Cronos - Will's Review

A good movie! That's actually horror!!! (Or deals horror themes at least - it doesn't induce fear, nor is it intended to). 

I'm showing my hand early again; I'm re commending this one, and I suggest you stop reading and go in cold. The only thing I will warn you about upfront is that it's a foreign language film (Spanish, on account of it being a Mexican movie) so give it a miss if you don't do subtitles. 

It gets labeled as a Vampire movie, and it's easy to see why, it deals with immortals who must drink human blood, get burned by sunlight, and can only be killed by destroying their heart; but I don't think it's strictly fair to label them 'vampires' as such - certainly it's like no version of the vampire mythos you've seen before. 

Jesus (no, not THAT Jesus; he's Mexican so it's pronounced Hayzuze) is an older chap, who lives with his wife and granddaughter, and owns an antique shop. One day he finds a strange clockwork device in the base of an angel statuette in his shop. 

At first the device seems dangerous, damaging his hand when it it activated, but he soon starts to look and feel younger. 

Things start to go badly wrong for Jesus however, when he gets mixed up with a death-fearing millionaire who wants the device for his own, and has been collecting angel statues in the hope of finding it, and only get worse when he finds that he has inadvertently made himself immortal. 

I really like Jesus' slow realisation that he was craving blood... None of that 'I've turned and shall go straight for the jugular of the first person I see' stuff here. 

Brilliantly filmed and acted, the only criticism you could level at the movie is that it's slow; however I found it to be an interesting, simple, slow-burn story, rather than the dull type of slow. 

I don't want to say too much more - if you've seen it, you already know, and if you haven't seen it (and ignored my warning to go in cold) I've said far too much already; so I'll mark this with my recommendation tag, and leave you to go rent a copy. 

Inferno - Will's Review.

This one's an Argento. And then some. From the primary colored lighting, to the score that manages to feature Prog Rock, Experimental Jazz and opera, to the bug that lets us know shit's about to go down, this week's movie has his fingerprints all over it.

That said, it does lack the batshit insanity of his Giallo work... Probably because of the mainstream funding (this one was paid for by Fox); this isn't to say it's entirely coherent ether...

***Spoilers follow***

Part of the problem with the coherency, may be the fact that it doesn't have a clear lead character; Every time you meet someone why might be lead in any other movie, they die. There is a guy who is in most of the movies final 2/3rds, but I'm, not sure he does enough to qualify as a 'lead' in any traditional sense.

It also doesn't have much in the way of a story - there's a book in it, which tells the story of the "Three Mothers", and this book seems to be of  interest to a lot of people, especially alchemists. One such alchemist, lives under a library that has a copy, but rather than just nipping upstairs and checking it out or removing it from the shelves, he seems content until someone wielding a copy takes a wrong turn and winds up in his basement, then attempts to boil their head.

There are also some pretty ropy effects, like a god awful "Death" costume which is clearly a black jumpsuit with a rubber skeleton on it, and a potentially hilarious scene in which a woman has (what I hope are stuffed) cats thrown at her is attacked by cats...

Sad to say it, because I do like a lot of Argento's work, but this one is a bit of an, albeit beautifully shot, mess.

Body Count: 9
Boob Count: 1 pair (through a wet shirt)
Animal Body Count: 5 kills (including one insect), 2 stuffed lizards on desks.
Most Memorable Death: Knife through neck - with a lovely flow of blood from the mouth.

---

Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.