Cthulu

This is a modern take on the Lovecraft story - The Shadow Over Innsmouth, in which a guy stumbles upon a decrepit town of strange fishmen who worship ocean god Dagon. There's already a film called Dagon however so they had to go with his cousin Cthulu.

It's a first film written and directed by Dan Gildark and it's actually surprisingly ok if somewhat 90s music video towards the end.

Russell returns to his hometown after his mother dies and ends up staying for a while. His father is the (cult) leader of the local church and seems preoccupied with preparations. He runs into an old lover and finds a mysterious object as well as some mysterious fish men.

The most unusual thing about this film is the tender relationship between Russell and Mike. The strangest is Tori Spelling raping a gay guy.

NO - like recent Clive Barker movies but less terribly exquisite.

Tenderness

I hate this type of character that Russell Crowe always seems to play when he's not an alpha male - the older, paunchy mumbler.

He's a retired detective who is convinced that Eric, an 18 year old recently released from prison who murdered his parents and possibly another girl, will do so again. Lori, a lonely trashy girl, is obsessed with Eric and keeps a scrapbook of articles about him. When she finds out he's been released, she engineers a meeting with him. Russell takes it upon himself to keep an eye on Eric and follows them both on a roadtrip to nowhere.

Nice to see Laura Dern albeit briefly, she's great and so is Sophie Laub as Lori initially annoying, strangely unfathomable and ultimately just as much of a psycho as Eric.


NO - a cold but glossy indie

The House of the Devil

I've never heard of this film, got it off a friend who said it was too scary and they had to stop watching it.

On the night of a lunar eclipse, Samantha accepts a last minute baby sitting job for the Ulmers. It turns out they were lying, they don't want her to look after a child but Mr Ulmers' mother who remains in her room. Sam is suspicious but needs the cash. She orders some pizza and explores the house but starts to get more and more paranoid.

Director Ti West made a conscious decision to style this as an 80s film with clothing and music from the era. This is also apparent in the promotion from the 80s style poster and by releasing it on obsolete VHS however this feels more 70s to me. The main actress looks a lot like Margot Kidder, the pacing is slow and even the font of the titles seems 70s.

The build up successfully creates tension and dread but some of the satanist trappings - black robes, skulls, sacrifice in white are too passe to be frightening. The scares come from being sympathetic with Sam and good cuts (film cuts not cuts into people)

YES - it was a bit scary actually

Jack Be Nimble

How did Alexis Arquette end up in this New Zealand film from the 90s? and how does he pull off the a perfect Noo Zelind accent? my theory is he was having a relationship with Garth Maxwell the director who gave him the role as his actual acting is a bit highschool drama.

Alexis is Jack who along with his sister Dora were given up for adoption as children. Dora went to a nice older couple while Jack went to a psycho farm family who abuse him physically and psychologically.

Very gothic but not quite horrific. Best scene is Jack hypnotising his real father to death by making him do sit ups "hey dad why don't you do something about your weight you fat shit!"

YES - I can't get over how good his accent is, if you didn't know he was American you would think he was from NZ.

Until the Light Takes Us

A bunch of friends create an entire music scene.

Not from nothing of course, black metal was influenced by the thrashy 80s but in Norway during the early 90s something came out of the frozen forest - bands like Burzum, Emperor, Mayhem and Darkthrone.

The music is somewhat overlooked due to one of the guys committing suicide and another stabbing his "friend" to death oh and a lot of churches were burnt down.

A misguided section about some art guy who does a show on black metal which includes a gay performance art piece with Frost from Satyricon "I like his look" but I guess like any underground scene the media eventually gets hold of it, the fashion gets adopted and $$$$$ so hopefully these scenes are commentary on those inevitable aspects.

But back to the suicide and murder, let's put this in context,  plenty of people commit suicide and dicks kill their friends everyday over disagreements, It's not something particular to black metal music however anti religious sentiment is (anti religion means all religion including satanism) they're anti organised religion, especially those that force their beliefs on others - many of those stave churches were built by Christians over pagan sites dedicated to norse gods.

YES - these guys are artists not satanists

Deadly Friend

Paul is smart and nerdy and makes his own retarded robot friend BB, retarded because all it can say is it's own name "BB! BB!" and make stupid baby sounds which are supposed to be endearing but because it's voiced by a raspy old man just make him sound like a pervert.

He meets drippy Tom and abused Samantha and it's all fun and games until BB gets shot and Samantha gets killed by her father.

Luckily as well as studying robotics 15 year old Paul is also a whiz at brain surgery and ends up making a Samanatha/BB zombie which doesn't know if it's a girl or a robot and promptly goes on a murdering rampage.

There's 3 gore scenes which seem inserted ad hoc to make this a horror film but it's more sci fi and there's no sex or cussing so seems surprising charming.

Oh and this is directed by Wes Craven.

YES - the track playing over the credits has to be heard to be believed.