Of the big streaming services, mostly because it’s given up on having any kind of 80s and 90s back catalogue, Netflix is currently the best place for new cyberpunk things to watch. So, when this Chris Helmsworth fronted drama, written by the team who did Deadpool randomly appeared on Friday I was all kinds of pumped up about it. And now I can happily report that it was mostly okay if you have time to kill. Continue reading
According to Dave Grohl, this movie happened because whilst recording the Foo Fighter’s tenth album he had an idea to do a very cheap slasher video about the band and the studio, like a little youtube home movie, and then suddenly there were millions of dollars in production money and John Carpenter doing the soundtrack. I’ve got no way of knowing if it’s true or marketing hype, but I imagine that kind of thing happens a lot in his world and it probably explains why this film exists. It also explains why it can only exist because the Foo Fighters are in it, and why this ends up being “A Hard Days Night” done by Hooper and Craven.
Continue reading
There were two ways you heard about this film, and for most it was because Randal Plunkett, 21st Baron of Dunsany, rewilding enthusiast, vegan advocate, and death metal fan, directed it at his family estates. The other is because Katharine Isabelle is in it, and you are willing to give it a go because Ginger Snaps is an amazing bit of werewolf and feminist horror cinema. Either way, you’ve heard the hype and you want to give it a go, so what can you expect from the 105 minutes of Irish psychological thriller?
Continue reading
If psychotronic cinema, or, when you get down to it, any cinema, is about experience then The Texas Chain Saw Massacre must be one of the greatest movies of all time. It is an unrelenting, exhausting, almost total-body experience; be it during its moments to shocking terror, its nightmarish social observations, its frequently disjointed surrealist turns, or its nihilistic horror spectacular. Even its soundtrack, which for the final third of the movie is dominated by the constant screams of its Final Girl being dredged through a stygian hellscape, is an emotive and evocative tour de force.
Obviously, it’s not to everyone’s tastes and the bulk of its greatness comes from pushing the boundaries of genre conventions, seeking to indulge the worst excesses of exploitation cinema, budget and talent constraints, and just plain dumb luck. But it is a singular, majestic vision that few have come close to matching. Especially its sequels, which for the most part cranked up the gore they thought was in the original and pissed away the cultural commentary that they clearly thought was an irrelevancy. So, when I heard (in the same week it was being released) that Texas Chainsaw Massacre* was coming out I was filled with indifference towards it.
Then I spotted it on Netflix, draped across the front page as its big welcoming offering, and it was Friday night and it would be rude not to.
Continue reading
This film was picked based purely on having a nifty title, a 50/50 rating on Amazon Prime, and there being zombies in it. It was a gamble, and it absolutely did not pay off because this is one of the worst films I’ve seen in a long time. I often used to say “I can’t remember the worst movie I’ve ever seen, because it was so dull that I forgot it”; this is simply not the case, as the unending dullness of this has seared itself into my mind forever. It’s a bad zombie movie, a bad plague movie, and just outright unenjoyable.
Continue reading
Cards on the table, I’m a lifetime fan of the book Dune. Probably not the most committed of fans out there, but since I first found out the 1984 movie had a book to go with it I’ve read it roughly once every year. So it’s safe to say that I was really excited when I heard there was going to be another forlorn attempt at making The Film of The Book, and then when I found out if was Denis Villeneuve I was very excited to heard he’d be the person doing it wrong. Five years, $156 million dollars, and 156 minutes later and I’m happy to say that it isn’t the film or the book, and that’s great.
Continue reading
As someone who claims to like discovering new cinematic experiences, it does good to watch a film that really isn’t aimed at you from time to time. So, I ended up watching a musical that was causing a lot of fuss and wasn’t the one I’m trying to raise money for Crisis with. The end result was mostly enjoyable, but it was very far nearer a call than I expected.
Continue reading
If there’s one thing horror cinema loves, it’s a reboot, remake, or sequel of a damn fine bit of cinema from a couple of decades ago. And if there’s one thing horror cinema is awful at, it’s making reboots, remakes, or sequels that are any good. They forget what made the original worth watching, add nothing to the narrative, or alienate fans of the original. Well, good news for all: whatever Candyman 2021 is, it’s a damn fine follow-up to Candyman 1992.
Continue reading
Is it a reboot? Is it a sequel? Is it an investigation into the mind of the anti-hero, asking the question “can bad people still do good things?”? Who cares: I saw a man get ripped in half by a giant man-shark, in full-frame with slow-mo, and laughed like a hyena while it happened.
The trailer for this film makes it look like an interesting twist on the “special agent on a hijacked plane” school of action movies. Specifically asking the questions “what if the special agent’s child was also on board?” and “what if the special agent was a vampire?”. Whilst I’m sure writer and director Peter Thorwarth could have done that well, I’m just happy he ended up asking enough further questions to justify gluing three movies worth of concept together.
Trash or Treasure 