House on Haunted Hill

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler

I grew up with the remake, but was always intrigued by these old William Castle films. You read all the stories about what a showman he was and all the gimmicks he used to get people in the cinema. Here apparently it was a flying skeleton that rose up next to the screen. I feel like that would be distracting rather than immersive. Anyway, I got to just focus on the film.

Love me a bit of Vincent Price. It's old a hoaky but there's one or two scares that still work okay. It's funny watching the old school female hysterical acting. And I do like how the film opens with a creepy soundscape on black. That would have been cool in a cinema.

Elisha Cook is just hilariously over the top from the first line of the film. Actually it's a little annoying. But it's not exactly the worlds best haunted house film. It's a pretty straightforward story and in the end, I don't even think there were any ghosts at all? Well it's fun to see where that remake came from. I barely remember that film too. Maybe another rematch is in order.

Escape from New York

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Cicely

Time for some classic John Carpenter. Snake Plissken is probably Kurt Russell's most iconic character. What a fun guy.

It's amusing to see that 1997 caption to set the futuristic date. Love me some retro futures.

I've always enjoyed this cult classic. Perhaps not as fun as Big Trouble in Little China but I love setting and the cast. And I love how they build the reputation of Snake to this legendary guy without him having to say anything. Fun to watch again.

Dark City

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First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Cicely

Write Up.

So noir. So sci-fi. All the things.

Kill the Messenger

IMDB

First time viewed: Yes

Current Release: Yes

Watched With: Cicely

Michael Cuesta has come a long way since L.I.E. He's teamed up again with Jeremy Renner to make the true story of a journalist who uncovers and reports on sensitive government secrets and all the trouble it gets him into. The price of journalistic integrity is high. It's a gritty drama that steadily descends into frustration and paranoia. The cast all do a good job and it's an interesting story that's revealed. I just never find Renner that interesting, but it was a good watch.

They Came Together

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Leith, Emily

Write Up.

Such a delightfully silly satire.

Tammy

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Craig

Yikes. Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone get a chance to make their own stuff. And it just feels like a poor imitation of the films they normally do. It's pretty inept and doesn't hold together. The characters aren't that interesting, they don't seem to grow or change or do anything worth while. But worst of all, they aren't very funny. There's no laugh out loud moments in the film, it's consistently mildly amusing but with a plot that goes nowhere that's not going to cut it.

Tremors

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Michael

I've seen this film once before as a kid, I only vaguely remember it. I didn't even remember the girl from Jurassic Park was in it. I do remember there were big worm creatures that traveled underground and sucked you up unless you were waiting on a rock.

I do love a good creature feature and this one is really fun. Great practical effects too. It's a little silly but I even like the hoaky humour. A little alarming how gun happy it is but it's still a great fun movie, even without ever explaining just what those creatures are. I've never seen any of the sequels, maybe they explain more. I doubt they'll be as well put together as this one though.

So great to catch up with this one again.

Ragnarok

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Michael

That American trailer is kinda lame, but it's a perfectly fun movie from Norway that feels a lot like an 80's kids adventure film mixed with an early 90's monster movie. And there's Vikings, so that's always neat. The story is pretty standard stuff and it hits all the standard beats but there's some cool sequences and it's well made. Quite fun.

Whiplash

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler, Leith

Great drama that asks some interesting questions and features two amazing performances from Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons. Seeing them go head to head is a little terrifying but awesome. Things start off pretty funny but get intense real quick. And it can be agonising watching someone put themselves through a whole lot of crap. But it all leads up to a stunning finale that's gonna stay with me a while. I'm having trouble remembering my feelings for the rest of the film because I just can't stop thinking about it.

Any music lovers will get a real kick out of it too. Definitely one to check out. Captivating, confronting and exhilarating. 

The Sacrament

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

Ti West's latest gets the Eli Roth presents stamp of approval. It's a very different film from his last two, whilst there's still some remnants of the slow burn there the found footage angle means his usual steady composure is out the window.

It's basically Found footage Jonestown. Like, it's literally lifting the events of Jonestown and put a small documentary crew in the middle of it, and compressed the timeline to two days. The usual cohorts are here and they do well, Gene Jones as Father makes the most impact. 

If you've never heard of or seen anything about Jonestown, then this could be effective, but to me this just felt a little exploitative and not as urgent and engaging as I'd have hoped. It's a good watch but with a little bit more time spent building this world and the dread of its inevitable collapse I think it would have been amazing.

Pride

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

Another feel good movie based on true events. It's got a good cast and hits all the beats well. Perfectly charming, does the job. Can't fault it for that.

Space Station 76

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

Fun film! A look at 70's family values as skewed through a period sci-fi. It's not flat out hilarious, more amusing though and there's some slight social observations too. Enjoyable. And I just love the retro designs of all everything.

The Purge: Anarchy

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Kate

I didn't think much of the first film. I love my home invasion films but it was really the wrong kind of story to exploit this set-up. The sequel fixes that and gives us a much better exploration of the central concept. It really hammers the theme in your face. They aren't very subtle about their message.

I don't think it's great, it still messes up a lot of interesting ideas with mindless violence and bad character work but it's certainly a step in the right direction.

Before I Go to Sleep

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler

This was a pretty fun thriller with a memento style set up. Reminded me of thrillers from the early 90's, a mystery/drama that has a slashery finale. It also reminded me of the 90's because it looked like it was shot on film and not digitally colour graded. I'm all for shooting on film, but you gotta expose it correctly...

The cast do alright, there's enough here to keep you interested. Don't think about the plot too much afterwards and you'll be fine.

Tusk

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler

Coo Coo Cachoo.

Well Kevin Smith's latest is a.. Horror? Comedy? It's pretty ridiculous and also pretty funny. It's also more than a little annoying. There's so much here that actually manages to work really well, given the premise, but then there's just some really questionable decisions that let the film down for me.

Michael Parks is immensely watchable and I love everything he does here. And Justin Long was actually really great too, he was funny playing up the abrasive character but still managed to garner sympathy later. Once he's stuck in that prosthetic it's a little harder to gauge, I think we lose too much of him to makeup. But when it's just these two talking over tea, it's enthralling and I loved it.

I wish there was more of that, and more of a gradual build up between the two. But instead we are slapped with a tonally inconsistent cameo hog for the latter half of the film that really grated on me. It really felt like a lot of padding for a story that was probably funny on a podcast once but that they didn't believe could sustain a semi-serious treatment for feature length. I really think the film would have played better as a two hander but instead we are constantly cutting to the search party and breaking up the fun stuff with what is probably supposed to be comedy relief in a film that doesn't need it, because the other segments are funnier on their own. Funnier and more interesting and engaging.

The whole first half was surprisingly effective but the latter half gave way to a little too much stupidity and undid so much good will. I wish they were braver and stuck to their guns. Those two actors could have made just about anything work. As it is, it's a real mixed bag.

Final Exam

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No

Hah, Another classic horror to strike off the list. And in this day and age, with all these recent gun control debates in schools in america, it's really hard to look past the nonchalant prank of a frat using semi-automatics to pretend to gun down all the students as teachers laugh it off.

All the standard stuff is here. It's not that enthusiastically staged. There's not much gore either. And the killer? Well, I guess we'll never know, an unsolved mystery. Or just some guy. Hah.

Honeymoon

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

A slow paced and creepy little thriller. I like the two leads despite their strange accents, not sure exactly what they were going for. Not entirely fulfilling, I think you can figure out what's going on from the trailer and there's not much more to the film than that. It was okay I guess.

Earth to Echo

IMDB

First time viewed: Yes

Current Release: Yes

Found footage E.T!

It's cute, not quite as successful as something like Super 8, but still a pretty fun adventure.

Sabotage

IMDB

First time viewed: Yes

Current Release: Yes

Figured I should watch this before Fury comes out, Not often a director gets two films released in the same year but David Ayer has pulled it off. Though this film didn't seem to get a cinema release in Australia anyway so I don't know if it counts. 

It's one hell of an ensemble cast. But all they seem to do is aware at each other. It's all a bit too macho and trigger happy for my tastes. And of course being a Ayer film, it's gritty and hand held and gory as hell. If you can see past that the story is serviceable but the constant barrage of angry men yelling and shooting each other soon became like white noise to me. 

It's okay.