David Brent: Life on the Road (2016)

I don’t normally post films on here that aren’t horror related but there are exceptions and since I haven’t been watching many films at all I thought this was another exception worth making. The story follows on from the TV series docu-drama of the live of David Brent an ex-regional sales manager for a paper supply firm based in Slough, Berkshire. David is no longer a manager and now works for another company called Lavichem, which I think is still in Berkshire but not sure which town it is supposed to be, maybe Slough still. This time the focus is on his attempts to make it in the music industry and land a record deal. He gets a band together, Foregone Conclusion II, and goes on the road with a friend who is supposed to be an up and coming rapper.
To cut the story short, there are few laughs in this extended piece. The formula feels tired and it lacks strength in the other characters around David, which was what made the TV series watchable. You could dislike David in the TV series and laugh at him, but here he is a sad and pathetic figure that doesn’t make you dislike him. You just feel a sense of desperate pity. I didn’t think this film was very successful, it’s a fate suffered by other funny TV series when they change to the big screen format.

Dracula (1958)

This is a Hammer Films production starring the enigmatic Christopher Lee as Count Dracula and Peter Cushing as Dr Van Helsing. I have seen this film a few times and still really can’t believe how old it is now, it’s 60 years old and still a great film. They have played around a lot with the original story to make it fit the big screen format. It is still recognisably Dracula though. I can’t imagine how audiences might have originally received it and whether they were frightened by it. I’ve never found the Hammer films very scary personally but I still enjoy watching them. Dracula is one of their classics, I can recommend this to everyone and especially anyone who hasn’t seen it previously.

The Driller Killer (1979)

This film is in the public domain and I watched it this week streaming over the internet. The reputation of the film in the UK is a bad one but I think it was one of a series of VHS titles that got labelled as Video Nasties which the BBFC cut or banned, I think it was banned here in the UK. I don’t know why really. The film is not as low quality and just plain nasty as I was expecting. It is based around a male artist who is driven mad and who goes on a killing spree with a drill powered by a battery pack on a belt. He lives with two beautiful women who are struggling to pay the rent. He hopes to sell a large painting for a lot of money to a gay art dealer and use the money to buy whatever he and the girls want. Their relationships seem to be bi-sexual. The art dealer hates the painting. A band move in downstairs and practice their songs all night so the artist can’t think straight. He resents the fact that one of the girls seems to be able to find some money for the rent from the husband she is separated from. The killing is the culmination of this downwards spiral, so I don’t think it is as gratuitous and as nasty as it was portrayed at the time. It isn’t even very graphic apart from one scene when a man’s head is drilled in to. Worth a watch if you’re intrigued but it certainly isn’t a classic or anything to get worked up about.