Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Eyeball (1976)
A late (for the director) Giallo entry from Umbert Lenzi, and, highly watchable as the film is, you get the feeling Lenzi was starting to get bored with the genre, and indeed the genre itself was starting to signs of strain. The dialogue is poor, but given that it is dubbed we have no choice but to wash over that. A vicious killer is going round killing members of a coach tour party and plucking out their eyeballs. With more red herrings than you’re find in a handful of giallos, this one tries hard to be one step ahead of everyone, although the killer is easily guessable as you near the end. Not even close to bad, but you can see all too clearly what it could have been had the director been firing on all cylinders.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Seven Deaths In The Cat's Eye (1973)
Tasty little giallo/gothic thriller set in a Scottish castle with the cast being bumped off one by one. We've seen it all before but it's done with enough panache to pull it off. Nice one.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Seven Murders For Scotland Yard
A giallo-esque outing for that most enjoyable of Spanish actors/writers Paul Naschy.
There's a serial killer on the loose that has a simalr modus operandi of Jack The Ripper. Paul Naschy is wrongly suspected of the crimes and goes on the run and tries to solve the crime. Naschy refuses to act in this piece of hokum about a modern day Ripper but this is still a highly enjoyable romp. From the cheesey dialogue to the excellent seventies London locations there is much to be relished throughout this barmy opus. A film that gives a pretty good definition of Eurotrash.
There's a serial killer on the loose that has a simalr modus operandi of Jack The Ripper. Paul Naschy is wrongly suspected of the crimes and goes on the run and tries to solve the crime. Naschy refuses to act in this piece of hokum about a modern day Ripper but this is still a highly enjoyable romp. From the cheesey dialogue to the excellent seventies London locations there is much to be relished throughout this barmy opus. A film that gives a pretty good definition of Eurotrash.
Rabid Dogs (1974)
Or possibly 'Last Car On The Left'! One of Mario bava's last film and the last one to surface as it was held in post-production hell for a variety of reasons.
Three robbers escaping after a heist take a women hostage and comandeer a vehicle taking the driver and his son hostage also. That's about it. Many Bava fans hail this as an unqualified success, but I would challenge that. While the film has redeeming factors, what we have here is a pretty nasty, mean film that seems to misfire on some of it's more important points. Bava is striving for realism here and nearly achieves it, but the frantic over-playing of two of the thieves, Blade and Thirty Two, removes much of the desired realism. The film takes place largely within the escape vehicle and the driver, female hostage and leader of the gang retain enough realistic acting that you can see what could have been, but the other two's histrionics blow this out of the water. Bava was never one for realism in his films and maybe this provided the naivety not to reign in these two. He does however manage to achieve the difficult task of filming mainly in an enclosed space very well and the film doesn't lag too much.
A mixed bag.
Three robbers escaping after a heist take a women hostage and comandeer a vehicle taking the driver and his son hostage also. That's about it. Many Bava fans hail this as an unqualified success, but I would challenge that. While the film has redeeming factors, what we have here is a pretty nasty, mean film that seems to misfire on some of it's more important points. Bava is striving for realism here and nearly achieves it, but the frantic over-playing of two of the thieves, Blade and Thirty Two, removes much of the desired realism. The film takes place largely within the escape vehicle and the driver, female hostage and leader of the gang retain enough realistic acting that you can see what could have been, but the other two's histrionics blow this out of the water. Bava was never one for realism in his films and maybe this provided the naivety not to reign in these two. He does however manage to achieve the difficult task of filming mainly in an enclosed space very well and the film doesn't lag too much.
A mixed bag.
Mediterraneo (1992)
A group of soldiers come to secure a remote Greek Aegean island and get stranded there as their boat is destroyed. They are quickly accepted by the islanders who are just pleased they are not Germans. By the time of their rescue three years later, they have all grown and taken on different viewpoints of life.
A charming, gentle anti-war movie full of whimsical humour and mild political noises. The Italians make this type of film very well and it carries echoes of Cinema Paradiso, Il Postino, Malena etc. and the scenery will make you fall in love with the island yourself as the cinematography capture’s its different moods with affection.
A charming, gentle anti-war movie full of whimsical humour and mild political noises. The Italians make this type of film very well and it carries echoes of Cinema Paradiso, Il Postino, Malena etc. and the scenery will make you fall in love with the island yourself as the cinematography capture’s its different moods with affection.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Night Of The Hunted (1980)
Coming at the end of Jean Rollin's best period, this is a different outing for France's favourite surreal auteur. A man comes across a lady in the middle of the road one night and discovers that not only is she amnesiac but it is a degenereative conditon. After bedding her (hey it's a Rollin movie and she is Brigitte Lahaie) he goes off to work and a man and women arrive on the scene and take Elisabeth (for it is she) back to where she came from, a mysterious tower block in palace, where all the residents have similar problems, and some have degenerated a lot more. She manages to nearly escape again and call the man from the night before who comes to rescue her, but he is unprepared for the truth.
It's a slow moving film, much like all of Rollin's work but there is little scop for Rollin's remarkable imagery. There are a few sex scenes which, although it can be argued as being part of the plot (touch and sensual feeling are all that these people have left), can be a bit of a bore to sit through. However, bizarrely, the film doesn't seem to last as long as it does, a sure sign of grabbing the viewers attention (although the missus said she thought it lasted about 5 hours!) As ever I won't spoil the twist but I will say that it seemed to me about the impersonalway of modern buildings and how the authorities use tower blocks as sterile pens to fence in the hordes and keep them out of harms way. Or something along those lines. Not Rollin's best, but a haunting statement of the nuclear family and uncaring treatment of the impersonal authorities.
It's a slow moving film, much like all of Rollin's work but there is little scop for Rollin's remarkable imagery. There are a few sex scenes which, although it can be argued as being part of the plot (touch and sensual feeling are all that these people have left), can be a bit of a bore to sit through. However, bizarrely, the film doesn't seem to last as long as it does, a sure sign of grabbing the viewers attention (although the missus said she thought it lasted about 5 hours!) As ever I won't spoil the twist but I will say that it seemed to me about the impersonalway of modern buildings and how the authorities use tower blocks as sterile pens to fence in the hordes and keep them out of harms way. Or something along those lines. Not Rollin's best, but a haunting statement of the nuclear family and uncaring treatment of the impersonal authorities.
Without A Paddle
Three childhood friends meet up at the funeral of their fourth friend from childhood, re-bond and decide to take the trip that their friend had planned - to go looking for some lost treasure in the wilderness.
An amiable romp that would have probably been better to forget the treasure hunt so we could have spared the 'actually, it's not the cash that's the treasure, it's our new found desire for life' bollocks that comes inevitably at the end as surely it must.
An amiable romp that would have probably been better to forget the treasure hunt so we could have spared the 'actually, it's not the cash that's the treasure, it's our new found desire for life' bollocks that comes inevitably at the end as surely it must.
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