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What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)

El Páramo (The Squad)

I'm crap at reviews, but I enjoyed this in a non-taxing, slightly chilling way, which is what I was in the mood for.
 
Dagenham

Oh dear! Same technical and dramatic expertise that goes into GrimEnders. Terrible!

Now where's my book on English Kitchen Sink Clichés?
 
magneze said:
Ratatouille - quite entertaining. Made me want to eat ratatouille until I looked up the recipe. Courgettes. Bleugh.
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Boil em, serve with butter and pepper - that's how I first encountered them. Make soup with them, or stick them in stews or stir fry... very versatile!
 
Kaboom: A lightweight teen sex drama with some bizarro supernatural plot about cults and psychic powers clumsily bolted onto it. Not sure what it was actually meant to be about - teenage self-absorption possibly.
 
Natural World - Unnatural History of London.

Just brilliant; falcons, parakeets, crayfish, clever foxes, squirrels on chili, killer turtles and scary ass pelicans!
 
Just finished Spirit of a Beehive. Really enjoyed it. I like quiet films like this, where for everything said a thousand things go unsaid, spoken only in the looks of the actors or the mise en scène.

Very subtly subversive.
 
The Innkeepers: Slow-building ghost story that has its moments but not nearly enough of them. I'm surprised it has been so well reviewed as, to be honest, I've had scarier bowel movements.
 
Toy story 2. Loved the first one as a kid. I didn't see the second until last night. Didn't want to watch toy story 3 without watching the second.
 
The House Of The Devil: Written and directed by the same bloke (Ti West) who did The Innkeepers. It isn't terribly good either, although the first hour builds the story and creepiness nicely. After that it gets silly pretty quick.
 
andy2002 said:
The Innkeepers: Slow-building ghost story that has its moments but not nearly enough of them. I'm surprised it has been so well reviewed as, to be honest, I've had scarier bowel movements.
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This has gone from "quite liked it" to my favourite film of the year so far on a second viewing. Ultimately it turns out to be less about ghosts and more about the fear of your life getting stuck in a dead end. It's far better written and acted than 99% of horror films with three thoroughly believeable characters who I enjoyed hanging out with for the duration of the film. Its heroine is very much in the tradition of The Innocents or The Haunting and
ultimately it turns out that the ghosts probably only ever existed in a mind starved for a little excitement. She is the only character who sees any ghosts.
I agree with you on House of the Devil. Great first hour, but the climax is kind of tacky. I'm curious to see what Ti West does next though, I think there is a progression throughout his films.
 
Reno said:
This has gone from "quite liked it" to my favourite film of the year so far on a second viewing. Ultimately it turns out to be less about ghosts and more about the fear of your life getting stuck in a dead end. It's far better written and acted than 99% of horror films with three thoroughly believeable characters who I enjoyed hanging out with for the duration of the film. Its heroine is very much in the tradition of The Innocents or The Haunting
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The bit you've put between spoiler tags is very interesting and would make a lot of sense (it would also make the film a lot better). After seeing it I thought that there had to be more to it than what was there. I thought perhaps there would be a bit after the end credits that offered some context or even a twist and was disappointed when there wasn't. Unlike you, though, I didn't really warm to the characters - the girl was believable and just about likeable but the guy was a sleaze and the psychic unsympathetic.
 
A Swiss horror film called Sennentuntschi which is based on a popular Alpine myth which is in equal parts Pygmalion and I Spit on Your Grave. It's a little heavy handed, with an overbearing orchestral score and an unneccesary framing story, but it sets the tale in the 70s and makes it work both as a supernatural fairy tale and as a giallo style murder mystery. It may not be great, but at least it's different and melding the genre of the wholesome German/Austrian/Swiss Heimat film (a local genre which is a mixture of melodrama, and adventure always set in the Alps. The only Hollywood example is probably The Sound of Music) with horror elements, gives it a distictive feel.
 
andy2002 said:
The bit you've put between spoiler tags is very interesting and would make a lot of sense (it would also make the film a lot better). After seeing it I thought that there had to be more to it than what was there. I thought perhaps there would be a bit after the end credits that offered some context or even a twist and was disappointed when there wasn't. Unlike you, though, I didn't really warm to the characters - the girl was believable and just about likeable but the guy was a sleaze and the psychic unsympathetic.
Click to expand...

The guy ultimately is unlikeable. He is the second stage of a dead end life, in his thirties but still stuck in adolesence, with a crush on a girl much too young for him and making up fake hauntings for a crappy website.
The one moment where he should prove his love for her by sticking by her, he deserts her with catastrophic results.

I also have a weakness for films that turn from comedy to tragedy and this is ultimately a rather sad film.
Kelly McGillis is very good too as a character in the last stage of a dead end life, stuck in cynicism, mysantropy, fags and booze.
 
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