Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson direct Caitlin Stasey, Sianoa Smit-McPhee and Brooke Butler in this horror where cheerleaders come back from the dead… looking for blood.
Very much like watching the first and last episode of a long running CW series. You let it painstakingly set-up its premise and cast, and you see it close down and kill off a whole roster worth of barely explored subplots. What it never does is thrill or relax. Not as sexy or as silly or as gory as it could be. Watch the far superior Jennifer’s Body instead.
Takashi Miike directs Ken’ichi Endô, Shungiku Uchida and Kazushi Watanabe in this extreme farce where a stranger moves in with a very fucked-up Japanese family.
So perverted. So taboo. And somehow with the same emotional arc of Mary Poppins. Sick laughs, corpse-filled feelgood. Do not watch with mother.
Hideo Nakata directs Miki Nakatani, Rikiya Otaka and Fumiyo Kohinata in this sequel to the Japanese cursed videotape horror classic.
Not the stamp of the original. This one gets so distracted investigating and extending the mythology that it often forgets not to be a dry procedural and give us some scares. There are about half a dozen scenes that do replicate the craved for constant creep and dread. These save the film. Told in a stuttering, dry style this solid continuation gives very little to love.
Mark Robson directs Lana Turner, Hope Lang and Diane Varsi in this blockbuster adaptation of Grace Metalious’ scandalous bestseller about the secrets and gossip of a wartime American small town.
Natalie has just finished reading this doorstop sex and shock potboiler from the 1950s. The film version is smoothed off, censoring or only carefully alluding to a lot of the more transgressive elements. It still make for solid afternoon of soap and sadness. Even in this neutered version you can tell just how risky the material (Bastards! Incest Rapes! Abortions! Heavy Petting!) was on release. Our CinemaScope, Technicolor DVD even now has a 15 certification, unheard of for a Hollywood film that is 60 years old. Well acted by Turner (who was riding her own wave notoriety while the film was in cinemas), Varsi, Lee Philips and Russ Tamblyn. There’s a lot of plot condescended here and they prove excellent landmarks for us to find our way around all the glossy pathos. Everyone looks straight-edge immaculate too.
Sean Byrne directs Ethan Embry, Shiri Appleby and Pruitt Taylor Vince in this demonic horror where an artist and his family move into a farmhouse with a diabolical past.
Byrne’s debut The Loved Ones was a nasty little blast, this belated follow-up is strong on atmosphere but light on shocks. It abruptly wraps up at a point where you want at least two more cycles of mayhem before the credits. The terror elements are there. A possessed Dad creating unsettling art. The former tenant revisiting in a dirty old shellsuit with blood on his hands. An electric guitar welding teen heroine. The voice of Hell driving everyone mad. The acting is above par, everything crashes together in an apocalyptic fury… and then it finishes up without scoring enough of the promised murders or carnage. Unbalanced but worth a watch. Better than any of the Amityville films which this owes a blood debt.
Jeff Baena directs Alison Brie, Debby Ryan and Molly Shannon in this strange drama where a shy and sensitive woman begins to suspect she is losing time and any sense of reality.
A genuine strange one this. Especially as I’m adamant that I reviewed it weeks ago. But that post has disappeared. Fitting giving the themes. It starts as an awkward comedy but then the mystery overwhelms. It is a good mystery, pleasingly never fully squared up. Fair to say if disquiet and rambling aren’t your bag though… back away now. This is not a clean or slick piece of storytelling. Alison Brie puts in a brave performance that is affecting and ethereal. Well worth a mind-bending risk if you like things that used to be programmed after midnight on channels before they shut down for the night.
Fritz Lang directs Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Raymond Massey in this thriller where a college professor and a mysterious beautiful woman have to team-up and cover-up when they murder an important man in self-defence.
An early Film Noir; full of tense set-pieces and a few decent twists. Lucky for us that Edward G. Robinson is such a likeable star (intelligent and authoritative) as his character as written performs plenty of incriminating mistakes. He’s such a bumbler that it makes you want to tie the noose yourself for him sometimes. Joan Bennett is glamorous, hot and sympathetic as the thoroughly decent femme fatale. There are wobbles (Robinson really should be prime suspect after his behaviour, I’m not sure how I feel about the eventual studio-mandated solution) but this is Hitchcockian fun told with Lang’s more pessimistic visual pragmatism.
Roxanne Benjamin directs Karina Fontes, Casey Adams and Emily Althaus in this thriller where an inexperienced Park Ranger gets lost in the woods and finds a corpse.
A bit of a shaggy dog story. A lot is threatened to happen or implied… but with minimal pay-off. The direction is promising… you never get bored or check out even though we spend the feature-length essentially waiting for something… anything… to occur. That is a skill. The cast are pleasing. Karina Fontes manages to make a whiny and incompetent protagonist, who has to hold centre stage by herself for nearly a whole film, at least a little more attractive than how she is written. An admirable debut.
Brian Yuzna directs Jeffery Combs, Bruce Abbott and Fabiana Udenio in this body horror comedy sequel where bargain basement Dr. Frankenstein-wannabe Herbert West continues his experiments.
Not as funny or as anarchic as the first entry. Combs is good value but seems a little dialled back. The plotting contains lots of filler… only a few moments are particularly worth showcasing. It does end in an orgy of anatomical surrealism. The gloopy overkill does kinda justify the wait. But there’s no reason a bit more of the chaos and chunks couldn’t have been salted over towards the first hour.
Ron Shelton directs Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson and Rosie Perez in THE basketball hustling comedy.
You either know what a glorious two hours this is, or you ain’t worth engaging with. Talking dirty fast and witty lyrical like a classic rap album. Vibrantly coloured like a Keith Haring work of art. Moving like a kung-fu comedy. You couldn’t get more 1992 than White Men Can’t Jump. It is The Hustler on e-number enriched blue colouring. “We goin’ Sizzler!” Wesley’s best work! Woody stretching his sitcom chops into proper acting. Rosie Perez berating him and dominating Jeopardy like a sexy motherfucker. “Billy – you so fucking stupid!” It is a macho buddy comedy that teaches young men to respect women. It is a flashy conman lark that favours hard work and getting paid. There’s more value and love and heart and intelligence and craft in White Men Can’t Jump than in any Oscar nominated contender of the 90s. So there’s a litany ‘yo momma’ jokes?! Just because Ron Shelton made it look, and move, and sound, and dunk like something more juvenile doesn’t mean it ain’t one of the finest scripted films Hollywood ever actually made. One of Stanley Kubrick’s fave rentals this and for great reasons. Rewatchable, requotable and with a soundtrack that attaches itself to your soul and energises you for life. “Listen to the woman.” Doesn’t make a wrong move, goes for the slam dunk when it could just land a two pointer and walk away! A perfect movie.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 