Recent viewings

[Rev. Powell]

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW (2010): Re-watch. At the "Arboria Institute" in 1983, a doctor holds a telepathic woman hostage, performing unexplained experiments involving a glowing pyramid. The plot is underdeveloped---what's there is delivered at a glacial pace with details that are deliberately vague and confusing---but the Kubrick-inspired experimental visuals and 1980s mind-trip atmosphere make it worth a look for patient cult film fans. 3/5.

[dean]

Honeymoon 2014

Paul and Bea are a newlywed couple who go on a honeymoon to Bea's old family holiday home in the woods. Strange events occur and the couple starts to unravel.

Well made film which is light on the scares and suspense and some parts are a bit hokey but the two lead actors, Harry Treadaway [Penny Dreadful] and Rose Leslie [Game of thrones] both give terrific performances as the very much in love couple which, in a cast of four, goes an awfully long way. Could have done with more scares rather than suspense but overall i'm giving it a solid 7.5/10.
Honeymoon TRAILER 1 (2014) - Harry Treadaway, Rose Leslie Horror Movie HD

Incidentally bought tickets to a screening of this to celebrate it's release on DVD/Bluray and ended up getting a copy of Honeymoon, Eat and an old Anthony Perkins film on dvd for free with my two tickets and to top it off as a door prize I won two free tickets to see 'It follows' tomorrow night. So overall for the price of two tickets to a movie I think I've done pretty well...

[lester1/2jr]

what was the one someone saw that was like The ghosts of the Donner party coming out of a volcano or did I imagine that

[JaseSF]

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014): After a worldwide Simian Flu crisis throws the world into chaos, evolved ape survivors lead by Caesar (Andy Serkis) and human survivors begin to encroach upon one another's territory, creating the potential for war.

This was pretty solid. It features lots of great action and some terrific drama. It also remains relatively true to its source material. Where this falters is in what it doesn't show, especially how this situation evolved and some plot elements that seem to stretch credibility a bit too far at times. Honestly too I think the film fails to get across just how frightening the situation would prove to be for those humans who first stumble upon these apes. But it's still quite good. I love the political intrigue of the Ape society and how Koba (Toby Kebbell) uses Caesar's own philosophy against him, moments here dare to say hint of Shakespearean tragedy. It was a nice touch to show apes who were good and who were evil and see it not limited to just the gorillas being evil as often was the case in the old film and TV series. **** out of ***** stars.

[indianasmith]

what was the one someone saw that was like The ghosts of the Donner party coming out of a volcano or did I imagine that

That was me.  It was called THE BURNING DEAD.  Cheesy fun!

[Trevor]

Mulholland Drive (2001): I'm sorry to say I gave up after 30 minutes. 

[Jack]

Scarecrow (2002) - some high school kid has a really sucky life - all the football players pick on him and his mom is a drunken whore. Eventually his mom's boyfriend kills him and his spirit goes into a scarecrow - a ninja scarecrow - and he takes revenge on all those who wronged him. This wasn't too bad I guess, at least Tiffany Shepis is in it, though she's got a butch haircut and for the first time in any movie I've seen her in, she doesn't get topless. Overall it was just silly fun. 2.5/5.

Scarecrow Slayer (2004) - a college guy gets killed and his spirit goes into a scarecrow. He follows his girlfriend (well I guess ex-girlfriend) around and kills pretty much everyone she meets. I liked this, it had some laugh-out-loud cheap special effects and the main girl, Nicole Kingston, was quite cute. She had a sexy little tight T-shirt on but then some guy gave her a big coat to put over it. I mean, seriously?!?! Oh well, stupid fun all around. 3/5.

[lester1/2jr]

indiana - Id like to see a mainstream adaption. Meryl Streep as the lead Donner party spirit

[claws]

Poltergeist III (1988)

Lack of love causes evil spirits to emerge: forced to stay with her Aunt and her family in a high rise building in Chicago, little Carol Anne is not well liked by anybody. Even the Psychiatrist at her school for gifted children thinks she's a manipulative brat. Undead preacher Kane appears yet again and pulls Carol Anne on the "other side" ... again. It's up to Medium Tangina, equipped with a magical amulet and psychic powers, to save the day. Or can she?
Cash-in sequel with troubled production shelved for a year because of re-shooting. While Poltergeist II was still able to capture half of what made the first one enjoyable, part III seems to get it all wrong. Unsympathetic characters, silly teens in love subplot and a stand-in actress for Heather O'Rourke who sadly passed away before finishing the movie. On the other hand you'll get pretty cool shot on location special effects with an interesting high rise building setting. Still, the film remains flat and lifeless 2.5/5
On a sidenote, I'm always surprised at how much people seem to prefer part III over part II whenever I read Poltergeist threads at message boards. Yet when looking up reviews and ratings it is always part III that gets shafted.

[lester1/2jr]

Margaret (2011) - I loved this. It's a brutal portrayal of life in the super low interest rate bubble-nomic wonder land known as present day NYC. Anna paquin is perfectly cast as a spoiled annoying rich kid who witnesses/ kind of causes a bus accident and works to try to make things right with the women's family and the law and so forth. Along the way she starts acting out, neglecting her schoolwork, and fighting with her Mom. (Okay, it's not exactly James Bond or Indiana Jones in terms of exciting concepts but it's more of a slice of life sort of story.) Her absentee father on the other side of the country phones in some quasi support but in general it's all very "American Beauty". A nice touch is the absurd school she attends, which is basically a glorified day care center where the teachers are more like servants.

One review I read said that the all characters were unlikeable and that's pretty true. They're type A sort of people who's time is expensive and who are too self involved to do anything as their family falls apart. Little bits of heart and humanity come out here and there, but in general everyone is working on their own projects and too busy eating out and attending the opera to put much effort into unprofitable ventures like a family. The bus accident puts even more of a strain on this.

As you can tell it's rather downbeat. It's also 2 and a half hours long and some of the directing is a little dry. There are a few too many scenes too. The world doesn't need another squalid virginity loss scene with condom issues, etc.

If you can hang with stuff like "Blue is the Warmest Color" and "Closer" give it a shot. It's not as seemless as those, but it's of similar quality.  I found it cathartic.

4.5/5

[Jack]

Room 33 (2009) - a girl's roller derby team is travelling in a van, but it's almost out of gas so they do what any normal people would do - take shelter in the nearest abandoned insane asylum. There's a young psycho girl there and some other mysterious dude shows up occasionally and kills somebody. The girls were cute but this was just so boring; characters were either unlikable or undeveloped, leaving me with absolutely no reason to care what happened. Lots of stretches where nothing happens other than one of the girls talking to psycho kid, which was dull as dirt. I guess the monotonous parts were supposed to be atmospheric, but it just didn't work for me at all. 2/5.

[indianasmith]

Last night I watched FROM THE DARK, an Irish horror film about a traveling couple who get stranded near a remote peat farm where the owner has just dug up a bronze age vampire.  Kind of cool and atmospheric; not great but much better than the last couple of vampire films I have watched.

[Jack]

Dracula II: Ascension (2003) - a coroner finds the body of the vampire who was burned to death by sunlight at the end of the last movie. She and her medical colleagues take it to an abandoned building to experiment on it and see if they can find the secret to immortality. Bringing it back to life was probably a bad idea though lol. Meanwhile Jason Scott Lee struts around acting all cool and stuff. This was decent enough I guess, the plot was a little bit interesting and the characters were passable. Would have been better as a serious horror movie without Lee and all his cheesy vampire killing scenes though. 3/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Men Must Fight (1934) - TCM described this as an anti war film so I taped it. In fact, it's a pro war film that uses a couple of pacifist characters as straw men. It's also just not that good. WW2 was almost a decade away, WW1 was ancient history they couldn't lay off the propaganda for 5 seconds geez  2.5 /5

[claws]

Devil's Due (2014)

I went in with really low expectations and was surprised it didn't suck that hard. Not perfect by any means but it doesn't deserve all the hating either. Sure, there are a few unintentional funny moments and the ending could have "delivered" much more, but this is far from one of the worst. My rating: 3/5