Wind River (2017)

This film was surprisingly good. It has Jeremy Renner in it as the main star and Elizabeth Olsen as a rookie FBI agent who is the closest agent on the scene and has been sent to check out a murder of a girl found on the snowy mountain of a native Indian reservation.
This film builds slowly to the climax, which is exciting and dramatic. Overall, quite a classic story and told in a pacey and stylistic way. Very heartily recommend this as a good watch.

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

This is one of those films that has been quite influential in the genre of horror by a director that has been influential throughout his career, Wes Craven. Like it or loathe it as a film, it has some pedigree. I have seen parts of it over the years but never really sat down to watch it from beginning to end and I'm glad I did because it is not a bad film overall. You have to accept that some of the acting is not great but move past that and it is an interesting little film. I watched it on the Horror Channel, as most of the films I review and because of that I might be missing some parts due to cuts but even so, I really like the ending. It's quite bleak and surprising for its time.

Nothing left to fear (2013)

This film tells the tale of a family moving from the big city to a small town where the father is to become the new pastor of the church. One of the first scenes sees the family pulling in to a farm because they are lost. One of the teenage daughters sees a farmhand bleeding out a sheep on the back of a truck. Still, it doesn’t put her off that much as she tries to pull him a few mins later into the film.
The town seems welcoming at first. However, there is a dark secret in the town. One of the family’s daughters is soon in serious trouble.
I can’t say I enjoyed this film very much, although it isn’t terrible. It’s just not very scary and nothing is really explained - maybe that’s what it should have been called!

Sad news of Emily Hartridge’s death

I heard some shocking news yesterday. A video blogger I have enjoyed watching for a few years was killed in a road traffic accident on Friday. Emily Hartridge was her name and she was beautiful and funny and a genuinely nice person. Such a shame and a terribly sad loss to everyone who knew her and those who thought they knew her through her open and honest and funny videos. She was in her early thirties and had so much more to give the world, such a tragedy we have lost her. Terribly sad for her family and sisters, who she was very close to. Such a terrible shock for them, a shock for us all but especially her beloved ones.

Find her work here:
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/user/emilyhart

Instagram and Twitter
@emilyhartridge

Stung (2015)

Started watching this film and after 30 mins or so, I turned off because I as tired and needed sleep. It wasn’t great and certainly wasn’t engaging enough for me to want to watch it all in one sitting. Over the next couple of days though I did find myself kind of wanting to see what was going to happen. A pair of young caterers were working on a remote country estate and guests were arriving as the wasps started to get bigger.
It’s a kind of monster horror film with big wasps with barbs that pierce flesh. Nothing out of the ordinary really. I couldn’t work out if it was all being played for laughs or not. There are sequences that are more light hearted than horror. Nothing I’d watch again but it was fairly entertaining mainly through the relationship between the young caterers. Not a scary film though.

British Summer Time

This weekend we have unusually hot weather from Europe, France recorde it’s highest temperature since records began, hitting just over 45 degrees Celsius. It is probably going to reach over 30 degrees here, I can feel it is starting to get uncomfortable and is only 9:58am.

I’ve got the garden furniture out and intend to be in the garden as much as possible, in shade of course.

The reason for this post though, is that during the summer I think the government (the nation as a whole) should compensate us for the rest of the year. Here is what I propose:

June and July - weekend extension to include Fridays (a 3 day weekend)

August - weekend extension to include Thursdays (a 4 day weekend)

These two simple change would, I believe, improve the health and productivity of the nation. I don’t believe we would lose anything by making these changes. They would give us more time to do stuff, without having to rush around in the hot weather. There would be more time to relax, so we would be less stressed and more motivated when we are at work.

The changes above would be much more useful and meaningful than the hour the clocks change.

Please, someon with any political power - MAKE THIS A CAMPAIGN PROMISE and I guarantee you’ll be elected!

Boogeyman (2005)

I watched this film this week and largely had the feeling it was. Fairly decent premise that was eventually let down by not being scary at all. I don’t think the actors were particularly awful or wooden. The story was just watered down and the psychological aspects of a child with night terrors was just not very scarily conveyed. Yet we all know that night terrors can be horrific for parents and children. I think one of the big problems with the film was that there was no real development o the relationship between the father and son. Yet we are expected to believe that a child who sees his father pulled into a closet at such a young age has affected him for the rest of his life. He seems to trust all the counselling he has had to convince him that it was just his processing of the trauma of his father simply leaving his mother - and not a result of the supernatural. Another issue is that, with a lot of Hesse sort of films, there was no explanation of what it was that was in the closet. It seemed to resemble a toy figure he had on his bedside table but why? Ultimately disappointing but I kept watching hoping for something interesting to happen. It didn’t.

Ginger Snaps (2000)

I watched this Canadian horror with a feeling of growing disappointment. I watched it through to the end though and have to say it felt like a long time had passed. I could have been doing something better than watch this.
It is a sort of a modern day take on the werewolf genre, with two sisters who don’t fit into the typical teen stereotypes. They make horror photographs with decapitated body parts. The sister who isn’t ginger is a lot more introverted than her sister Ginger. Something is mutilating local pets. Ginger gets attacked by it and gets infected. She starts to grow hair and a tail. She attacks a boy who fancies her and he starts to turn too. Her sister and her drug dealing friend find a cure and use it on the infected boy not knowing if the consequences will lead to death or cure or nothing at all. Fortunately, the cure works on him. Ginger eventually fully mutates into an animal and we don’t get to see if she is ever cured. Of course not, as it is the first in a trilogy of films. I am not going to bother with the others.

Easter Sunday 2019

The wonderful aroma of a fine Sunday lunch is drifting from downstairs as I write this post from my bedroom. Our guest, my mother in law, is expecte any minute. So, I’m snatching a few seconds to write this down.
Changes are sometimes subtle, since Valentine’s Day we’ve been regularly attending the gym we joined and to my surprise we have kept it up through the cold nights. My weight was starting to trouble me because I wasn’t eating well and wasn’t exercising and could not see the situation improving without taking action. We had been discussing joining the gym since November 2018 but had been waiting for the right time. I thought it was now or never back in February. I was struggling to tie my own shoes, bending down I could feel my belly getting I the way. So after two months of regular exercise and eating better I am happy with progress. I was over 75kg in weight and for my height that wasn’t where I should have been, my BMI was into the orange and would be heading towards the red if I didn’t do something to arrest the decline. I was also worried about the amount of sweets I was eating and diabetes. Now, my weight is 66.9kg, that’s almost a loss of 10kg. I want to get my weight under 64kg, so I still have some work to do but the great thing is I feel better. I can bend to tie my laces without my belly preventing me. I can wear shirts without feeling they are bulging around my middle. I can even get into and button jeans I thought were lost to me. So, I am happy with my progress!

Spring update

It’s been a while since I posted here. I haven’t really been watching many horror films this year, the films I’ve been watching have mostly either been on TV or they are on a scratch-off poster of 100 greatest films we bought my son.
My interests continue to be mainly music, video games and photography, a lot more on the photography side though to be fair. Films and reading have been the biggest losers in this. I also do more drawing now I have an ipad and the Apple Pencil.
During February half term I also joined a gym, along with my wife. We go to the gym 3 times a week and that eats into my time too. I don’t exactly enjoy the gym but I do want to lose some weight and I know that I have to go if I am going to do that.
I suppose the time I would have sent watching films is also taken up by watching concert footage of my favourite bands - either on DVD/Blu-Ray or YouTube.
Not much of an update I know, but there you go. The one thing I haven’t mentioned is BREXIT. There has been non-stop news coverage of it and I’m quite sick of it all. So I won’t bother saying anymore about it here. Suffice to say that a right load of bollocks is spoken on all sides.

Emelie (2016)

An interesting little film that I quite enjoyed. It concerns a baby sitter who a couple hire based on good feedback. Problem is, the babysitter turns out to be a total psycho. It builds up slowly and develops very well. I’d certainly watch this again and hav no problem recommending it.  Sarah Bolger plays the central character and does a great job. She doesn’t overplay the character and because of that she is more believable - a great attribute if you’re in a horror film.

Happy New Year

The year 2018 is over and 2019 has begun. The weather is dry at least, so the year is not starting with drizzle as it has in previous years. I slept in, have been sleeping later in the mornings during the holidays so that will stop in the morning when I have to return to the work routine and have to catch a train.
I don’t really do new year resolutions but I do have plans for the year in my head, which I just need to turn into reality. It will not be easy to achieve some of the plans but some are ongoing things I just want to start and then keep up. Not giving up or slipping back are good goals to have for the year ahead.
I hope 2019 is a better year in terms of health for my family. There have been some setbacks and operations and treatments but I hope everyone gets better this year.

New Year’s Eve

Just reflecting on the season, the Christmas Holidays are nearly over and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I’m sorry that the Christmas bubble of present giving and socialising/drinking/indulging is over. On the other hand, I feel like it’s good to get back to normal life and living. We do over-indulge at Christmas, so you can’t do that for long without it having some kind of negative impact. I feel I drank more than I ought to have last night, for example, when we had friends over. And tonight it will be the New Year celebrations so I will have a new year drink as well. I’ve drunk a little Prosecco, a little Tia Maria, a little 43 and a fair amount of Carlsberg lager. That’s quite enough for a week and a half.

ATM (2012)

This film reminds me of the style of thrillers that have been made in the last few years where the setting is confined to one place and the situation keeps getting worse for the characters remaining. This film is a good example of these kind of films, which I personally don’t mind watching. The setting for this one is an unstaffed banking room in the middle of a car park. I don’t know why any bank would build one of these in the middle of a car park but that’s maybe something common in America? 3 Office workers, who just happen to work for a bank, stop off at the ATM to allow one of hem to get some cash to buy pizza on the way home from an office Christmas party. Personally, I would have told the idiot to get a cab. The other passenger is a girl that the other guy wants to ask out on a date and has offered to take her home. Instead of being a good friend, the other guy insists on being driven home and then insists on stopping for some cash to buy pizza, oh my God, why? It’s early in the morning. Hasn’t he had food at the party? It makes no sense.
So in the ATM there is a problem with his card and all 3 enter the room. Then things start to go bad. Between them and getting back to the car is a guy wearing a black coat whose face they can’t see. He looks mean and when a stranger appears walking his dog, this guy in the coat kills him in plain sight of the 3 in the room. This freaks them out. Instead of making a run for it, they stay in room. I told you it makes no sense. Things do indeed get worse as is the case with all of these sort of films. I won’t spoil it for you but needless to say that they don’t all make it out. There’s no happy ending, that’s a spoiler for you. I enjoyed watching it to see what would happen but a large part of me was frustrated with their behaviour.

Knowing (2009)

Now, this is a film starring Nichols Cage so my expectations were not high and I very nearly didn’t even start watching knowing that he was in it! Did you see what I did there? I got past my prejudice and started to watch. It’s a convoluted story about a school child who writes down a load of numbers 50 years ago instead of a drawing of the future (like the rest of the class), which all get buried in a time capsule. 50 Years later the capsule is opened and Cage’s son, called Caleb, is given the envelope with all the numbers in it. He takes it home wrongly. Cage as a father isn’t much good. He hasn’t got over the death of his wife and drinks heavily. So, what does he do but pick up the sheet of numbers and start analysing it! All night, he doesn’t even sleep. He connects series of numbers to major accidents that have happened around the world. It’s strange and hedoesn’t know what to do with it. It seems to predict something will happen in the future. He tries to prevent a couple of major accidents that just happen to be near where he lives. He narrowly misses getting killed by a large airliner crashing into the ground. Then he is involved in runaway subwa train derailment and crash. It gets worse but you’ve already probably lost the point. There is no point. The Earth is going to be incinerated by a solar flare and his son (with his new friend female friend: don’t ask!) are taken by aliens who have been trying to tell them the whole time. Fanciful, pointless twaddle. There is. No reason anyone should watch this film.

December update

I haven't really been actively watching new films for this blog channel, so there hasn't been a lot to post about. I'm not on a break, I've just put a lot of energy into other endeavours this year. It's been mainly photography of one kind or another but I haven't felt the need to post about that here.
At this time of year I end up watching films I've already seen, rather than new ones. I've recently  watched Gremlins, Home Alone, White Christmas, It's A Wonderful Life, A Night To Remember and Ready Player One. I'm sure there have been others but they come to mind most readily.
The last 3 days have been the Christmas bubble, so have felt a bit slow, vegetative and naturally full of just eating and drinking. My family have played Scrabble and cards in-between the TV programmes and meals. I must try to do something interesting before I return to work in a week from today.

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.

The Hexecutioners (2015)

I watched this film last night. It follows the journey of a young woman who is starting a new job as a euthanasiast. The film starts with a bit of text that says that euthanasia has been legalised and this sets the scene. So we follow the character on her first solo job and everyone she meets is creepy in one way or another. The patient she puts to sleep suddenly sits up, vomits and then calls out the word “murderer” and the patient’s husband grabs a pillow and puts it over her face. Not a great start. She goes back to her flat and her landlord is also very creepy. In the middle of the night she get up and opens her door to find him reading the bible loudly on the stairs. He tells her he has a message from God for her: that the people she puts to sleep don’t go to him. He tells her she has to leave.
The second part of the film has her team up with another euthanist who has been doing it longer. So they go to this mansion house and the rest of the film is set there. I do have to confess I fell asleep for some of the later stages in the mansion. I did wake up for the climax and it is good. Not a bad film overall really.