Rango, and loved it.

Saw "Shiver of the Vampires" available on Netflix. Caught my interest, but is it really that good? Is there more to it then mere softcore titillation? Is is scary at all or is it all about the nudity?

REALLY good!!

It's not scary at all (as vampire films rarely are) but definitely far more than just mere titiliation. It's more of a kind of Bunuel meets Hammer thing, with some nudity thrown in. I'd recommend any Jean Rollin movie from that period, but I'd say Les frisson des vampires is my favourite of them all.

There's a lot more to it than the nudity. All sorts of really neat shots, camera movements, disorienting use of foreground/background, etc. I just used the best images I could find with a quick Google search. The soundtrack is also quite bitchin' :p

If you're gonna like it, you'll fall in love within the first 10 minutes or so. The first shot is KILLER.

I watched this one on Netflix too, be warned that the subtitles are a bit sloppy.

Also - what Demonrail said.

DMNR66 - any Jean Rollin recommendations?

My favorite Godard flick.

What'd you think?

Rape of the Vampire/Le viol du vampire - His first film and a bit of a mess but ithas everything a Rollin film should: a beach scene; no logic whatsoever; hippie vampires; nudity. Even by Rollin's standards, though, it's pretty much all over the place. Recommended but by no means his best.

Requiem for a Vampire - Another one for the die hard. The first half hour has no dialogue and features two girls wandering around dressed as clowns. Very dream-like but undeniably a bit boring, too.

Demoniacs - Rollin's attempt at making a pirate movie, which inevitably becomes a vampire movie pretty quickly. I know people who absolutely despise this movie but for me it's one of his best.

La Vampire Nue/The Naked Vampire - Visually very good but I remember giving up on the plot fairly quickly. If you liked Le frisson, though, you should like it. It's got a neat sort of James Bond thing going on.

Fascination - Brilliant. The horror theme is fairly low key and it lacks the madness of Frisson but in many ways this is Rollin's best and almost certainly his most polished film - relative to other Rollin movies, obviously. It also includes probably the most iconic Rollin image ever:




Zombie Lake - Even among fans of 'Eurotrash', this seems to get a really hard time. The problem is it has one great scene, when the nazi zombie come out of the lake, but nothing much happens after that. The story is that it was some kind of collaboration gone wrong between Rollin and Jess Franco, with both disowning it. I like it but of all his pre-80s films, it's probably his worst.

The Iron Rose - Probably his artiest and most dreamlike movie but as beautiful as some of the scenes, the film itself can be a bit of a chore to sit through. Great but very much something you need to be in the right mood for. (Although that's probably something you could say about all his films.)

I tend not to like anything he did after those. Some of the later ones have the odd good scene but generally it's his late 60s-70s stuff that I really love.

I don't know if I prefer it to Suspiria but I'd say the scene in the submerged house is the closest Argento came to matching the first 20 minutes of Suspiria - which is, admittedly, pretty much unmatchable.

I'm a big fan of Todd Solondz. I thought this was pretty good. Its not as shocking as "Happiness" but it doesn't need to be. Its still got his brand of dark humor.

Definitely see "Weekend" and "Band of Outsiders". Both films, besides being two of my Godard faves, will blow you away with the amount of cinematic language and images that have been etched into future films.

^ Also don't forget...

Masculin Feminin
Breathless
Made in USA
Hail Mary
Every Man For Himself
King Lear
Socialisme
A Woman is a Woman

Oh, and demonrail thanks a bunch EXCELLENT POST

I'd only heard of Rape of the Vampire, The Naked Vampire, and Zombie Lake. Had no clue they were all by the same director though. How neat.

Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down

Another great Almodovar film. Really kind of off-beat. It starts out in one mood and turns on you. I liked that about it. I'm also really intrigued by his next film "The Skin I Live In". Seems like it could be pretty dark, but its hard to say for sure.

Hellraiser

8/10

I know that Clive Barker is gay, but I can't help but wonder if he's into BDSM? Because it seems a lot of his work contains strains of that sort of thing...anyway, I enjoyed this film, but I'm not sure if I want to see it again anytime soon. Gore doesn't always bother me, but it seems like everyone in this film is a complete idiot! Frank was an idiot for wanting to buy/use the Lament Configuration in the first place, Julia was an idiot for falling for his "charms", Larry was an idiot for not doing something about her increasingly strange behaviour (and just being an idiot in general), the dudes Julia brought to the house so she could spill their blood to further regenerate Frank were idiots for going along with it, and Kirsty was an idiot for messing around with the box again! I dunno, Hellraiser definitely deserves its 80s horror classic status, but for me it's not the kind of film you watch again and again. A little ambivalent about checking out any the sequels, because I think this story could stand on its own.

Painfully mediocre - wasn't it?



Hellraiser II was the biggest slap in the face I've ever seen. I didn't bother with the franchise after that.

Have you seen 'Candyman' ? Given your complaints, that's a Clive Barker film that might be more up your alley.

I haven't seen this YET. I really want to. This looks like the best movie of the year, and that's just based off the trailer.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRmxPkF6rDU

Any good?

Martin 9/10

Romero's most overlooked and underrated movie, IMO, maybe because it's his least overtly 'Romero-like', despite still using a horror archetype to explore broader social themes - and I'd argue more interestingly than he ever did in his zombie movies. I've never met anyone who's seen Martin who didn't love it so it's a shame so few people even know about it. Even some Romero fans.





Lake Placid (7/10)

I always treated this as a bit of a guilty pleasure but having just watched it again, and while It doesn't really work as a horror movie, as a straight up comedy (thanks almost entirely to Oliver Platt's performance as Hector) it's one of the funniest Hollywood has produced in years, I'd say. A case of a film that's probably better than it ever needed to be in that it would've probably done about the same amount of box office had it been only half as good as it actually is.

Yeah, honestly. That was my second viewing, and I warmed up to it much more than I had initially. I remember being turned off by the pacing at first, but this time the film seemed to breeze by - which it should seeing as it's just over an hour in runtime, despite it's stylish minimalism.

Didn't blow me away, but I think I "got it" more this time around. Some nice shots throughout, and Sasha really didn't do as bad as some of the critics would have you believe. She certainly isn't going to win any awards - but hey, yeah I liked it.



Certainly not as good as Martin though (haha), if that's what you're asking. :p

I don't get it :confused:

A good film, but not on par with a masterpiece like Martin. ;)

I've always wanted to like that movie more than I do. All its individual components are great but I think it needed a better director to really pull them all together. (Something I think Barker himself has admitted in interviews) The sequels are dreadful.

Re the BDSM thing, he is into it. A quote from an interview:

"In my sex life I practice S&M. Practice, I've practically got it right! Because I'm a fan, a practitioner, of S&M, I have put that into the movies. I think Hellraiser is very clearly an S&M movie."



It's been described as Britain's Deliverance, which makes a lot of sense. I found it almost unbearably bleak, though, to the point where I nearly turned it off a couple of times. I can handle horror films that make you think and I'm certainly not afraid of downer endings but that just felt like it was a bit too keen on making its audience feel as shit as possible for 90 minutes. It's brilliant in its way and I'm definitely glad I saw it but I don't think I could ever sit through it again.

This is an interesting little take on the end of the world scenarios. Certainly better then anything Michael Bay ever put out

High Fidelity

Harry Brown (7/10)

An uber-gritty and bleak updating of Death Wish. Michael Caine is great.

"Gummo is alive in way that few films are"

It's the truth. I loved this film, I finally understand Harmony's views on life and nihilism and what's he's trying to convey in his screenplays after really disliking Kids. I was fascinated with this film and these redneck's cure for boredom. It's a gateway to how white American poverty destroys any hope of a respectable United States.


REPULSION

Holy crap! Young Catherine Deneuve is insanely beautiful, I only know Catherine from Dancer in the Dark. Liked this too, must buy.

I Saw the Devil

very good

the lion king on 3d

10/10

both are classics, i found them kinda depressing

"Idiots and Angels" a full-length film from animator Bill Plympton. This is the first feature film of his I've seen. I've always been a fan of his shorts. I like his style and his humor.

bronx warriors: 6/10
out of the blue: 6/10
high plains drifter: 5/10
babylon: 7/10

Classic Beat, and I finally watched it. Does he get any better?

Sonatine 9/10



I enjoyed 95% of this film, ending could have been better.
7/10

Devil : 6/10
The Adjustement Bureau : 3/10
INsidious : 10/10

Really? I found it tedious. The only good thing about it was the ending, but all in all, the plot got too fairy tale-ish later in the movie to be scary, so quickly I got pretty bored. Paranormal Activity was way better than this.