Reviews

Considering the director of this film has over 20 features under his belt and the experience of working with B-Movie legend Linnea Quigley, you would think he could have handled this textbook campus thriller with a bit more competance. Before I go further I must make it clear that I only came into possesion of this film for free, saving it from the dustbin at work. Having now seen the film I think the bin would have been a merciful end for this low rent attempt. The characterisations are thin, the acting is forced and appalling, the production design is very limited, the party scenes don't have enough extras and the plot is a pastiche of the Lost Boys, The Skulls and Scream 2. The plot revolves around a group of quasi-vampires who aren't harmed by sunlight and don't actually kill anyone, so there is never any real threat. Also becoming part of the "Brotherhood" is never really that bad as you don't have to avoid sunlight, you can go to college for you're whole life and you get to suck the blood of lots of willing women. Did I mention that the love interest is pretty minging and the geeky best friend is an all too familiar cliche. A waste of money and time.

In a word, wow! Maniac Cop one was awesome: great subject matter, assured direction, true excitement and Bruce Campbell. I thought I'd watch the sequel for a laugh and ... it too was awesome. Enter Robert Davi and some more great action and laughs. What's that I hear you say? A cheap eighties action/horror with an equal sequel? Well you won't believe this, but I watched number three last night and I was blown away. Once again this film is equal to the original, and also enjoys a new cynical humour which was great fun. In this movie the cops and reporters and doctors all have a really crass way of talking about death when Robert Davi ask's how his partner is doing he gets the reply "Put her in a rock garden", with her parents well in earshot! This kind of sick humour punctuates the impressive action and actually adds to the realism of the movie. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes to enjoy themself(which has to be everyone). Go watch!

Quite simply the best crafted film in decades. Memento is a pure example of slick movie-making. Forget talk of the story-telling technique being a 'gimmick'; why not tell a story backwards if thats the best way to tell it. The performances from the leads are restrained, but impeccable, the script peppered with black humour to add that gritty element to what could have been an over-stylised disaster. Nolan handles his second feature with great discipline and confidence for someone so new to the hostile world of American movie-making. Memento reminds me of the great age of filmmaking when a film was a combination of great aspects creating a intriguing 90 minute diversion from the world. The film of 2000.

This is a beautifully dark, no-pretentious chiller: the scariest and most affecting film since Nightmare On Elm Street. The story is intriguing and raises some interesting questions about urban legends, videos and reality/fantasy warpage; but none of that is the issue. It isn't the most original story in these horror-overloaded times, but the handling of the story, the tense lighting and the frankly terrifying finale kept me up all night. Just as with Nightmare 14 years before this grabs you and doesn't let go without resorting to just killing people off every five minutes, but actually scaring you - kind of a mix between the Exorcist and Videodrome; don't watch it on your own, and make sure you don't leave your t.v on standby after seeing it. 'Frolic in brine, Goblins be thine'

I'm not even gonna waste time on this one; it's not funny, not scary, practically unwatchable and only occassionaly gory(the FX suck though(no pun intended)). This is a disclaimer; WATCH AT YOUR PERIL! Ask yourself 1 question; Are slugs scary?

This is quite an interesting piece; fairly chilling for a kids movie. There are some enduring images amidst the sloppy storyline, but (other than the pre-pubescent nudity) for me youngster Patrick Ytting steals the show as the sadistic, cat-murdering, sausage-throwing, preist's son Mourids. I happen to be fortunate enough to share a few film classes with Patrick and live about five minutes away from him. Its quite weird to have a conversation with greatness(!) Watch it if you know someone whose in it and they are prepared to translate it for you, otherwise go for a better kiddy tale; like the Goonies.

This isn't really a sequel at all, its like The Player for horror movies. Once again Craven takes the horror genre and turns it entirely on its head as he did with the first Nightmare ten years before. Here he sets up the Scream franchise and in doing so the entire teen-slasher renessaince of the late 20th century. In short, Craven has made a lot of people a lot of money. More importantly thought, this is a compelling piece, that doen't match the first one, but is so far superior to the sequels that it practically ignores their existence. Langenkamp bravely plays herself and the connection between her and her on-screen son is phenominal and believable. From a sort of Omen point of view, this film is quite chilling and from a strictly entertainment point of view, it is quite cool to see Freddy return to his dark roots. In fact Freddy is pretty terrifying in this one, standing about a foot taller and built like an ox in a long, full length jacket. A great effort from the current master of horror, who has made one too many bad choices in his life. Riveting and one of the few, truly scary movies of the 90's.

The trouble is, by this time, if you've watched all of the sequels and are pretty obsessed with Freddy; something makes his movies strangely watchable. Don't get me wrong, this is the worst directed of the entire series, but it does have one or two okayish moments. By now, the story is pathetic; even the dream warriors have jumped ship, leaving a new group of ill-fated teens and a really bad twist about Freddy's daughter which totally kills the idea of Freddy anyway.

This is a dumbed down story from a zero-experience director with a few nice cameos, pulling it from the murky depths.

Like Freddy's Revenge, this sequel takes a pretty weird idea and doesn't go to great lengths to squeeze a story out of it. Basically Alice from number 4 is pregnant and her baby is haunted by Freddy which gives him an outlet to haunt her friends. This has the least deaths out of the whole series and the wise-cracks are quite poor, so neither the horror fans or comedy fans are happy.

I've not alot to say about this. It's moderately interesting to see the characters of Alice and Dan returning from four, but not worth watching a movie over. Uninspriring and unenjoyable, possibly only the competant direction saves it from being the worst in the series.

This isn't quite the sequel that dream warriors was, but the storyline continues with returning characters Kristen, Joey and Kincaid, back to Springwood highschool and normal life. Of course, Freddy's back to prey on them and all their friends. This was the most successful in the series at the box-office and you can see why. It is a pure popcorn movie, complete with the big soundtrack and high death-count; but also packed full of great one-liners. Helmer Renny Harlin said that he saw Freddy as the "James Bond of horror" and obviously wanted him to live up to this by having a payoff line after every murder.

The acting and story shift down a gear, but the entertainment shifts up and its nice to see a return to the suburbs. This is sort of an interesting article to what teenage films in the eighties were; it mixes the horror, high-school, sketchpad characterisations and cheese-laden music that made the decade memorable. I watch this film because it is like visiting a safe place from childhood, which I guess shows the weakness of the horror at this point in the series.

After the big disappointment of Freddy's Revenge, NewLine managed to lure Craven back into the franchise to give the company an idea. Bringing Nancy back makes this film eminently more watchable than number 2 and the introduction of Kristen (played with energy by the beautiful Patrica Arquette) was also a fine idea. Add to this solid direction from Chuck Russell and scripting by Shawshank Redemption's Frank Darabont and you've got an exciting and thoroughly enjoyable movie. This is the first one were Freddy cracks wise as it were, and while that added alot to the sequels it also caused a great problem. None of the sequels are really funny enough to be comedy or scary enough to be horror. Still this one balances the two paradigms nicely and also has quite a strong storyline. Its good to see early stuff from Patricia Arquette and Laurence(Larry!) Fishburne. The characters in this are well thought up and you do care about them, especially the mute Joey and tough-guy Kincaid.

A thoroughly enjoyable and generally good sequel that doen't manage to reprise the thrills and genius of the original, but is a good movie.

There never should have been any sequels to Nightmare on elm street. It was a substantial and scary stand-alone in the horror genre. Yet, greedy NewLine producers forced Craven to compramise his original finale to leave an open end and leave the movie vulnerable to a scarring case of sequelitis. Now I have always been quite open and fair to the sequels, because frankly, I think Freddy Kreuger is a great character, but this is a pretty fragmented, bad movie. The narrative of this film revolves around the nervous Jesse, who is being tormented by Freddy; but he never really faces any danger, just a Candyman-esque plot about Freddy trying to take him over and kill in the real world. Now, the first films premice was amazing; so why change the idea so much in only the second film. Surely we should have followed Nancy, through college perhaps (like in Scream 2), but instead this film scars the whole idea irrepairably. When we return to the original idea in number 3, the essence of the original is lost. Still, this one has some original ideas that would have been great in a different story; this needn't have involved Freddy, it would have been an interesting stand-alone piece. There's some good special effects from Kevin Yagher and some nice ideas, but the acting is poor and the good ideas do not link smoothly. This sits uncomfortably in the early half of the series. A big disappointment.

This is without doubt a phenominal movie that should change everything in, not just cinema, but the world. The whole film is a prophecy that reaches out to society, flailing in consumerism. The direction is perfect, subtle and uber-cool. Pitt and Norton both give career bests. Finally, Chuck Palanuk provides a source of unparallelled genius throughout. The first time you watch this movie, you enjoy it. It appears to be all good fun and the twist at the end is pretty stupifying. Then, maybe a few months later, you pick it up again (now well aware of who Tyler Durden is) and you realise that this truly is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. Not only are you over the initial spectacle of the whole thing and thus able to experience it at a deeper level, but the way Durden's schizophrenia is incorporated throughout the entire narrative makes you wonder how you didn't spot it before.

Now watch it a third time for true enlightenment. Gradually, as you here the dulcet tones of the Pixies once again, you realise everything makes sense now. That desire, that missing feeling you have felt since you were a kid, is suddenly satisfied, or at least identified. From this point on you can watch this movie again and again, and never get bored.

I think that Fight Club should have been shown twice in a row at the cinema, because that is the real experience. You look once and then you look again and it doesn't get worse, it gets better. In my opinion the same was true with The Usual Suspects and Memento. Both had shock endings, but when you have got over the gimmick of a twist you can really start to appreciate a classic like this.

For once the comic standout here is not Bill Murray. Excellent as Murray is, here, the real star is Jason Schwartzman. Phenominal characterisation as the kid who, might be in every club and admitedly is quite talented, but happens to be "one of the worst students" that the prestigious Rushmore Academy has. The dialogue that springs from this young man's mouth is hilarious, talking like someone of Murray's characters age, yet filled with an endearing niavety. The fantastical nature of this film and its superb direction and acting make it one of the more memorable teen pieces of the nineties and probably second only to Kids fro originality.

You don't get any more hammy than this. Amongst all the trash of straight to video releases, you ocassionaly find a concept like this. A guy walks out of prison, and heads back to school to find that cyborg teachers are taking the code of the classroom a little to far. Schools in many American districts are regarded as "Free-fire zones" and the police won't even intervene in the deadly gang warfare that ensues whenever school is not on. No one ever asks "Why do these kids even bother going to school", but at this point, who cares? This is a gritty view of the future, with the kind of ironic humour that has made Verhoeven millions, if he had directed this it would have been the next Robocop. The cast shine with the likes of Malcolm MacDowell, Pam Grier and Stacey Keach and in the leading role is charasmatic Corey Feldman-clone, Bradley Gregg. Everyone is having fun with this movie and it is this attitude that makes it so watchable. A pumping rock soundtrack including Nine Inch Nails debut single pads this out even further. Great lines ooze from the script; I'll leave you with one of my favourites: "I'm going to go waste some teachers. Who's with me!"

This is simply one of the most enjoyable films of all time. It is endlessly watchable because it understands what makes a film great. So many films in the eighties used the same template and placed wafer thin characters in the story which left them with a poor film. Midnight Run's strength is its ensemble of fleshed out, beautifully realised characters that make the whole thing so damn funny. You have interest in all of the characters, not just the main-men. Lets not forget the pacey direction, witty script and the raport between the two charasmatic leads Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin.

Often overlooked by the general audience, this film probably should have been the action/comedy of the 80's, because in my eyes it is.

Forget the Terminator or anything else, everyone knows deep-down that this is Arnie's number one movie. Beautiful location, meathead cast, macho dialogue all with a rather ingenious alien foe. This may be taking the Alien concept and I am a big fan of Alien and Aliens, but this is still a totally different movie and I think just a little more enjoyable than those two. As in the Thing, there is no messing about with romance here, just razor-sharp, boy's own, action plotting that we have come to expect from John McTiernan's explosive direction. The story is simple, yet endlessly brilliant and eminantly watchable. The film slacks once or twice and there is the awful Arnie one-liners which really stop this being a classic, but this movie macthes fear, action, comedy and most of all big, brass balls.

I'll always say it, but Stephen King's no-horror stories are consistently far better than his horror. This is a shining example of a great story with a great script, that doesn't have an ounce of traditional horror in it. King knows how to write real people, very well. This will always be one of my favourites, it is lacking in a few places, but it is so succinct in others that you can't really complain. It manages to get a harrowing, enjoyable, simple and beautiful story into 90 mins and is riveting to watch. No other movie has captured the essence of being twelve so well. Forget the Goonies or Home Alone or any of that other stuff, this is a kids movie and an adults movie at the same time. It taps into how you miss being twelve, even when your thirteen! The characters are seen at a time just before they lose all innocence; before women come into there lives and change everything. This is a movie that always brings a smile to your face and can be watched time and time again.

Gary Busey's career high as the insane "Masochist" with the irrisistable quote "More Beer!". Okay, this is a little patchy, but it's beautifully shot and has that old fashioned innocence that most modern teen films lack. The surfing rules and the leading trio is well played. Oh and I forgot to mention, the entire narration is by none other than Elm street's Fred Kreuger, a.k.a Robert Englund, which just makes it uber-cool in my minds eye; but I am biased. A great feel-good movie from when movies still felt pretty good.

Lets get this straight; I'm a Nightmare On Elm Street man, I always will be. Personally, I don't even think the first Friday deserves any merit. So I was unsurprised with the routine opening to this movie. The single white female, the lake-side cabin, the pointless nudity. The only redeeming feature at this point(well, other than the nudity) was that there had been no messing about with plot history, something which bugged me in all the other films. Anyway, so there's this naked girl walking about and you just know she's going to get butchered. Suddenly Jason appears, surprisingly the girl does the smart thing and bolts for the door. After Jason gives pursuit she dives over her car and heads for a clearing in the trees. Jason follows and as the girl hides behind a bush he is startlingly hit by huge floodlight beams, then a S.W.A.T team formulates around him, pumping him full of lead. My jaw is hitting the ground at this point, and the fun hasn't even started. Finally Jason gets blown into a thousand pieces by a rocket launcher, and thats it right? Jason goes to hell. Wrong. What follows is some of the most exciting horror/action stuff I've seen. Ignore the sticky back plot and just watch zombie Jason walk his way through about 25+ grisly murders in this action packed beauty of a film.

Well, let me start by saying that Gary Busey is without doubt, my favourite actor of all time. He has an everyman quality which no one else really posessed in the 80's. Don't get me wrong, I don't think he's Bobby De Niro, but he's cool okay, so get off my back. Eye of the Tiger, then. A highly enjoyable movie from a great director. Yeah, it has no brains and yeah, the plot fits on a stamp, but any movie with this theme music is always gonna bring a smile to peoples faces. There are countless great moments with the ever watchable, Busey and Yaphet Kotto. Admitedly, the pace does slack a little too offen, but the decapitation scene and the questioning scene rank up there with my favourite moments and it does have the best pull-focus of all time. Watch when you want some 80's action with a little more breeding than most.

Without doubt, the best movie of all time. Forget your Godfathers and your Citizen Kanes; this is simply the best concept of all time. Wes Craven deserves a Knighthood for creativity for coming up with the dream-stalker plot and Robert Englund should be the highest paid actor in Hollywood for his performances throughout the series. We all know that Nightmare lacks a little in presentation and acting, but Craven's resourcesfulness is phenominal. This is a premier example of slick movie-making, everything that is here is a necesity to the growth of the film. Just imagine Nightmare with the budget and studio backing of something like Armageddon or Titanic; people would have been terrified for years to come and we might have actually seen some decent sequels.

I have no wish to rant for pages on everything that is brilliant about this movie, there isn't space. But, I advise everyone who does not rate this movie to rent or buy it, forget Scream and watch it again. Give it a chance as a classic movie, not just "some dumb slasher 'pic". and

That soundtrack, that photography, that acting. These are just the standouts of a truly classic exercise in movie-making. A subtle, chilling biopic of Charles Starkweather, this is about as hip as movies get, but also has that strange old-fashioned feel to it. The films it has inspired, try to hard to be hip, this just is. Sheen and Spacek have never been better, Malick will never do better and no matter how many times he copies it neither will Tarantino. Probably second only to Apocalypse Now in the photographic beauty stakes, forget renting it, go out and buy it NOW!