost ruined “A Better Tomorrow 2” with his overacting, but does better here) pops up as a brothel janitor.
Some overly complicated plot twists (most definitely not helped by some badly translated English subtitles) and a couple of pointless comedy scenes early on are the only bad things here, as Mao cuts a gorgeously ruthless swathe though this classic bit of Old School 70’s mayhem from ‘Golden Harvest’.
The best of the 50’s ‘Atomic Terror’ flicks and one that still works today.
Some wonderfully creepy early scenes (with that great ‘ant noise’ providing some really unnerving moments) nice performances, great finale and really effective FX work that manages to pack a punch (even though the huge ant models don’t look very real) because these are real solid creatures being really attacked by real people using real flamethrowers.
As such the action scenes, even 55 years later, are vastly more satisfying than any CGI fart fest made now.
Love the fact the stunning DVD transfers have the original full colour title card as well, unseen since cinema screenings as far as I know.
“Kibakichi”
Jolly enjoyable Japanese japes in the form of a werewolf Samurai who befriends a village of mystical Japanese creatures (from Turtle monsters to Spider Geishas) under threat from beastly humans in fetish gear with a gatling gun!
Madness!
Barmy as only the Japanese can be, this is full of crazy sights and packs bundles of fun into he full on finale.
Early spurting comic strip bloodshed ala “Baby Cart” sadly vanishes until the end (with the other fights being strangely bloodless) but then the gore comes back with a vengeance as Kibakichi leaps around slashing off limbs.
Wacky creatures, Samurai coolness, solid action, very nice soundtrack and Spaghetti Western styling mixed with Japanese mythos all makes for a very enjoyable watch.
Needs a much better DVD transfer though!!
“Treasure Hunt”
Pretty dire latter day Hong Kong film for Chow Yun Fat.
By this time he should not have been making such a badly plotted, non-sensical bits of fluff like this.
No wonder he went to Hollywood (as, the made around the same time, “Return of the God of Gamblers” is even worse!)...sadly he had no idea how little America would really do for the artistic side of his career, with only the excellent (if simplistic) “Replacement Killers”, the grand “Anna and the King” and small parts of “The Corruptor” really shining through.
Briefly on the infamous UK ‘Video Nasties’ list, “Cannibal Terror” was quickly removed and promptly sank without a trace, only to re-appear, fully uncut and approved by the BBFC, in 2003.
And boy, do we wish it had stayed lost!
Gore scens are just a dead pig in blue jeans being gutted.
The cannibals are perhaps the worst looking in the entire cannibal sub-genre, being nothing but drunken white dudes with tans and confused locals in bad wigs.
The pacing is leaden.
The dialogue inane Man:“You mind your own ass” Woman“My ass is go f*ck yourself” (!?)
The silly Spanish locations lack any atmosphere or threat.
And the film simply doesn’t play or feel at all (dubbing aside) like those Euro Trash movies we love so much.
This is more “Camp Blood” than “Zombi 2”.
Overall then a complete and utter stinker. A total waste of celluloid and one of the worst (though perhaps not quite the worst, maybe) films on the ‘Video Nasties’ list.
Trust me…Just don’t bother.
Hmmmm….After a pretty good opening this then gets rather plodding (long running time for a horror film actually) for a while until coming to life again.
A killer sees to be offing obnoxious student types in ways similar to Jack the Ripper.
It has a few bloody moments and keeps you guessing.
The finale is chaotic, reveal filled, fun and the very end….well….seems to have really been the thing that has given this film any sort of profile.
I for one thought that very final twist (simply a 2 second scene before the credits) was pretty easy to understand and that the movie had a perfectly satisfying explanation.
But it seems other people have other ideas and much debate still goes on on-line.
A forgotten and generally hated sequel has a continuing (though not needed, the first film does end) plot that seems to confirm the obvious as well.
Not bad. Just average fare.
“From Hell”
Blimey. A film filled with good moments that still manages to defeat itself with so many avoidable bad ones.
My biggest gripe with this (and annoying surprise, as I had not read the Moore comic or heard about the film’s plot) is that it re-does (YET AGAIN!!) the widely discredited to extinction theory that the ‘Jack the Ripper’ murders were to do with the Royal Family.
This idea was flitting around for a few years but not until the wacky self-publicist Stephen Knight wrote the infamous “Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution” did it truly take hold as Knight was a pretty good storyteller and added lots of really juicy rubbish to the basic conspiracy by involving high up people and The Masons.
Despite endless tomes (all pretty much dubious research, speculation and manipulation themselves) utterly blowing apart Knight’s theory and Knight himself called out for blatantly ignoring known facts that did not back up his theory…this is without doubt the most successful and enduring Ripper myth even today.
As well as Knight’s book there was TV ‘documentary’ of his ideas (used on the “From Hell” DVD extras, which ironically also shoots down this conspiracy that “From Hell” uses!), another book defense of it (badly done and full of falsehoods) in 1991 and of course the (otherwise quite clever,entertaining, and very atmospheric) film version of the ‘Royal link’, that also added Sherlock Holmes, “Murder by Decree”.
There was also a, pre-Knights version, retelling of the basic theory in another Holmes vs The Ripper flick “A Study in Terror”.
So excuse me if I did not need another version of it all with “From Hell”!
The film also shoots itself in the foot by using this theory because many of the audience, such a film targets, will already know it. And yet it foolishly uses this widely known idea for its mystery, whodunnit, plot!
When many of the audience, who know about The Ripper anyway, already know more than your lead detective character…all is not well.
And the fact the film has the actual Ripper as the same real life person that Knight uses…means that when the screenplay tries to set up other suspects it gets a bit tedious.
But saying that, even if you did not know this myth, a stupendously silly sound clue would give it away any way.
Best not to have the shadowed/off frame Ripper speak with the same very distinctive voice of one of your actors playing one of the suspects! You know who Jack is as soon as he speaks.
Another fault is the ludicrous and pointless ‘totally black eyes’ the killer suddenly has during the big reveal!
What the hell is this? Reality based or a damn supernatural story!
Whose eyes, no matter how psychotic, suddenly turn into two black orbs!?
Johnny Depp himself is also a weak link thanks to his bad accent. His acting is alright and he looks great as a sexed up Inspector Abberline but when he speaks its rather comical thanks to his Cockney accent.
His English accent got much better for “The Libertine” and even “Pirates”. But here it’s not good.
Also not too good is the fact that despite all the excellent set design and cinematography to make an authentic Victorian London…The Hughes Brothers then go and stock it with Heather Graham’s radiant, flawless face!
Poor, Victorian street whore!? Looks more like Max Factor to me.
The Mary Kelley she portrays was the most attractive of the unfortunate women…but that was definitely relative! “A Study in Terror” did the same silly thing with its sexed up, glowing, buxom wenches too (Babs Windsor anyone!) but that was in the 1960’s!
The finale ‘twist’ (the very end scene aside) is also very obvious, and we never really expected anything else as we had already surmised The Hughes Brothers simply were not brave enough to do anything else.
Despite all that, there are some excellent sequences involving Depp annoying the establishment figures (a nice turn by the sadly late Ian Richardson as Warren), a few moments of choice gore and nastiness (including a genuinely shocking throat slitting), a nice turn by Robbie Coltrane and indeed most of the support cast and bags of atmosphere, though as far as that goes “Murder by Decree” has it beat during the truly frightening and shocking final death reconstruction.
So a lot of time, effort and money spent on a basic plot idea that’s so well used and known the movie lacks any real suspense (though Alan Moore avoided most of the film’s mistakes by not making the story a mystery any way, as he reveals who ‘Jack’ is from the start) and when added to its own, in house, faults mean “From Hell” is simply an average slice (ha ha) of entertainment and sadly not the definitive ‘Jack the Ripper’ film it could have been with all that talent and support to work with.
