Philhelm Scream

Source Horror is a cheap and easy cash cow to tap in to.  Although the sequel has been much better received, the original Ouija (2014) was panned by critics and audiences alike .  So why did one of the worst films of 2014 get a sequel green lighted?  Because it cost just $5 million to make and cashed in over $100 million in the box office.  Recent horror films in particular have come under heavy criticism for an over-reliance of jump scares rather than good story telling.  I love a good formulaic slasher just as much as the next guy, but horrors with a building sense of dread and unease can be a lot more rewarding and memorable.  As with many modern films, there is also an over saturation of remakes and sequels to already established franchises, or copycat films.  It's a tricky genre to do anything original with.  When the zombie teen romance sub-genre feels tired out already, you know you're in trouble.  When The Girl With All The ...

Source Tom Cruise and director Edward Zwick reunite after their successful 2003 collaboration, The Last Samurai, in the second of the Jack Reacher movie interpretations: Never Go Back.  If anyone actually got over the choice of Cruise to play Lee Child's title character of his long running novel series, they were left with a movie that had a lot going for it.  Unfortunately, it's follow up may have killed the franchise in it's tracks... [insert 'Never Go Back' pun].   Tom Cruise plays Jack Reacher, an ex army major who "they ran out of medals to give" but eventually decided to leave and live his life roaming the streets.  Never Go Back tells the story of his budding friendship with a current army major (Cobie Smulders), and his decision to go on the run with her when she is wrongly framed for espionage.   Source The books are a bit throw-away, but really good fun, and I enjoyed the two I've read.  Reacher's part investigator, part hard m...

Source When you’re buying presents for me, DVDs are probably a no go. There’s a good chance I will have it already, and if I don’t then I’m not sure the shelves currently bulging at the seams with DVDs would appreciate the latest boxset quite as much as me. For my birthday then, Charlotte carried on the movie theme by heading straight for Last Exit to Nowhere . Run by film enthusiasts, the apparel company revel in designing clothes littered in cleverly subtle movie references. Whether it’s a t-shirt with the Blade Runner noddle bar logo on, or a Bedford Falls (It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946) sweatshirt, the website is a paradise for film nerds. Below are the beginnings of my collection. Mighty Mick’s Boxing Hoodie Clichéd as it is, running of the Philadelphia steps and jumping around is right up there on my bucket list. For the time being, the closest I can come is wearing this really comfy hoodie with the Micky’s Gym logo on the front. Super subtle reference that will past man...

Source From movie reviews to film analysis, there is a huge library of content available on YouTube that I try to keep my eye on.  Here's a few of my faves. Chris Stuckmann The other week I went through a few books I had read recently , and Chris Stuckmann's list of must watch films from the 2000s and 2010s was on that.  As good an intro to modern films as that book is, Stuckmann's strength is definitely in front of the camera.  There are hundreds of people doing the same thing he does, but nobody quite as well in my opinion.  His passion and enthusiasm for films really comes across in every video, and it's clear he is genuinely worked up about good and bad films.  I found his page a while back when I came across his 'Hilariocity' reviews of particularly terrible films and found myself quickly falling down the rabbit hole of his review back catalogue.  His analysis is really accessible, and skits pretty funny too.  I often find some of th...

Source Directed by Fede Alvarez, Home Alone 6 Don’t Breathe stars Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette and Daniel Zovatto as three young burglars that pick the wrong house. Stephen Lang plays their apparent easy target: a blind man with a ridiculous Tom Hardy-esc voice, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash hidden in his house. Their new host manages to turn the tables though, and if you have seen the trailer you will know what I mean when I say that this is one of the most original concepts for a horror film I’ve seen in a long time. Source This was the third time my friend Eve and I had tried to go to see something together at the cinema. Hail, Caesar! (2016) didn’t happen when phone batteries and ridiculous traffic conspired against us, and The Usual Suspects (1995) didn’t happen when Odeon forgot to get the rights to show it! So when we found ourselves running nearly 30 minutes late in awful traffic again, we were close to giving up and banning each other from going a...

Source David Mackenzie continues to resist typecasting of his work by following up his 2013 prison drama, Starred Up, with what feel s like a modern western, Hell or High Water. The successful unearthing of scripts that were previously black listed seems to be a recurring theme at the moment , and it was Taylor Sheridan’s Hell or High Water that won the 2012 survey of as yet unpublished scripts . Chris Pine and Ben Foster play down-on-their-luck brothers who turn to bank heists for necess ary funds. Jeff Bridges plays himself a wisened Texas Ranger close to retirement who is assigned the job of putting their run to an end alongside his partner (Gil Birmingham). I had only heard good things about this going in to it and was gutted I had missed an exclusive preview a few weeks back so this is one I was really looking forward to. So often there are comparisons between the merits of modern television shows and films. Which is better? Obviously, both obviously have their merits a...

The summer I graduated from university I took the opportunity of a bit of downtime to start to work through those films “you need to watch.” There are loads of books and online lists of all of the films you need to see before you die ( one of which I really enjoyed working through recently ), but there are some films that find their way on each. I’m talking about those films where people’s jaws drop to the floor if you were to mention that you haven’t them. “OMG you would LOVE that!… HOW have you never seen that?... You haven’t LIVED until you have watched it,” etc etc. Source That summer I made full use of the LoveFilm offer of a free month’s subscription, and then eventually succumbed to paying for a few more. The idea of renting DVDs online seems dated already but at the time it was a great chance for me to get hold of all of the classic films I wanted to work through. I would have a list of films I ‘needed’ to watch and I would receive one on the doormat every other day...