Rate the Last Film You Watched

May as well recap some of the films I've been watching at the cinema over the past few months:

BlacKkKlansman [dir. Spike Lee]
A pretty entertaining movie with great characters and an interesting storyline. I do feel that this film ends pretty underwhelming but it does have a strong message in general. 4/5

The Predator [dir. Shane Black]
The Iron Man 3 of the Predator franchise basically. This film is pretty amusing for the most part but it has a lot of stupid moments and plot points. The death scenes are hilarious though. 2.5/5

Venom [dir. Ruben Fleischer]
This film has a lot of issues but the best parts were the interactions between Eddie & Venom. Outside of that the rest of the film is okay but not something memorable. I would be down for a sequel though. 3/5

First Man [dir. Damien Chazelle]
A biographical film about Neil Armstrong that was pretty investing to watch, and was paced very well. Some of the sequences were pretty solid and the last act was great to watch. 4/5

Bad Times at the El Royale [dir. Drew Goddard]
This is an interesting one. I really like the layout of this film and each character have their moment of shine throughout, however I felt that some characters were not given enough time and the final act wasn't as investing as I wanted it to be. 3.5/5

Halloween (2018) [dir. David Gordon Green]
A sequel to the original Halloween film. I like bits and pieces of this film but it's a pretty disappointing one mainly because of the marketing and the weird tone shift throughout. It's not bad but not perfect. 2.5/5

Bohemian Rhapsody [dir. Bryan Singer]
Fans of Queen will love this film and I did too, the actor who portrayed Freddie Mercury was very good and the final act was well done. My main issues with this film is this weird cartoony villain aspect it has as well as some pacing issues and mis-information on legit events that will no doubt ruin your experience if you are knowledgeable of the band's history. Still worth checking out though. 3.5/5

Overlord [dir. Julius Avery]
This is basically a mini-version of Castle Wolfenstein. It has a strong first act and a weird tone shift throughout, but overall it was an entertaining film in general. It's a cool idea that could have been explored a lot more especially with how it was marketed. 3/5

Suspiria (2018) [dir. Luca Guadagnino]
A remake of the cult classic horror film that I never heard of until I watched the teaser for this year's adaptation. It's a long film but it's really investing especially with the excellent music composed by Thom Yorke and the insane final act. My only nitpick is that there's a sub-plot that has a historical theme used throughout and it doesn't really affect the main story at all. 4/5
 
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

The worst film in this franchise to me. There is tons of confusing and contrived family/relationship drama with there separate plot threads spread thin that only really coincide at the end. The acting is good but most of the character's didn't get enough time to realiy engage me. Consequences of the previous movie are undone with little to no explanation abd despite the filn's titles, there aren't that many crimes being committed by Grindelwald though I appreciate their effort to differentiate him from Voldemort. One highlight is Jude Law as Dumbledore whose presence is really only there to set up future films though, with everything else underwhelming me that fact didn't bother me!

I should mention that I liked the first Fantastic Beasts just fine but after this I feel like they're running into the Star Wars Prequel issue. The big 'main event' of these prequels, the narrative reason for them to exist, is being held off and padded out. The ending of thus movie, as well as being utterly baffling, does seem to indicate that we aren't getting there anytime soon. It looks like this fiom will likely stull profit bur if follow up doesn't maintain momentum, I may never see Jude Law's Dukbledore against Grindelwald ajd that would he the biggest disaster of all this to me.

Lastly, its too dark, as in David Yates refuses to use his lights. Didn't know what was hapoening in so many scenes.

4/10
 
Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Having just recently moved home I found myself moving boxes around in the kitchen with Sky Cinema on in the background when this little gem came on. I sat down on the couch with a pile of books in my arms that I had just taken out to be shelved and didn't move until the credits rolled. What a fantastic dark comedy. The characters are brilliant, the script is crisp and clean. And the journey? What a ride this film takes you on.

This is everything what Gone Girl wishes it was. Brilliant.

 
So rather than watch The Shining for the thousandth time, I decided it was high time I had another attempt at finding that rarest of gems, a creepy (not gory, gore does nothing for me at all) horror film that would genuinely spook me a bit, or at least have a slight effect on my arm hairs. So I had a look around and found three more recent ones that sounded like they might fit the bill, which I've watched more or less back to back.

The Orphanage (2007)
A very enjoyable and cleverly written story, I don't think there was a single moment I could guess quite where this was going to go next and I certainly wasn't prepared for the film's major reveal about Simon's whereabouts. But while it did have a great atmosphere to it and provided a couple of unexpected shocks and twists, it never particularly gave me the chills. I'd say it's more of a dark, supernatural mystery than a horror, really and in the end, it turned out to be kind of heart-warming.

The Conjuring (2013)
A much more straightforward haunted house tale, which when placed next to the other two is clearly more targeted towards the mass market (aptly illustrated by the fact it's already become a franchise with multiple spin-offs that I doubt I'll be bothering with). It looked very good and the actors were convincing (the child actors especially were a lot better than many you see) but honestly, the film's entire premise of the Warrens coming to investigate lowered the threat value significantly. One of the things I love about The Shining is that sense the Torrences are as alone and isolated as they can possibly be with these malevolent forces - There is no getting out of there and there is no help coming, it creates a real sense of foreboding and dread. With The Conjuring, you have the initial creepy scenes of the Perrons moving into their lonely rural house and starting to feel that things aren't right, then the ratcheting up of the threat as they begin to directly witness these bizarre phenomena, it comes crashing back down almost to nothing the moment the Warrens show up with all their equipment and almost comic relief roadies. The best it got, the absolute high water mark of creepiness in the film for me, was the scene with the pitch black void behind the door in the girls' room, when one of them was terrified because they could see something the other couldn't. That terrifying void was scarier than anyone in Halloween witch make-up will ever be, the problem of ruining the thing causing your terror by showing it is an ever-present one I'm not sure horror films will ever manage to get around. There was also a point I started to smile when I thought I'd caught the film trying to wrong-foot me when the Warrens mentioned that it doesn't matter where the Perrons go because the spirits have now latched on to them. Previous scenes with their daughter and the text at the start about how this was a case they had supposedly "never revealed" made me think for a moment they were wrong, and that the spirits were instead going home with the Warrens and the film was about to shift focus entirely from the Perrons to them, but unfortunately that was me giving the film too much credit and thinking it was cleverer than it actually was. Though the house was very creepy and the actors were very good, sadly in the end the story was just too predictable and formulaic.

Hereditary (2018)
Easily the best of the bunch for creepiness factor and building that sense of dread. I'd say it owes more than a little to The Shining in fact, in set design, camera work and sound, not that that's a bad thing at all. There were a couple of moments where I felt I was owed a bit more in the way of explanation (MASSIVE spoilers) We're just going to skip right past how Peter isn't in prison for decapitating his sister while driving way over the speed limit under the influence of drugs, and how he isn't somehow sequestered in a mental institution for just driving home and going off to bed leaving her body on the back seat of the car for his mum to find the next morning, really? And Annie spins on a dime from "We can communicate with Charlie from beyond the grave, this is great!" to "I've unleashed something terrible, I have to put this right" so abruptly I feel like there must be at least one fairly major cut scene there. Oddly, right at the end it suffers from the exact opposite issue - A totally unnecessary monologue explaining exactly what had happened (presumably for audience members - Or more likely studio executives - too dense to have picked that information up throughout the course of the film) something I think I've only ever seen before in the craptastic Blade Runner theatrical cut. But for being not only an original and engaging story but actually kind of terrifying in places, Hereditary definitely deserves to wear the crown here.

Also if anyone has any more suggestions for creepy films I'd certainly be up for some more. It's a fantastically creepy night out there tonight, freezing cold and dense fog. Wonderful.

Update: Damn it, I can't find anything else of interest at all. One day, when I make my millions, I'll produce a horror film of my own. It will be nine hours of slow camera work in dimly lit abandoned buildings like orphanages, mental institutions and concentration camps while a doom-laden soundtrack and ambient sobbing noises depresses the hell out of anyone watching it. Like a horribly bleak Koyaanisqatsi.
 
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Festive family fun with Stanley Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

Actually not a bad companion piece at all to The Shining, it has a similar dreamlike feel where reality is often in question, sometimes in literal terms but mainly Bill Harford questioning and gradually being stripped of what he believed to be his reality (some not-so-subtle visual clues there in terms of him being "in the dark" and "enlightened"). It also feels like it has quite a lot in common thematically with David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. (potential spoilers for both films) in terms of the main character hiding essentially wilfully, to the point of being in denial of certain ugly truths about the world, other people and even themselves. Both films are a journey of discovery that leads to a fairly brutal loss of innocence, but in both cases an innocence that feels a bit put on and never quite sincere, like the characters kind of knew all along and just didn't want to admit it - Certainly that's explicitly true in the case of Mulholland Dr. and I suspect that was also the intention here.

Also in common with The Shining, it's far from the easiest film to read, since Kubrick liked his ambiguity that tends to lead to as many interpretations as there are viewers. Is it about sex and relationships? Is it about the commodification of people? Is it an exposé (or at least dramatization) of the Illuminati or the less occult, but similarly sinister activities of the likes of Jeffrey Epstein/Jimmy Savile and high-up pals?* It's a pretty dark film already, but it only gets darker when you start to examine some of the implications - The girls at the start of the film want to take Bill "where the rainbow ends" which is nicely book-ended by him turning off the Christmas tree lights in his home (Christmas lights having a constant presence throughout the film) after he has learned the truth from Ziegler. Another simple "lights" metaphor for his loss of innocence. But it's also no co-incidence the costume shop is named "Rainbow" and that strand of the story ends with the owner reversing his previous rage towards his promiscuous daughter and willingly pimping her out. Is "the end of the rainbow" a more general loss of innocence, or rather an acceptance that the innocence people like Bill and Milich previously believed in was a delusion? At the very end of the film, Bill and Alice (who is always "enlightened" from the very first scene, therefore never innocent) completely disregard their own daughter (her interest in the Barbie doll immediately beforehand seems to foreshadow her own inevetable loss of innocence and commodification) in a similar display of recognising their pretence to a happy family life was also a delusional façade. Where they go from here is ambiguous, but "no dream is ever just a dream" suggests that Bill, having lost his innocence and being "awake now" is now either accepting or resigned to abandoning his life as a faithful husband and father and participating in Alice's debauched fantasies, either inside the society or not. Finding the mask on the pillow next to Alice seems to suggest as much, either that is who Bill is now or it's the person Alice wants him to be.

Kubrick is on record as stating he wanted to make the scariest horror film ever made, and while most people tend to identify this statement with The Shining, I can't help but wonder if really, Eyes Wide Shut is more horrifying in its portrayal of a society where everyone is inevitably reduced to their basest urges, where people's own selfish desires lead them to view other people, even their own children as exploitable and expendable. A fantastic, but at the same time incredibly depressing film.

*Funny how things that would have been derided as laughable conspiracy theories when this film was released actually turned out to be true a decade or so later. Less funny that no-one is asking any questions or seems to care about the wider circles these people moved in, which now makes Eyes Wide Shut somewhat more believable in its exposé interpretation. I notice one of the girls Bill meets at the party is identified as a Windsor. Andrew and Charlie Windsor of course, being close acquaintances with Epstein and Savile respectively. Hmm.
 
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The Strangers: Prey at Night

Long ago, in the ancient year of 2008, a little horror movie was released into cinemas known as The Strangers. Although reception was mixed amongst the critics, it was acclaimed amongst the horror community at the time, with many praising its atmosphere and tension, not to mention a box office smash, earning $80 million on a budget of less than $10 million. Despite gaining great traction at the time, like with most things that are popular, it faded into obscurity in the years that followed, garnering a cult following, but hardly remaining relevant in the public consciousness. Rumours of a sequel floated about shortly after the success of the first film, but nothing ever came to fruition. Well, that was until 2018. Completely apropos of nothing, the follow up The Strangers: Prey at Night was released a full decade after the original, not to mention at least five years after anyone might even care. After a fairly underwhelming trailer dropped, followed by a resounding 'meh' from both the critics and horror community at large, I forgot it even existed until I was browsing Netflix and saw it had finally cropped up on there. Delighted I wouldn't have to pay money to see what I was wholly expecting to be a bad movie, I ended up finally seeing it, and it is not hard to see why the response to this was so poor, but it's not for the reasons I was initially expecting.

As a standalone horror movie, The Strangers: Prey at Night is a perfectly serviceable affair. It's fairly by the numbers as far as these sorts of things go, but it is still an entertaining film, its well paced, and features a decent amount of the stabby murder violence that you'd want. Where this film starts to fall apart is when you examine it as a sequel to the original 2008 film. It has been a while since I've seen the original personally, but I do recall it setting a very high bar in both suspense and atmosphere for the horror genre. It ratchets up the tension very slowly and effectively, before delivering a memorable, not to mention utterly chilling, ending that is purpose built to haunt the viewer long after the credits have rolled. Prey at Night features exactly none of that. Although I'd be tempted to put it entirely down to a change in director, the issue runs far deeper than that, and is more of an issue at the script level, which I was astonished to find actually was penned by the writer and director of the first movie, Bryan Bertino. A lot of what made the first film great was the fact the setting was almost entirely the confines of a single house, not only making for a claustrophobic film, but the titular Strangers targeting someone's own home made it feel much more personal, not to mention relatable. The sequel swaps this setting for, of all things, an empty trailer park, thus stripping the concept of most of the intimacy it once had, and a lot of the effectiveness alongside it. I understand that in the sequel, you're supposed to expand, but in this case, it only served to kneecap proceedings.

What really hammered home the total butchering of the core concepts initially presented in The Strangers was in the ending. The first film had an incredibly dour but very effective ending, which sees one half of the unfortunate couple shot whilst the other is stabbed several times and left for dead, as the perpetrators move on to their next targets. Not only does this make the antagonists feel strong and menacing, with them never coming to harm throughout the film, the fact that they'll strike again and it could be anyone, even you (helped by the 'Based on True Events' claim on the promotional material) makes for one of the best endings to a horror film ever, in my humble opinion. Prey by Night flips this on its head entirely, by having each and everyone one of the Strangers dispatched one by one, with two of them being taken out by a single teenage girl. It just takes away every ounce of threat they possessed, seeing them be dispatched of so easily. There is an attempt to make it seem like they're still alive, but it's incredibly weak, and needed expanding upon for them to get the audience to buy that these people aren't dead.

Although I'm not sure I would go so far as to call it a complaint, a really distracting element about Prey at Night was its attempts to cash in on the wave of 80s nostalgia that Stranger Things arguably kicked off a couple of years ago. There was absolutely nothing even remotely 80s themed about the original, making it seem super tacked on here, in a blatant attempt to cash in on a craze. Hell, there's nothing even really 80s about this film either, other than the crowbarring in of some recognizable music in some scenes, and a couple of nods to horror films at the time. If there is one area I'll give credit, it's with the direction and cinematography, which did occasionally seem to ape the look of older horror films with its use of zooms and pans specifically, but even that was somewhat half hearted, only keeping up the aesthetic when the director seemed to feel like it, and looking like a plain old generic genre film most of the time.

So, to conclude, although I did get a solid 90 minutes of entertainment out of The Strangers: Prey at Night, it ultimately left me asking the question "Why?". Why make this? Why make it now? It clearly wasn't because they had a super strong idea for a sequel, or because the franchise had some massive fan base to cash in on, even if it was a modest box office success. I'll never know, but it honestly might have been better for the legacy of the first film if they had just left well enough alone.
 
So I just got back from my local Showroom Cinema to check out the latest Japanese film that had been getting some pretty big attention at a bunch of festivals.

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One Cut of the Dead is about a group of filmmakers who are trying to produce a zombie film, only to discover that there is an actual zombie apocalypse going on. Now, as much as I like to go into detail, what makes this film so amazing is the element of surprise it brings after the very impressive 30-40 minute one cut that it provides. It is a very low budget film but it has a lot of charm done throughout and it's pretty hilarious to watch all the way.

I highly recommend that you check this one out if you can at your local cinema, because you'll have a blast watching it with an group of people. Now because I know that I'm being pretty vague about how much I really enjoyed this film, but that's because it's one of those rare cases where avoiding any form of trailers, clips, plot synopsis and reviews is crucial to fully enjoy this wonderful film.

5/5

If you can't get access to a cinema screening near you, distributor Third Window Films will be releasing it on Blu-ray and DVD starting 28th January.

(disclaimer: Amazon links are affiliates, which will pay me a commission if you click through and buy something)
 
Spider-Man: into the Spider-Verse - The best animated and best Comic Book movie of the year, highly recommended, the movie effortlessly juggles multiple complex threads that compliment, rather than detract from the central character's story - 9/10

Aquaman - I admire its commitment to full on comic book accuracy, throwing out any traditional movie aesthetic rule book. The plot rather needlessly complicated and found myself more invested in the secondary antagonist rather than the primary one. It's still a fun time and visually unlike any other DC or Marvel movie. - 7/10

Mary Poppins Returns - Very authentic to the style of the original film. Emily Blunt is great in the lead role though everyone else is solid. The animated section makes me desire even more for a new 2D animated movie from Disney. All the songs are good and well performed though I'm not sure they, or the film as a whole, Wilk have the same lasting appeal as the original film did during its time. - 7/10

Bumblebee - It took over a decade but Transformers is finally free from being Michael Bay produced dreck and is instead a heart warming character journey and thrilling ride. The robot designs are no longer hard on the eyes visual noise and are more faithful to their original incarnations than ever. Hailee Steinfeld plays the most endearing human lead in any Transformers property ever. Hope this is a sign of things to come from Hasbro movies. - 8/10
 
Bohemian Rhapsody

The story of Queen's early years through to their legendary performance at Live Aid, I would agree with the general consensus that Rami Malek is fantastic as Freddie Mercury, but it’s hard to get away from the film's often dubious historical accuracy and, even setting that aside it's also hampered by an uninteresting first act.

As a piece of pure drama, the first half hour lacks any real conflict - the band's rise to fame seems fairly straightforward - and it only really warms up once we get into the 1980s and the cracks in their working relationship begin to show. The rest of the film is more engaging, but much of what happens has been fictionalised or at least rearranged for the sake of narrative convenience. The film never explicitly claims to be a completely accurate version of events, but if the critical reaction is anything to go by, it feels like it ought to be preceded by one of those ‘most of this actually happened’ type clauses.

It’s tricky, I suppose. 24 Hour Party People handled the blurring of musical fact and fiction more effectively, by breaking the fourth wall in its narration to highlight things that were disputed, but I dare say not every film can make that work. Perhaps the story of Queen was never ideally suited for the cinema? It's tempting to wonder if the film might have worked better had they managed to stick to the original plan for a biopic of Mercury himself, rather than trying to cover the entire band.
 
Bird Box

There's some neat ideas here but those ideas are underused and rather than using the monster's powers in interesting ways the film does away the characters far less interesting and mundane way. The film can be creepy but it's more due to the idea rather than execution . The film also does away the suspense by basically showing right away that the MC and the kids are the only ones going to survive. Ending is also pretty awful but i do think that even with it's flaws bird box is still kinda worth the watch

6/10.
 
Apostle (2018)

Gareth Evans of The Raid fame switches his attention to a remote Welsh (?) island for this Netflix horror, that sees a tortured drifter (Dan Stevens) attempting to rescue his kidnapped sister from the clutches of a religious cult, at the turn of the 20th century. The film is an absolute love-letter to The Wicker Man, but plays out in very different fasion, with the tension rapidly building as Stevens scrapes his way towards the community's dark heart, whilst their leaders attempt to flush out the 'spy'. Thinking back over it after it was finished, it's easy to see a lot of cracks in the narrative, and I feel Michael Sheen might be just too nice to really convince as the cultists' leader, but while it was running, I was absolutely sold on it. Not one for the ages, but as a 'ghost train' style thriller, it's still solid viewing.
 
The Sword of Doom (1966)

Nakadai's performance is terrifyingly great. Trying to parse the emotions lining his stare after a particularly spectacular fight featuring another character is the highlight of the film for me.

Score and visuals are consistently on-point. Fight scenes range from slow stare-downs steeped in intensity, to frantic bloodbaths spilling with kinetic swordplay, but are always a sight to behold.

Story is a little convoluted and features some minor time-skips that aren't well telegraphed. The plot is completely unresolved, and the film ends more abruptly than The Beatles' I Want You (She's so Heavy).

I haven't quite fully comprehended what I've watched, but I enjoyed the majority of it.

★★★★☆
 
It was originally going to be film series hence the ending but for reason or another they didn't get chance to do sequels. The film is based on book series but those probably haven't been translated.
 
So I just got back from my local Showroom Cinema once again to check out the latest Korean film that also received some pretty big attention at a bunch of festivals.

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Burning is an interesting film. It's a drama that ends up being a thriller, one that made me think about what could happen next without giving away too much. It has this whole 'show don't tell' structure which concludes with a lot of open-ended scenarios about what exactly happened throughout the story. It starts out pretty simple, but once you reach that certain point it slowly begins to open up and become pretty unsettling. The music in particular is really well-done and the acting is impressive, especially Steven Yeun who is mostly known for The Walking Dead.


I do recommend checking this one out if you can, however this is a pretty long film (running at 2 hours 30 minutes) and a slow-burner so that might put you off. Though regardless I did think that it built up the characters well enough as well as the mystery throughout. The distributor is Thunderbird Releasing who also ran theatrical releases for another recently popular foreign film Shoplifters.

4/5
 
farzam1999 said:
Sounds like a great film @NormanicGrav! - Personally I'm not into Korean films, but I'll give this a go, once it's released.

Here's my watches from last week. Monday, January 28th to Sunday, February 3rd.
Fewer watches this time, as I'm getting prepared for a new semester at my University.

Boiling Point
This film is directed (and stars) the great Takeshi Kitano. It's been a while since I've seen anything by him, so I thought I might as well get started again, also my first time watching this one. As always the directing is done so great by him. The emotions that the characters show as something happens is just so funny, and well executed. I like the fact that the camera stays on the characters, even after they have said their lines and just show them. The story itself was good, but a very good idea to pay attention to it. Fun fact (a bit of a spoiler):
Kitano appears 48 minutes into the film, which is exactly halfway through it (film's running time being 96 minutes).
7/10.

Ant-Man and the Wasp
Directed by Peyton Reed, comes the second film in this franchise. What can I say? - I enjoyed it more than the first one to be honest. As the first one didn't interest me so much in story, but the comedy was good. I do also own for completion sake. This time around, it was the same deal. The villains weren't so "evil" so it was mostly driven by the comedy again for me. Paul Rudd, great again. 7/10.

Groundhog Day
Funny thing, I decided on Saturday morning to watch this one later that day. Then I was like "When is Groundhog Day actually?" - I went to Google it, and yep it was on that very day. Freaked me out a bit lol. Harold Ramis is the director of this one. This film is great, not much to say about it. Other than, Murray is so good and plays his character so well. The story itself is really well done. It reminded of how great of a film this is, and I asked myself why I hadn't bought beforehand. The 4K PQ was amazing, Sony does it again, never seen it with such great PQ and it looked like a newly released film. 9/10.

New thing: Others I've tried this week but didn't get my attention to finish the film: Thunderbolt, Twin Dragons and Wu Xia (Dragon).
Click to expand...
I may have to watch groundhog day, I just might watch it when I get back from work. I think I've seen near the end but not the whole thing
 
I watched Venom last night. I've never been a huge fan of Marvel's symbiote-related antics, but I enjoyed this a lot.

Tom Hardy was excellent in the lead role (he was very, very, very...strange) and Riz Ahmed is always good too (he was the only person I liked in Rogue One). The effects were great, there were some very quirky funny moments (disclaimer: I'm genuinely not sure if some parts were supposed to be comedic, but still) and overall it (thankfully) wasn't as dark and edgy as I expected it to be. The story wasn't anything astonishing or spectacular, but Hardy's performance really gave it a huge boost.

I'd definitely watch it again, plus any sequels that may appear down the line. 4/5
 
Much as I like A Better Tomorrow (Chow Yun Fat lighting his cigarette from a burning counterfeit bill has to be one of the great images of '80s action cinema), I think it does show that it's the first one where John Woo really established the formula for what was to come later. The two sequels aren't bad if you get the chance (the campy 'EAT THE RICE' scene in number 2 is... something), but the first is definitely the strongest.

Hard Boiled is my favourite John Woo film though. I know a lot of people like The Killer more, but I think Hard Boiled is less maudlin and has better set pieces.
 
Ghost Stories

Pretty decent horror anthology from Britain. Includes three stories (or four if you count the main narrative) of which one is mostly comedy but the other two are down to earth and well done. The stories weren't scary per say but did a good job keeping the tension up. There were some jump scares but at least on the youtube rental version the audio on those jump scares weren't super loud so i didn't mind them personaly.

The ending is something that divides people but it's not something that should ruin the whole film to anyone if they end up not liking what happens.

Not a great film but still very much worth watching for horror fans. Doesn't really on gore at all so this is fine for those people who can't stand that sort of thing.
 
Movie night with friends was... interesting.

Bulletproof (1988)

Taken at face value, this cheapo Gary Busey vehicle is jingoistic, faintly racist tosh that bafflingly attempts to marry Lethal Weapon with the third Rambo movie. It's so stunningly bad, however, that it often has to be seen to be believed, with its roaring post-coital fireplaces, cardboard tanks and scenes of 'Bulletproof' McBain (actual character name) playing a saxophone on the beach, coming across like an unironic version of National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon. I'm not sure I could bring myself to recommend it, but the sight of the Busey rolling down a hill while strapped to a giant cable drum is quite special.

The Human Tornado (1976)

The first followup to blaxploitation favourite Dolemite, this adventure sees the titular stand-up comedian and occasional gigolo (Rudy Ray Moore) on the lamb after a racist redneck sheriff attempts to frame him for a murder, before trying to help his nightclub owner friend rescue her dancers from the mafia. Make no mistake though, it's far less serious than that sounds, with instant replays of the nude Dolemite painfully rolling down a hill to evade capture, ludicrous speeded up 'karate' fights and guided imagery sex scenes straight out of a Russ Meyer film. It's absolutely a product of its time, but with its capricious, freewheeling approach to storytelling and infectious joie-de-vivre, it's hard not to be won over. Look out for a young Ernie Hudson as one of Dolemite's buddies.
 
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