Certificate:

Director: Ben Wheatley

Release Date: 2 September 2011

Tagline: They are bad people. They should suffer.

Main Cast:

Neil Maskell … Jay

MyAnna Buring … Shel

Harry Simpson … Sam

Michael Smiley  …  Gal

Pulp Fiction meets The Wicker Man and not in a good way. It’s bloody awful. No redeeming features whatsoever.

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

Certificate:

Director: Luc Besson

Release Date: 3 February 1995

Tagline: A perfect assassin. An innocent girl. They have nothing left to lose except each other.

Main Cast:

Jean Reno … Léon

Natalie Portman … Matilda

Gary Oldman … Stansfield

Danny Aiello … Tony

I watched this film shortly after it was released. I say “watch”, but I switched it off because of Gary Oldman’s excruciating and embarrassing over acting, amongst other things. So, “why?” I hear you ask, “are you reviewing a film you watched fifteen or so years ago”. Well, it was leant to my husband so I thought I’d give it another chance. This time I watched it all, and I still don’t like it.

A hitman (who is really a gentle soul at heart) ‘inherits’ a young girl who’s family have been gunned down by a team of corrupt cops. Not only are these cops inept, but they look pretty ridiculous too. And yes, you’ve guessed it, Gary Oldman plays the and megalomaniacal leader of this ridiculous bunch. He’s some kind of drug addict (prescription?) who, when chewing his pill behaves like Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs) on acid. I don’t want to spoil the ending for you (if you still want to watch it) but I’m guessing that women and children were killed during the finale.

Natalie Portman is excellent as Matilda, but the character is unbelievable and unlikeable.

Leon is cliche ridden and pretentious. It’s like the Beatles and Elvis. You don’t dare say that you don’t like them/him because everyone else are sheep and will deem you to be a tasteless being who is clearly from another planet. Ask yourself this – have you ever come across anybody who says that they don’t like the Beatles or Elvis? No, of course you haven’t. Unless you know me, that is.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Certificate:

Director: Giorgos Lanthimos

Release Date: 23 April 2010

Main Cast:

Christos Stergioglou … Father

Michele Valley … Mother

Aggeliki Papoulia … Older Daughter

Mary Tsoni … Younger Daughter

Hristos Passalis … Son

Anna Kalaitzidou … Christina

Oh my. What a film! Dogtooth is unlike any other film I’ve ever seen. I really don’t know how to review it, because it causes all sorts of conflicting emotions. The film centres on a family where the parents keep their children totally isolated from society and and do not allow any outside influences to corrupt them. The children’s ages are never revealed but, physically, they are all adolescents. They have very low mental ages, and are all all totally emotionless in the sterile environment. The children never question their circumstances as this is all that they know. However, the father regularly brings home a work colleague of his to the house to provide sex for the son so that his natural male ‘urges’ are kept under control. Unsatisfied with the emotionless sex, she approaches the older daughter for sexual favours of her own, and this is where the seed of ‘corruption’ is planted.

So, what are the motives of the parents? Personally, I was left with the impression that they genuinely want to protect their children from all the bad things in life.

Dogtooth contains scenes of awkward humour, but those moment always end with an unsettling feeling. Overall, it’s a fantastic film that captivates from the start. It’s not always an ‘easy watch’, but it is a unique one.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Certificate:

Director: Tom Six

Release Date: 7 May 2010 (?)

Tagline: Their flesh is his fantasy.

Main Cast:

Dieter Laser … Dr. Heiter

Ashley C. Williams … Lindsay

Ashlynn Yennie … Jenny

Akihiro Kitamura … Katsuro

Clichéd drivel. Two clueless American bints get lost in the woods and happen to find a house with a clearly demented owner in it (I half expected to have Riff Raff – The Rocky Horror Picture Show – open the door). All of the typical suspend disbelief scenarios e.g. the “why didn’t she/he do this, that or the other” and the totally ridiculous behaviour of the police (running about in a panic) and such like  were there.

It tries to shock and disgust, but it really does neither. In fact it’s all rather comical. I’m sick and tired of watching horror films that have big build ups but fail to deliver. Watch South Park‘s “The Human CentiPad”. Accepting ‘Terms and Conditions’ will never be the same again!

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Certificate:

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Release Date: 18 May 2001

Tagline: Love. Betrayal. Death.

Main Cast:

Emilio Echevarría … El Chivo

Gael García Bernal … Octavio (as Gael García)

Goya Toledo … Valeria

An absolute must see. It’s wonderful on so many layers, that to reveal any of them would be wrong. Watch it and observe all the details. The way that all three stories are linked is sublime. Cinema at its best.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Certificate:

Director: Zack Snyder

Release Date: 6 March 2009

Tagline: This city is afraid of me. I’ve seen its true face.

Main Cast:

Malin Akerman … Laurie Jupiter / Silk Spectre II

Billy Crudup … Jon Osterman / Dr. Manhattan

Matthew Goode … Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias

I watched the first seventy minutes of this and then switched it off. It is so incredibly boring I think that only fans of the comic will appreciate it.

Can’t say any more than that.

Rating: 0.5 out of 5 stars

Certificate:

Director: Niels Arden Oplev

Release Date: 12 March 2010

Main Cast:

Michael Nyqvist … Mikael Blomkvist

Noomi Rapace … Lisbeth Salander

Lena Endre … Erika Berger

Sven-Bertil Taube … Henrik Vanger

This is an absolute cracker. An adult, engrossing and thrilling film that does not fail to deliver. It’s absolutely brilliant on every level, and if you are a film lover, then you need to see it.

I really can’t give anything away, but the story is about how, forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs the disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, ruthless computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate.

Fantastic. What are you waiting for – watch it now!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Certificate:

Directors: Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza

Release Date: 28 May 2010

Tagline: Fear revisited.

Main Cast:

Jonathan Mellor … Dr Owen

Óscar Zafra … Jefe (as Oscar Sánchez Zafra)

Ariel Casas … Larra

Alejandro Casaseca … Martos

Pablo Rosso … Rosso

Pep Molina … Padre Jennifer

[REC] 2 is an absolute corker of a sequel. It follows on directly from [REC] and is just as creepy and scary as the first. The story takes a really interesting twist and also leaves a loose ending, so we may be in for a trilogy. There’s nothing really to review, because you have to see the first one as 2 would make no sense on its own. If you liked the first, then you’ll love the sequel.

Bloody marvellous!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Certificate:

Director: David Slade

Release Date: 16 June 2006

Tagline: Strangers shouldn’t talk to little girls.

Main Cast:

Patrick Wilson … Jeff Kohlver

Ellen Page … Hayley Stark

I can suspend disbelief, and I can just about cope with a plot hole (as long as it’s not a major one).  But these conditions apply only to otherwise great films. Hard Candy, however, is not a great film.

It’s totally unbelievable and ridiculous. If you couldn’t give a monkey’s toss about realism, then you might enjoy this. It feels like it wants to be intelligent torture porn, but the reality is that it is neither. Having said that though, I felt a bit tortured watching it.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Certificate:

Director: Christian Alvart

Release Date: 17 November 2006

Tagline: The Good is the Evil in it.

Main Cast:

Norman Reedus … Polizist Schmitz

Christian von Aster … Polizist Wagner

André Hennicke … Gabriel Engel

Antibodies is the thinking man’s Silence of the Lambs. It’s a quiet paced drama that gets slowly murkier and the lines between good and evil get somewhat blurred. It’s a far darker story than the above, and is, in my opinion, better. Don’t get me wrong – I really liked Lambs, but it was undoubtedly ‘Hollywood’. Antibodies is a far more disturbing experience. I like disturbing films. They really get under your skin and make you question not only life in general, but also aspects of yourself.

Can’t say much else really, as to do so would spoil the film.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a very good film and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars