Lifer Movies

Title: Everyone Must Die! (2012) Rating: 2.5/5 Genre: Horror, Comedy Starring: Nick Lamantia, Nicole Beattie, Seth Gontkovic, Aleen Isley Director: Steve Rudzinski Duration: 71 mins The brother of a serial killer victim learns that his sister is only a small part of a vast wave of slasher murders sweeping across the country. Also in the middle of the relentless carnage are two stereotypical groups of inevitable casualties: the campers, featuring a white rapper named MC Pink, a hippie, a nerd, and a sourpuss; and the party-goers, made up of a jock, a rich girl, a preppy, a golfer, an egg fan, and other fun characters. No matter how hard the prey try to fight back, there appears to be no stopping the hooded executioner. Everyone. Must. Die. Everyone Must Die! starts where director Steve Rudzinski’s first film, Basic Slaughter (previously reviewed here), leaves off. Thankfully, EMD! is exponentially better in almost every department (editing, writing, photography, etc… all improv...

Title: Don't Go In The House Rating: 3.5/5 Genre: Horror Starring: Dan Grimaldi, Charles Bonet and Bill Ricci  Director: Joseph Ellison From the depths of the cult classic archives comes this forgotten gem, only recently re-discovered and re-released as a DVD for the masses to remember just why it got labelled as a violent 'nasty' at the time. And considering that this would have first found an audience back in '79, I concede they may well have a point; taking strong influences from 'Psycho,' in particular the mad man with mother issues, hearing voices and acting out as a result, letting poor innocent women get caught in the crossfire. But Donny isn't your usual knife wielding psycho, his torture as a child was always being burnt, and with her out of the way it's his turn to be the master of the flame, burning away the sins of others. Conveniently, it just so happens that he specialises in incineration as a career choice and it isn't long befor...

Title: Santa Sangre Rating: 5/5 Genre: Avant-Garde, Drama, Horror, Mystery Starring: Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Guy Stockwell Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky Language: English How on earth does one begin to describe the insanity this unsuspecting viewer just bore witness? Psycho on LSD? A love story between a mad man, a deaf mute and his mother? A hyperbolic metaphorical parable of the inherent dangers of religious fanaticism? Certainly they could all fit but none seem to do it a shred of justice. Written and directed by a Chilean man I can only assume is somewhat messed up in the head himself, starring his son as the mad man, what he's created is both brilliant in it's use of detail and symbolism whilst also being in a whole unique class of batshit insane. This isn't a Japanese brand of insanity where you laugh a little at how unexpected that last bit was, nor is it David Lynch's trademark 'this is going to make absolutely no sense but you're gonna c...

Title: Ugetsu Monogatari Rating: 4.5/5 Genre: Drama, Fantasy Starring:Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyô, Kinuyo Tanaka Director: Kenji Mizoguchi Language: Japanese When perusing articles on the subject of Japan's golden age of cinema – the 50s and 60s – one name that kept making an appearance, often more so than the world renowned Kurosawa, was the name of Mizoguchi, and after witnessing this masterpiece it's not difficult to see why. As was common for the time, much of his cinema harks back to the feudal era of Japan's history, the Edo period, filled with danger, samurai, retainers, shoguns, daimyo; plots of war and constant fighting for control of the small nation. Many great works from this period were really written hundreds of years later and immortalised in film, but it's in this well explored material that Mizoguchi manages to do something few others attempted. Rather than tell his tales from those with power, he tells his parables from the perspective of the com...

Title: Thursday Rating: 4/5 Genre: Action, Crime, Comedy Starring: Thomas Jane, Aaron Eckhart Director: Skip Woods Why this film isn't better known is completely beyond me. It doesn't look particularly low budget – though admittedly a lot of that's to do with the fact it doesn't do an awful lot that requires excessive funds – nor are the actors unknown, particularly not now that Eckhart has found fame in the Batman Trilogy. The only reason I could find was the lack of box office success due to only opening on a handful of screens, which seems like a bit of a stupid thing to do – creating a film then hiding it away from anyone – and in the days of the internet where forgotten classics are dredged up from the abyss as a matter of course, it boggles the mind that the Tarantino fans haven't latched onto this as well given that the similarities are there, particularly when compared to his earlier work, retaining just enough of a unique style to not be a branded as ...

Title: Cabin in the Woods Rating: 4/5 Genre: Horror, Comedy Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connolly, Fran Kranz Director: Drew Goddard With Joss Whedon assisting in the writing of this piece, and fans raving about how original it was, giving new life to the slasher genre and exclaiming how good it is but filled with twists, so they won't go on into any more depth for 'ruining it,' it's another that had a well deserved place on my list. I have a question for all you people worried about spoiling it though: were we watching the same god-damn film? The “big twist” emerges in the opening moments, leaving only one last tiny piece of the puzzle left to figure out, and lets be honest, that doesn't exactly take more than the first half hour. Don't let this detract from the film as a whole though; it is genuinely well done and quite original, but that's all because we know the twist from the get go, because the cliché is mixed in with the unconventional a...

Title: Chocolate Rating: 3.5/5 Genre: Action (Martial Arts) Starring: JeeJa Yanin Director: Prachya Pinkaew Language: Thai Yet another that has been sitting on the shelf too long; a film from the man responsible for Ong Bak, featuring an adorable little girl doing the ass kicking. Quite frankly I suspect a number of you need little more encouragement than that. For the rest I suppose I should get on with explaining what it's all about, as quite frankly the beginning is a little more confusing than it really needed to be. Zin is a beautiful women who happens to be the mistress of a big Thai Mafia kingpin. She can have anything she wants and dutifully follows him to all his “engagements,” largely consisting of removing limbs until people give him money. Anything she wants, that is, except for her Japanese husband who happens to be some sort of Yakuza working in Thailand or something, but that never really gets explained. We just get one scene later on of a grumpy old man surro...