If you have watched it, pls tell me what you thought of it, Macabria.

Insidious – wow, this film exceeded my expectations! They already were quite high, because I had heard nothing but positive comments about this film, so I was bracing myself a bit for a disappointment, something which happens quite often when everyone is really positive about a film. It didn’t happen this time. This one is really scary! For me a film is scary when I hold my breath while watching or when I get goosebumps. And I did get them while watching Insidious, not only once, not twice, but somewhere between 5 and 10 times. That is quite often for me. The fact that I lost count says enough. The ghost appearances were getting on my nerves after a while and I was glad I was gonna watch Hellboy II after this one, so I could get some relief. The only drawback for me was the ending

Spoiler:

it was ending all well, which somehow felt a bit like a letdown, but since I was ready for a bad ending (for example that Dalton would never come back and that his father got lost too), it was a surprise too.

But all in all this is a minor drawback. Highly recommended!

Hellboy II: the golden army – not horror, more and adventure film, although there are monsters and all kinds of stuff which aren’t realistic. But this movie is not scary at all (of course). It is enjoyable, the storyline was interesting enough, although this could have been a bit shorter. The first film has much more happening imo, therefore the length of two hours is more justified for that one. However, for a sequel, this is one fine film. The stuff which is better than in the first film: less explaining, less lovestory crap, less mistakes made while filming. Stuff which is worse than in the first film: less stuff happening, a tad less interesting, less funny stuff. This is a film you can watch with your kids, too.

A Black Veil for Lisa – aka La Morte Non Ha Sesso. Massimo Dallamano made the great giallo Solange, and this one is one of his first films so I wanted to check it out. Unfortunately, it isn’t nearly as good as Solange. The atmosphere couldn’t really grab me for some reason, and the mystery wasn’t really mysterious, as it was quite clear how everything was set up. The giallo-esque killer was OK, but only a detail in a film which is mostly a crimethriller instead of a real giallo. The soundtrack is a bit unimpressive and I didn’t like the setting either. Luciana Paluzzi is beautiful, though. Acting is OK too, but I had expected more of this film and it didn’t deliver. Still Dallamano shows early signs of his later greatness in some shots which are nicely directed.

Parts – aka The Clonus Horror. This film is famous because it got copied by the makers of The Island. I haven’t seen that one, so I can’t comment on it. The storyline of this one is about some sort of a colony where youngsters get to do a lot of physical exercise. When they are deemed ready, they are shipped off to America. They are all very eager to go, so they perform at their best in order to qualify as soon as possible. Richard is one of the youngsters and by coincidence he finds out that “America” is not the promised land everyone is dreaming of, but a laboratory where they are being processed for their organs and other “spare parts”. Richard decides to escape and he ends up in a city, where he is able to tell his story to an old reporter. He also has a tape with him which proves the existence of the Clonus colony. However, the managers of the colony are not gonna let Richard go so easily. Cool film, nice atmosphere, the acting is somewhat so so, especially by some of the youngsters, but overall it is OK enough. I enjoyed this one, although it isn’t gory or anything. There is a light feeling of tension all the way through: you always get the feeling that the next person Richard is talking to, will rat him out to the Clonus guys. It is kind of paranoid in that way, well done. Recommended.

Shivers – early film of David Cronenberg. In an apartment complex, somewhat isolated, a tragedy occurs: a doctor kills a schoolgirl and then commits suicide. Research reveals that the schoolgirl was having a sexual relationship with the doctor, but the doctor wasn’t the only one having sex with her, and now a weird STD is spreading through the apartment complex. The victims of the disease have some sort of a parasite living inside them which makes them superhorny. So they show aggressive sexual behaviour and contaminate others through the parasites jumping from one person to another (although it’s not really jumping: the parasites crawl on the floor very slowly). Now another doctor and his nurse have to save the remaining non-infected inhabitants. This film isn’t scary, it is more like funny and weird. It also has that ironic touch which Cronenberg later expanded in his other films. I expected a zombiefilm and it isn’t really, but I still enjoyed it a lot: the parasites were SBiG and the message was all too clear. Recommended.

Binge & Purge – low budget weird film. It has elements of several subgenres, in short it is about this: in the near future New York has become a police state. In a murder investigation, two cops find out that a certain modeling agency has a special diet for their models: human flesh. So the models go out and lure for example a tramp back to their apartment and kill him there in order to eat him. The cops also find out that their chief inspector is corrupt and using coke all the time. In the end the two cops find refuge with the resistance rebels, but a police attack on their hide out results in a massive firefight. Are they gonna survive? The acting is bad: at several points, actors are looking into the camera with a look in their eyes, like “is it OK what I’m doing?”. Effects are bad too: while they are ‘eating’ someone, you can see them putting stuff in their mouth but never swallowing it. The shooting is bad too: there are guns which fire with sound, then without sound and then with sound again. The flashes are cheap cgi. Still, I had fun because it was all so stupid. So if you like bad movies, go for this one.

Merry Little Christmas – short Spanish film about abuse and trauma. It is very much in your face. Acting is great. I’m not sure why the director made this short, but it’s a nice little gem with a punch.

The Dead Zone – 80s Cronenberg with Christopher Walken in the lead. HE gets an accident and then is in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes up, he notices that he can see things when he touches people, he can tell them things about their past or their future. This helps some people, and after the police has sought his help in a murder case, it becomes too much for him and he moves to a different town. There he will cross the path of the future president, and again he can see in the future… Great film, acting is great, storyline is good (Stephen King wrote it) and the finale is superb. Also the personal struggle of John (Walken’s character) who has to deal with his missing 5 years etc, is portrayed very well. It is only slightly horror-ish, but I can still safely recommend this film to everyone here.

Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion – Ercoli giallo. Very stylish, not many kills (there is actually only one and it is off-screen), but the atmosphere is a bit uneasy: you feel the woman being blackmailed. This plus the mystery (who is setting up who) makes this an interesting giallo. The music by Morricone is great too, the only thing which this giallo lacked a bit were kills imo. So this is one for the fans of the genre, I think. The atmosphere is carrying this film, the acting is good too, the dubbing is a bit shit at times, but that is part of the game with giallos, I think. Recommended, just don’t expect too much action or blood. I’ll rip this for you guys in the near future.

The Brain – woohoo, a superb bad film! A cheese fest of the highest order! Some teenager gets expelled if he doesn’t go to see a certain brain doctor (played by David Gale of Re-Animator fame). This doctor, however, works for a shady institute (the Psychological Research Institute) which houses a giant brain which is out to control the world (yess!!). This brain takes the cake concerning cheesiness, it eats people and it runs around in buildings chasing our protagonist and his very 80s girlfriend. The film is overloaded with goofs: wounds appear and disappear, gore is sprayed on actors in a very unnatural way, there are scenes where tools are lying around, but you only see them in shots from above: the shots from the side show empty surroundings. And these are only the goofs without the Brain on screen. And I’m certain I missed some, as there were so many. Highly recommended for bad moviefans, one of the best bad movies I have seen in 2012. I’ll rip this one soon, too.

Night of the Living Dead – this is the 1990 remake by Tom Savini. Tom’s being so close to Romero makes it so that this remake is very true to the original. It has been pimped to the 90s, so it doesn’t look as outdated as the 1968 film. There isn’t so much gore, but the zombie make up is great. The story goes almost 100% like the original, but the ending is different, and I liked that one. Not a total surprise, but still nice. For a remake this is pretty good and if this were to be the first NOTLD I’d have enjoyed it too. I just doubt if it would have become a classic like the original, but that’s something we will never know. Good zombiefilm, recommended.

Hidden - aka Skjult. Norwegian horror with a lot of atmosphere and mystery/suspense. A guy named Kai returns home after 19 years because his abusive mother has died and he has inherited her house and all belongings in it. Kai is gonna check out the house, but visions from the past keep haunting him: from time to time he sees his mother again, or he finds mysterious stuff like a little red ball of which he doesn't know to whom it belongs or why it is in the house. Because the house spooks Kai, he is gonna stay in the local hotel where the employee is acting strangely towards Kai. The next day it turns out that a young couple has disappeared, and now stuff is starting to come together for Kai and the rest of the villagers. Like I said, the atmosphere is what makes this film, and the mystery completes it. That's why the first half of the film is the best. Around halftime you know what the mystery is about and then the only surprise left is how the story will end. A bit of a shame, because the tension of the first half is gone. Still, this is a pretty good film and you can explain the plot in different ways, which is nice because it actually makes you think a little. Recommended, maybe even highly.

The Brain instantly became one of my favourite B-horror movies after watching it. I actually have it on DVD. The DVD is from "Hollywood DVD" and is not a shitty VHS transfer. Do you have a different version?

Hush (2008): A British low budget horror movie. It is about a guy that is replacing the advertisement posters at gas stations. If you ever wondered who is doing this, it is him. So he is driving around in his car visiting these gas stations. On the highway he is overtaken by a truck in which he spots a naked and enchained women in a steel cage. He starts following the truck... This one was quite nice. The editing of the movie was a bit odd sometimes; like blurriness in relevant parts of the screen. If this is on TV, go watch it.

No, I also have the Hollywood DVD disc. The Brain is now one of my favs as well, top 10 for sure!

Wings of Fear - aka Thy Kingdom Come. Crazy people have visions of the end of the world and their doctor doesn't believe in archangels and stuff like that, so she stays skeptical all the time. She tries to help her patients, but she refuses to go with their beliefs. A very annoying and wise-ass girl student is tagging along with her when one of hr patients, who refuses to go out of his house, is "seeing them" again. Another patient who is a friend of him and has the same dreams about arch angels, comes to the house too, so with his heavily accented Russian wife, his company is complete for the remainder of the film. Just before the doctor leaves however, there is a gory scne with a guy who took his eyeballs out. In the house everything is starting to go wrong: not for the characters, but for you, the viewer. Mistake after mistake is made, dialogue reaches unchallenged levels of stupidity and when there is finally (20 minutes before the ending) something really happening, the monsters turn out to be crappy cgi. It is nice goofhunting, as there is so much to hunt. A good film to check out with your bad movie friends and make a game out of it who can score the most errors. Very bad film.

Curandero - Mexican witchdoctor fights evil cult leader. Directed by Eduardo Rodriguez and writen by Robert Rodriguez (no relatives of each other, btw), this obscure film is very gory and entertaining. It is a mixture of a crime film and an occult thriller. The victims of the satanistic cult are totally ripped apart and that makes for some nice gory shots. The storyline is more crime oriented, with a curandero (= witchdoctor) from a small village, helping out a female cop from Mexico City to capture the escaoped lader of a satanistic cult. You get to see Mexico City's rough edges, and there are several gunfights and plenty of murders going on. The satanistic thing gives it an horror-ish aspect, but it is quite subtle, with some visions here and there. The plot, however, was quite easy to grasp and soon too. It didn't take me long to suspect certain characters to be involved in the cult somehow, too. Still, I enjoyed this for it's gore and the acting, as that was quyite well done. I also like the Mexican atmosphere, so that helped too. Recommended. I'll rip this baby soon for your viewing pleasure.

Sexykiller, morirás por ella - quite funny Spanish horror of which I thought it was a zombieflick, but actually it is a mixture of genres. There are zombies, but is also a slasher, a comedy and a science-horrorfilm (like Re-Animator or Frankenstein). Macarena Gómez can go all the way as Barbara, the sexy killer, and she does so in a great performance. I already knew her from Para Entrar a Vivir, but this is a totally different film, way more outrageous. I didn't really like the way the story was told (she tells a victim about her life in flashback), but apart from that this was one nice movie to watch. A lot of references to other films (Re-Animator, Evil Dead, etc) and some good and some lame jokes. Recommended. fuego has a good rip out of this one.

The Brood – somewhat weird horror from Cronenberg again. This time the story is about Frank Carveth whose wife Nola is under a new kind of therapy, called psychoplastics. When Frank is picking up his daughter Candice from a visit to Nola, he notices that she has several wounds on her backside. He suspects Nola, so he is trying to sue her doctor Raglan, in order to protect Candice. To make this a success, Frank tries to gather evidence, and in the meantime he learns more and more about his wife. When her mother gets killed, things start to spiral out of control and Frank needs to hurry in order to keep Candice safe. This film takes it’s time to let you know who everyone is. For a long time nothing special happens, after the first kill things get going a bit better. Acting is superb in this one, especially the doctor and Nola are portrayed almost perfectly. The ending is gross, I couldn’t hold an “Eeew!”. Great job of Cronenberg, especially the second half had me glued to my seat. Recommended, if not highly.

Dracula’s Family Visit – totally absurdistic Dutch film about a vampire family who get a visit from their aunt/half-sister and her spoiled daughter. What happens is nothing new: several people die by the hand of one of the vampires, there is some blood and some (small) mystery, etc. The way it is portrayed, however, is totally weird. Almost all sentences are proclaimed in an exaggerated eloquent form, which can make you laugh if you are into it, or annoy you. It made me laugh, and I had a great time watching this oddity. I never knew such humour was made into film in my country. I only knew about some absurd TV series, but I never saw an entire film dedicated to absurdism. This one is. A rarity, I believe, I’ll rip this one for you all too.

Deadline – surprisingly well made short. I didn’t expect much of it, as zombiefilms can be f*cked up badly, but this Dutch short delivered. It stars Cas Jansen, quite a good actor in my opinion, and he tells a news crew in flashback what happened to his gaming studio. The effects are OK and the take on zombies is not as unoriginal as in many other films. It runs for only 20-some minutes, so it can never be considered a waste of time. I’ll rip this one too if you want.

Swamp Thing - after making a few films which were quite harsh, Wes Craven apparently thought that it was time to make something for kids, so he made Swamp Thing. The cast is pretty well known, with Ray Wise, David Hess and Adrienne Barbeau as my genre favourites. The story however, is more a kids adventurefilm than it is horror. Ray Wise is a scientist who investigates plants in a swamp. After he and his siter have found a certain fluid which makes explosions and also makes plants grow in various places, they get overrun by an army of criminals who want to steal the formula of the fluid. In the fight, the fluid explodes onto the sacientist, turning him into Swamp Thing. Adrienne Barbeau is the only survivor of the fight and now she has to escape the swamp and stay out of the hands of the criminals. Swamp Thing helps her out in tight spots, and the rest of the film is about how the criminals try to capture Swamp Thing. It's all very cheesy, the monster looks goofy, there are many mistakes to be spotted in the film and the final fight between the monster and the main criminal is too ridiculous for words. I laughed a lot, but this can't have been the intention of Craven hen he made this, right? Nice for kids and for bad moviefans.

Videodrome - the last Cronenberg film in my collection which I hadn't seen yet. It is one of the best, imo. James Woods is the director of a pirate TV station, looking for weird stuff to show on his channel in order to draw a bigger audience. When he finds out about Videodrome, an underground-looking TV station where people are being tortured on screen, he is interested. He gets involved in a world he never deemed possible, going from one experience to another, ending up seeing his own girlfriend on Videodrome. This pushes him to go in even deeper and battle Videodrome until he udnertands everything about it. But that's easier said than done. Interesting film, very conspirational and in it's time supermodern in it's view on the world. The criticism Cronenberg is expressing through this film is very obvious, but also still very present-day. Acting is great, especially by Woods. Deborah Harry wasn't so good, but this was one of her first films. Interesting and entertaining, and some great effects: highly recommended.

The Roost - to be honest I had expected more of this. I had read that Ti West was making this as an homage to 70s films. WQell, there are a lot of bad 70s films out there, too. The film is very slow, it has many scenes with nothing happening in them and from time to time the image is too dark to see anything. These ar the bad aspects. The good stuff is there is some nice gore (although not very much) and the acting is OK, especially if you notice the fact that the cast is pretty unexperienced: there are several first timers in this one. The story isn't really intersting but the atmosphere was OK. Still, I had expected it to be more gripping. Not bad, but didn't live up to my expectations.

Closing in on the end of my horror/exploitation/scifi-collection. I tend to keep the best for last, but today I also watched some movies I almost forgot.

Seeds of Sin - this is one such movie, It is on a Something Weird disc together with The Ghastly Ones, a film which I wanted to have for my Video Nasty collection. Since I had already seen that one, I almost forgot that I hadn't seen this one. It wouldn't have been bad if I had missed this, because it is not a good film. The transfer didn't go very well either, as the sound is bad and the image shakes up and down from time to time. The story is about a dysfunctional family where the alcoholic mother protests against the fact that her daughter has invited the entire family over for Christmas dinner. The reason behind this, is that the daughter actaully is in love with her brother and wants to have incestuous sex with him. This does happen indeed, as is a lot of other sex: inbetween every scene with dialogue there is a sexscene. All the while, the family members get killed one by one. Some of those kills are quite inventive, but this movie is not really outstanding in any way. Maybe I'll try to encode this, so you can see for yourself, but I'm not sur bcause the quality of the source is so bad.

Scream Blacula Scream - the sequel to Blacula again has Marshall Williams appearing as the black dracula, which seeks help of voodoo priestess Pam Grier, because he has been awakaned by voodoo ritual and he actually wants to rest. Enough blood in this blaxploitation vampirefilm, but also enough 70s funk to enjoy, a good atmosphere and some beautiful ladies. It also has some nice goofs, like the policeman who gets bitten in the house by a "flying" vampire: the ropes are clearly visible. Very enjoyable if you like the genre, or if you're into bad movies.

Ilsa, Tigress of Siberia - nice surprise, this one was better than Haremkeeper of the Oil Sheiks, imo. Some genuine 70s exploitation, with torture (although not very much and not bloody at all) and sex, preferably in threesomes. And there is some real cheesy dialogue to go with those threesomes! The first part is about a Soviet re-education camp where Ilsa is of course the highest ranking officer. She treats the prisoners brutally, although not as brutally as she did in She-wolf of the SS. She also has a tiger in a pit which serves as a means of punishment for prisoners, quite original. When STalin dies, all guards and officers vacate the premises and the film jumps to Montreal 1977, where, according to the film at least, the Olympics are being held (in reality they were in 1976). Ilsa, not a day older than in 1953, now runs a bordello and she rules an empire of related businesses which she enlarges by literally eliminating the competition. By sheer coincidence she encounters her nemesis prisoner: a guy named Chicurin, who didn't break under her torture back in 1953. Now she ceases the possibility to get a second chance at him. In the meantime, the Soviets are looking for Chicurin by all means possible. The second half is more an action/thriller, and I like the first part better, but it still was quite enjoyable. After She-wolf this one comes second. Recommended.

The Serpent and the Rainbow - an intelligent horror movie with atmosphere. Wes Craven has made several very different horrorfilms and this one is no exception: it doesn't have resemblances to his other work. Bill Pullman is an anthropologist who travels the amazon and the caribbean. On Haiti he encounters voodoo and people who can zombify others by ritual and some sort of powder: le coup poudre. So this film has zombies, but not the ones you know so well from other films, these zombies are the original ones from Haitian folklore. Paranoia and claustrophobia

Spoiler:

when Pullman is buried alive

are omnipresent in this film. The secret police of Haiti’s dictator Duvalier, the voodoo priests and Pullman make an interesting story out of the weird atmosphere of the island and the mystery surrounding the zombifying. Recommended.

Now I’m gonna watch my last films…

My last films on DVD. They are all Italian, so I made it a bit of a personal event and had an Italian night. With a nice bottle of Chianti and a focaccia to the side, I sat down to watch my last three films on DVD which I hadn’t seen yet.

I Vampiri – the story behind this film is quite funny. Some Italian guys thought that horror deserved a chance in Italy, after Hammer horror started to become successful in 1957. So they hired Riccardo Freda to make a film in 12 days (there was only money for those twelve days). Because Riccardo was only halfway after ten days were over, they had a fight and Riccardo left. Now cameraman Mario Bava was seated in the director’s seat and he finished the film in the remaining two days. Although it is called “The Vampires” it isn’t a vampirefilm really. It is more a Frankenstein-ish film, with a scientist working on a formula for eternal youth and of course someone to try it on. The setting is Paris and a castle nearby, and they are linked because the niece of the countess in the castle is deeply in love with a journalist working in Paris on a series of murders. He isn’t interested in her love, but he is interested in finding out what’s behind all the murders. A bit mysterious at first, the story unfolds itself quite nicely and although I guessed the plot right around halfway into the film, I still enjoyed it a lot. Black and white classic look, this is the cradle of Italian horror. Recommended.

L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo – aka The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. The directorial debut of Dario Argento. Most people don’t know that actually Dario was a journalist working for a magazine, writing reviews about films he saw in the cinema in Rome. After a while he was asked to co-write for a film and he wrote for several famous films, like Once Upon A Time In The West. Shortly after that one he started to direct himself and this was his first film. It starts out in a classic way: an American writer in Rome witnesses a crime, but while trying to help, he gets locked in between two glass door-walls. Soon after, the police arrives and then Sam Dalmas, the writer, starts an investigation to find out about the killer. Of course the killer doesn’t want that and he starts threatening Sam. It seems a bit like Sam is better at investigating than the police, but together they have much progress and in the end we get a classic finale: the title is explained (like in a lot of Argento giallos the weird name has to do with a clue to find the killer) and we get to see how the plot was actually constructed

Spoiler:

and, as it should, we get a killer which turns out not to be the real killer and even after that we get one more dummy killer. I liked the plot, and it has been redone later in several other giallos “oh, so you were holding the knife!”, but there was also a tiny thing which I didn’t like and that’s the fact that the man who is almost killed, was wearing such a cloak-like outfit, and it was also a tad weird that he didn’t go to the police but instead chose to stay with his wife, which was very dangerous of course.

Classic giallo, very good. Highly recommended, good introduction to the genre if you never saw a giallo before.

Zombie Holocaust – this is the most campy film of them all tonight. This one was actually meant to become a cannibal film, and it’s first title was La Regina dei Cannibali, but when zombies became popular during the late 70s early 80s, it was decided to throw in some zombies. It is a typical product of Italian cheese cinema, as the set is the same as in Zombie 2, the music is mostly the same as in Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali and of course this last minute change with zombies to ride the wave of success of other films. The story is simple: in a hospital bodyparts keep being stolen and one day they catch one of the orderlies eating a heart. They chase him but jumps out of the window and dies. A woman who is a surgeon in the hospital and an anthropologist gets broken into (in her home) and her sacrificial knife from the island of Kito is stolen. So it is decided that a trip must be made to Kito in order to find out what this is all about. Arriving on the island, they meet a weird doctor and it turns out he is experimenting on people to transplant their brains into new bodies, thus creating an army of zombies he can control. The zombies look a bit odd, with weirdly rotting faces but intact bodies. The atmosphere of the film is that of a cannibalfilm and the zombies only play a minor role. Some cheesiness apart from the zombies makes this film a complete experience. Highly recommended for bad moviefans and for fans of Italian cinema.

OK, so what now? All my films on DVD have been watched, but that doesn't mean I don't have anything left There are the series (Masters of Horror and Tales from the Crypt), there is the cinema (I'm gonna go see Argento movies in the cinema next few weeks!) and there is the trusty HDD, which still has some movies on it which I haven't seen. Also, there will be new DVDs added to my collection. After everything has been watched, the new ones, the HDD ones, the series and all, then I start rewatching stuff. It has been years since I saw some films, so I'm curious enough.

Super 8 - when I read the synopsis for this one it sounded a bit like Twin Peaks to me, so I was very interested. Unfortunately, these expectations weren't met. The problem is, that the protagonist is a kid, and in Hollywoodfilms with kids as protagonists, you simply know

Spoiler:

that the ending is gonna be good/happy. This film is no exception.

The first half is very good, it's about a bunch of kids making a zombiefilm for a kids director's festival, and when they go for "production value", they witness a traincrash. After that, weird things start happening in their town: dogs disappear, the military shows up, the guy they saw at the crashsite is missing, etc. The protagonist starts to investigate with his friends and in the meantime takes his time for his love interest. After a while, the movie starts going downwards: the sideplot about the two fathers is rather corny, the

Spoiler:

alien they find is dumb, although the cgi is passable this time, and for the ending you'll need a bucket. It is megasweet and it is also a bit stupid, because when the alien was able to gather so much scrap metal to build a ship, why did he wait over 20 years to actually do so?

So, promising beginning, shit end.

Opera - this Dario Argento giallo I got to see on the big screen, and together with a fellow Argento fan and his friend we enjoyed it in a cinematic experience, with an intro by Jan Doense, aka Mr. Horror. This version of the Phantom of the Opera story is quite far from the original, but the main storyline has been kept intact. The biggest difference is that the killer now forces Betty, the opera singer, to watch his killings. The music was OK, I liked the contrast between the opera music and the metal/rock, although the latter was in itself not really good music. Some good acting (Daria Nicolodi) and some mediocre acting (Cristina Marsillach), great effects and camera work, nice atmosphere and a totally crazy ending make this a giallo worth watching. I had two candidates to be the killer and one of them turned out to be the killer indeed, so I got pretty close. I must say that it isn't as good as the 70s Argento films, but it is among the best of what he made since Inferno. Recommended, maybe even highly.

Vertigo - by sheer coincidence I sat down to watch Vertigo and read on some moviesite a review for Opera, where the reviewer wrote that he had seen Vertigo earlier the same day and therefore couldn't appreciate Opera that well. Now I was watching those two movies on the same day too, just the other way around: Opera first and then Vertigo. I agree that the storyline of Vertigo is stronger, but I also understand why Argento is called "the Italian Hitchcock" better. The first half of Vertigo was a bit slow for my taste, of course I knpw it is a 50s film, but still. Everything happening could have been told in a quicker way. The second half is working towards the end and the end really surprised me: I hadn't seen that one coming. Only a good writer can write such a story in a convincing way, so hats off for the group (there are 5 guys in the credits) who made this. Acting is good, atmosphere is OK, it felt a bit cold to me, but that could be because of the Technicolor. If you like good storylines and don't need any gore, go for this one. It isn't a horrorfilm, but it has suspense and mystery to keep you interested untoil the final scene. Highly recommended.

Sinister - supposedly another modern horror-hit, with Ethan Hawke as a "real crime" writer who moves his family around to spots where crimes have been committed in the past which haven't been solved yet. Then he goes investigating and writing about it. He has had one big success in the past and of course he needs "just one more hit" to be safe financially and then his family can settle down for good. In the attic of his newest house he finds a box of home movies and he sets up the 8mm camera to watch them all in his room/office. While watching, he hears noises in the house and his son gets seizures. Tension grows as his daughter is making more and more frightful paintings on her bedroom wall and although his family is suffering, he is determined to continue to find out why the killer was filming all his murders, where entire families were killed, except one child. Everytime. The title is well picked, as the atmosphere is indeed sinister. The ghostly appearance in the 8mm films looks a bit ridiculous, and there are some weird scenes involving it which are not so scary, but the atmosphere makes up for the sometimes really stupid "scary moments". Acting is good, although Hawke is supposed to be playing a guy who is going slightly mad and sometimes the "slightly" is forgotten a bit, but maybe the writer/editor is to blame for that. The plot is no suprise, especially not for the seasoned horrorfan, but this story is performed pretty well and like I said: the atmosphere really makes this film. Recommended, just don't expect an original ending.

Berberian Sound Studio - since I'm an avid fan of Italian 70s horror, I really wanted to see this film, as it is about making those Italian films. More precisely, it is about the sound engineering of them. A shy Brit is coming to Italy to work with a pretty extravagant and sexist director on a film where witches are being sexually assaulted and pierced with hot pokes (well, you know the drill if you have seen some Italo 70s films). He chops vegetables and fries stuff in hot pans to make the sounds for the fiolm. In the meantime he has conversations with the voice atcresses who tell him all about the director and his first assistant inbetween the screaming scenes. Slowly but steadily, the Brit is growing weary of working on the film. The director puts him under pressure, but the Brit isn't taking it anymore. From this point, the film becomes very weird. I didn't udnerstand it anymore. What was the director (the real one) trying to achieve? Do we have to feel sorry for the Brit? Why is he putting candles? Did he kill everyone? I don't know. Nice first half, but the second part is for arthouse fans only, I guess.

The Woods – Bruce Campbell stars as a dad who drops his daughter Heather off at a private school in the woods in 1965. The usual school stuff goes on: a lead girl terrorizes the new arrival and the less dominant girls with help of her “gang”, Heather retaliates and there are girlfights and punishment by the teachers, etc. When Heather decides to run off, she meets The Woods, the forest surrounding the school isn’t gonna let her go. It’s evil presence even prevents her being taken home by her dad. From this moment on, Heather fights for survival. The plot isn’t original, and after 30 minutes I knew how this film would end. This takes off a bit of the enjoyment, but it still is a nice film. The performances are good, atmosphere is OK. Some of the effects could have been better, but all in all a nice pastime. Just don’t expect to see something original or surprising.

The Flemish Vampire – hahaha, I had to laugh so often while watching this that for me this is a comedy. The storyline is quite ridiculous to begin with: three djinns are chasing a vampire and after having done so for centuries, they end up in Flanders, where a father finds out about the lesbian relationship his daughter is having with one of her colleagues in a play which is called “The Flemish Vampire”. OK, so now we have some actors who can act, and some who can’t and sometimes it even gets a bit pitiful. Effects are almost nonexistent and the action is laughable. Audio is weird too, the volume goes up and down at will, sometimes even during a scene. Also, there are changes in time period: some scenes are in the present, some are in the 18th century. It is never explained why, and the changes between the two time settings is erratic. A very bad film. Only for the SBiG fans.

Eyeball – aka Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro. A not so good giallo by Umberto Lenzi. An American family is travelling around in Barcelona together with some travelling company. Some members of the group get killed off by a killer in a red raincoat, the same raincoat everyone got when they got off the airplane. Mark Burton is the main character, he is travelling with his mistress while his wife is still abroad. However, when she has been seen on the airport, Mark suspects that she might be the killer. The film is called Eyeball because e every victim’s left eyeball is stabbed or gouged out. However gruesome that may sound, the film itself is not as brutal as some of Lenzi’s other work. It’s quite easy to guess the killer and as a mystery, this giallo fails pretty much. The typical Italian 70s atmosphere is saving it somehow, so it doesn’t become a total waste of time.

The Hanging Woman – aka La orgía de los muertos. Released by Troma, but not a typical Troma film. It is actually a quite nice Euro horror from the 70s. Of course it has its flaws like other Euro horror flicks, but this one also has some stuff going for it. First there is a nice story, about a guy coming back to the castle of his family to claim an inheritance: this starts an intrigue with some murders and the living dead. Second there are some real good performances, especially by Stelvio Rosi, Pasquale Basile and Paul Naschy, who did this film on the side, while acting as a main character in a different film which was recording at the same time. Atmosphere completes the positive aspects of this film, as it has this nice and somewhat cheesy atmosphere which is so typical for Euro horror from the 70s. There is also bad stuff, of course, like the fact that it is supposed to be in Scotland, while it is obviously Spain we are looking at. Effects are a bit laughable, especially in the living dead department. But I thought this all was quite charming. It seems to be quite rare, this film, so I’m glad I had the opportunity to buy it off someone. I’ll rip this one in the near future. Recommended, especially for Eurotrash fans.

Hersenhonger - when translating this into English, it becomes "Brain Hunger". A 60 minutes project by some Groningen students, this has the typical non-funny low budget stuff (like the dumb Shaft impersonation), but also some nice jokes and a few scenes which were funny when you're into student's humour. Gore is decent enough. Nothing much to say about this one, apart from the fact that this is nothing you'll miss if you don't see it. It doesn't have English subs or anything, so it wasn't aimed at an international audience anyway.

this one was not so good for me. I liked almost all film, especially the atmosphere and, if you can say so, representation of the film itself. I liked how everything was going on, i liked all those paranormal searching things, but - somehow - i really didnt liked the last "journey" of that guy... So... i don't even know how to rate this film. Kinda good, kinda not so good . But, yeah, i would recommend to watch it at least one time.

Oh, hehe, I was actually aiming at E Tanta Paura, because you wrote that it sounded interesting

aahhh ok
i will watch it

Inferno - watched this Argento classic in the cinema yesterday and it was great. It was my favourite Argento when I watched it years ago, and it still is. I now have seen everything Argento made (except for some shorts and the TV series), and Inferno still is my favourite film. It isn't a giallo, but it is a very stylish horror, I love how he plays with colour during the entire film. Some things I thought were quite dumb, in character behaviour I mean, but I'm very glad I got the chance to see this masterpiece on the big screen. If you haven't seen this one yet, go watch it. Highly recommended.

I bought the Coffin Joe Collection 2nd hand, so when I got home I watched two films of it.

The Strange World of Coffin Joe - a trilogy of short stories. The first one is about a dollmaker, whose daughters are the target of the locao youth, but they have to pay a pretty high price. Good one, nice gore. The second one is about a guy watching a wedding, but when the bride gets stabbed, his real love surfaces: necrophilia. Almost arty how the necrophilia is portrayed here, you can nearly feel the .ove the guy has for the dead corpse, which is a bit creepy. During the third story I lost my attention several times, and when I was watching closely, it wasn't so good. I think I'll give it a rewatch. Very weird stuff. I had never seen any Coffin Joe films, and I have to get used to them. Especially the scenes in which a man tells stuff into the camera are boring and old-fashioned. Some stuff is really gross and there are also extreme scenes with violence against women. So, not your everyday stuff and I;m not sure whether I canr ecommend it, but I think I can. But it is very weird.

The Awakening of the Beast - this one was weird too. An experiment with drugs on a group of four people (three men and a woman) results in them having all the same hallucinations. This film was a 90 minute trip. I wasn't 100% sober, so I could get into it (although there were boring scenes inbetween outrageously weird stuff), but maybe it is worthless when you are. Not sure about that. The storyline only begins to really get going in the second half of the film, which I also found a bit weird. In the beginning it is almost like you are watching the wrong film. I didn't enjoy this one as much as I did some parts of Strange World... but it had it's moments too.