Audition - Lisa's Review

I became a Japanese horror fan 12 or 13 years ago and Audition was one of the first movies Japanese movies I watched.  I had watched a couple before this so was prepared for the odd style, which is just as well, as Audition is probably as odd as it comes.  From the off I'll say it.  I love this movie.  It's all kinds of strange, the words of an old rock song by a band called Crimson Glory sum it up quite succinctly... "Strange and beautiful... wicked and wonderful".  I'm deliberately not going to go into much detail on the story as it's a movie a lot of people won't have seen and they really should change that as it is well worth a watch.  It is also a movie where a lot is left to the viewers own interpretation.  There are quite a few interpretations of the movie to be found online, one of which I am most definitely on board with.  Again, it's not something anyone who hasn't seen the movie should read beforehand.  It's better to go into this movie with as little knowledge as possible.  I'll happily talk about my interpretation if any reader (are there any out there??) wants to know after having viewed the movie.

The Omen (1976) - Lisa's Review

The Omen is one of those infamous movies that pretty much everybody has seen.  Anyone too young to be bothered has probably seen the crappy 2006 remake.  I say crappy, but to be honest, I'm not that big a fan of the original.  I'll shoot from the hip right from the start, I found the original movie extremely dull, save for a few key scenes.  I found the 2006 remake hilariously bad.  Given that, I'd be very surprised if there was any horror fan who hadn't watched this movie, it isn't one I'm going to bang on about for too long.

Eyes Without A Face - Will's Review

Eyes without a face is a French-Italian co-production. Were it not for the subtitles there would very little clue to this, feeling instead like one of the many American produced sci-fi horrors put out by Universal or MGM at about the same time, indeed, this would sit well on a shelf next to Village of the Damned, being one of the more thoughtful, sympathetic, examples of the genre.

Nosferatu - Will's Review

Right off the bat I think it's only fair to point out that silent movies aren't really my thing; I don't have the experience necessarily to compare one to another, or to know which of my complaints or comments apply to any particular movie, rather than being typical of the time.

What I will say, is that in the print I watched the tinting had been preserved (it was not uncommon for silent film to be tinted on a scene by scene basis to show mood or time of day), and the image was sharp and crisp; a vast improvement over last time I attempted to watch this in a poor quality grayscale transfer.

Nosferatu (1922) - Lisa's Review

This is an oooooooooold movie, a SILENT movie for gawds sake!  I'd managed to successfully avoid watching this one up until tonight.  You see, this is probably one of my husbands favourite movies.  It's most definately his favourite vampire/vampyr? movie.  A bit of information first.  This was the first movie based on the 1897 Bram Stokers Dracula.  Given our modern ideas on vampires, this is quite surprising as the vampire depicted in Nosferatu is very, very different.  Bram Stokers widow denied permission for the movie to be made, but undeterred, F.W. Murnau continued with his version of the famous book.  He did change the names and made subtle differences to the storyline, but anyone who had read Stokers book or who had any knowledge of it, would be quick to make the connection.  Upon finding this out Stokers widow demanded all the copies were destroyed.  Fortunately for film history, a copy had made it's way to America, so the movie was saved and so is able to be enjoyed today.

So, why Nosferatu when the main vampires name is Orlok?  Well a little bit of reading tells me that Nosferatu is a Romanian word synomymous with Vampire and with the location being Transylvania... there you go!

Our movie starts depicting the happy relationship between our star Thomas Hutter and his beautiful wife Ellen.  They have a very simple relationship, one that shows an almost dependence upon one another, so when Hutters boss Knock sends him to Transylvania to secure a sale with a new customer, Count Orlok, Ellen is unsure and reluctant for Hutter to go.  Of course he doesn't have an option but to go, even with the reputation the place has of being full of phantoms and evil spirits.

Week 128 - Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)

Reviews / Author Comments due: 07/03/2015
Position on TimeOut list: 22
More Info: Wikipedia, IMDB
DVD: Link

Trailer

The Fly - Lisa's Review

I'll start this review by saying, I'm not a fan of David Cronenberg.  I did mention this previously in my review of Videodrome.  I did also state that there were a couple of his movies that I loved.   The Fly is, in my humble opinion, the best thing he's ever done.

I hark back yet again to my late pre-teens and early teens and beloved family memories of Saturday nights sat around the toploader VHS with whatever gem my dad had picked up from the local video store.  We generally ended up watching a horror movie and I very vividly remember my mums discomfort and embarrassment at some aspects of nudity and sex scenes in this movie.  Having watched it again a few times since then, I can see it is not sexually graphic at all, but it was certainly enough to leave me red-faced and have my mum reach for the remote and the FFWD button back then.

So, the movie... I will make no bones about it.  I adore this movie.  I'm a massive Jeff Goldblum fan.  Not only is he a wonderfully talented actor with an imposing presence, but he is absolutely beautiful with a voice that makes my lady parts sing!  Although he became much more attractive in later years, he is definately appealing in The Fly.  As the movie starts Jeff plays Seth Brundle, a socially awkward but immensely intelligent scientist, with a nervous tension that only comes with being an eccentric scientist.  I've always found this kind of character oddly appealing and Jeff Goldblum plays it perfectly.

Week 127 - The Fly (1986)

Reviews / Author Comments due: 28/02/2014
Position on TimeOut list: 23
More Info: Wikipedia, IMDB
DVD: 5 film set, with it's Sequel, and the original trilogy.

TRAILER:

The Fly (1986) - Will's Review

Not that long ago, I said that I enjoyed Cronenberg's more liner work, and The Fly is the perfect example of Cronenberg at his strange, but lucid, best.