Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Viewings: August 2022

Did not expect to see Harry H. Corbett playing a serial killer with a bad toupee and pebble glasses in Cover Girl Killer, and neither did I predict liking a Baz Luhrmann film. Elvis is this month's favourite first time viewing and a great example of Industry Rule #4080. Also liked Ann Walker's twisted childhood drama, Celia and Barry J. Gillis' compeletely strange, Wicked World; the latter for all the wrong reasons.

Other than the news and weather, no noteworthy TV this month. Winner!

 

Film:

The Violent Years (William Morgan, 1956)

The Bride and the Beast (Adrian Weiss, 1958)*

Tread Softly Stranger (Gordon Parry, 1958)*

Cover Girl Killer (Terry Bishop, 1959)*

The Manster (aka The Split) (George P. Breakston & Kenneth G. Crane, 1959)*

The House That Dripped Blood (Peter Duffell, 1971)

Godmonster of Indian Flats (Fredric Hobbs, 1973)*

Theatre of Blood (Douglas Hickox, 1973)

Death Brings Roses (Jack Weis, 1975)*

Elvis (John Carpenter, 1979)*  

Stigma (José Ramón Larraz, 1980)*

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (George Miller & George Ogilvie, 1985)

Faceless (Jesús Franco, 1987)

Slaughterhouse Rock (Dimitri Logothetis, 1987)*

Celia (Ann Walker, 1989)*

Wicked World (Barry J. Gillis, 1991)*

Romper Stomper (Geoffrey Wright, 1992)

Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, 2022)*

Poser (Noah Dixon & Ori Segev, 2022)*

Prey (Dan Trachtenberg, 2022)*

She Will (Charlotte Colbert, 2022)*

 

* First time viewings.

 

Dada Debaser Notes:

  • Completely engrossed with Charlotte Austin developing feelings for her husband's pet gorilla, Spanky, in the Ed Wood Jr. penned, The Bride and the Beast. Shame there was so much stock safari footage serving as filler for much of the film.
  • Enjoyed Diana Dors' performance in the British crime thriller, Tread Softly Stranger.
  • Other than Luhrmann's Elvis, I also watched John Carpenter's biopic on the "King of Rock & Roll". Found it largely dull in all honesty, despite Kurt Russell's performance being good. The only other takeaway from the film was the creepy relationship between his mother, which I interpreted as possibly oedipal.
  • Should have included Faceless as one of Caroline Munro's best films.
  • Larraz's Stigma feels like two completely different films crudely spliced together. A real shame as they would have had far greater potential as individual pictures.
  • The mental gymnastics used by some folk into believing a tacked on Comanche dub for Prey would improve it is completely ridiculous to me. I left my thoughts on it along with musings on recency bias towards new films in a dedicated post.
  • Who would have envisioned Toni Basil from Mickey one-hit wonder fame as an Obi-Wan Kenobi style ghostly apparition in the demonic themed slasher, Slaughterhouse Rock? Nobody, that's who.
  • Barry J. Gillis' Wicked World displays such an incredible degree of ineptitude and stupidity that it ends up crossing over into surreal art house territory for me. Loathe the term "so bad, it's good", however, it's more than applicable here.

4 comments:

  1. How'd you find Romper Stomper on your revisit then?

    Movies I saw:
    Theatre Of Blood
    The Night Caller
    The Phantom Of The Open
    Nope

    Wish I'd have gone to the cinema to see The Phantom Of The Open last year during my embargo on Yank movies. Should have stuck to my embargo this year because Nope was definitely NOT worth seeing at the flicks.

    TV I watched:
    Corrie
    Match Of The Day 1 and 2
    'Allo 'Allo documentary
    Only Connect

    'Allo 'Allo documentary was the first thing I've watched on c5 since they cancelled Neighbours.

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  2. Really surprised just how well Romper Stomper has aged since its release. Enjoyed details like Hando's composure and stature changing as his gang progressively crumbled. The scene where he threw away the plate of pasta was hilarious. Is the TV series any good?

    Jordan Peele is overrated as hell. Liked Get Out, but everything he has been involved with since has been poor, imo.

    I think Hatching is out in September and I wouldn't mind seeing that again on the big screen. Also, really want to check out Saloum as it looks great.

    Found a HD rip of Class of 1984 on YouTube while writing that Underrared Psychopaths post. Should have mentioned it earlier.

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  3. Good find.

    Got my fingers crossed Hatching is on somewhere near me.

    Yeah, the Romper Stomper TV spin-off was surprisingly good. Set 25 years on and featuring Gabe, Cackles and Magoo from the movie.

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  4. Surprised Magoo survived. Wasn't sure if he was still alive after the Vietnamese mob zerged him.

    Gonna check out the series. Only six episodes, anyway.

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