J*A*S*M

God, I let myself be stirred again… A beautiful film, tailor made for cinephiles. It’s a little one-dimensional, but who cares when it looks so beautiful. And the music!

This was a flawless surprise that, considering my previous experiences with Troma, I certainly didn’t expect. It’s quite amateurishly made, but brutally funny from beginning to (almost) end. It doesn’t have much in common with classic Troma (it doesn’t have anything too nasty or vulgar), which must be the reason why I liked it. The songs are extremely catchy and some of the jokes (wisecracks, rather) almost made me fall off my seat. I have only one reservation: it could be 20 minutes or so shorter, because the ending doesn’t have any more juice. PS: What the hell is spadoinkle???

Beautiful and terrifying horror from Yugoslavia. Its poetic is quite different from anything I’ve seen so far in the genre, which means only one thing, that I will look for more old Slavic horror, because this one hit all the right notes. An aristocratic manor in a village, scary churches with graves, old women in shacks – just brilliant! 85%

A gripping prison action drama. I didn’t know anything about the plot beforehand, the high ratings and the country of origin were enough to catch my attention and I procured it without further questions. Cell 211 is a fantastic film with a good story, fast pace and excellent performances, it feels very realistic. Full of adrenaline, recommended.

Kick-Ass is kickass. The story is taken more seriously than I expected and it’s really surprising how the film holds itself together considering how serious and detached it is. You could praise basically everything, in particular the soundtrack, which probably is the catchiest in many months. After watching Shutter Island in February I thought that this year there wouldn’t be many films that good, I was wrong, there’s at least one. 100% PS: Watching Kick-ass with a moralist could be a lot of fun.

At times it felt more stupid, more annoying and more naive than the recent Legion, but whenever Christopher Walken appears on screen, the quality goes up. His mischievous archangel Gabriel is absolutely great. Good average overall that won’t take your breath away but won’t piss you off, either.

Nowadays, this take on the topic of a person trapped by a deranged family is relatively unusual. There’s hardly any blood or violence, and even the psychological terror is not very intense. The film focuses on character development, which is not bad for sure, but don’t expect it to meet the standards of the horror genre – it’s much closer to a grittier drama. It doesn’t get four stars due to the lack of pace and the excessive runtime.

Surprisingly, I quite liked it and I’m almost amazed. A disparate blend of haunted house, a cursed child and a mess without any fixed rules, and for most of the time you have no clue what you should be scared of and why. Miraculously, however, that didn’t prevent me from having fun and even have a pleasantly unpleasant feeling here and there. The child star was really awful, though, there’s no question about it.

Technically, it’s average, maybe even below-average, but its incredibly insane premise pulls it up. This film gave me a disturbing feeling from beginning to end, and I still have it now when I think about it. I don’t think anyone can come up with anything worse than the fate of one of the doctor’s victims. PS: I don’t even want to guess what Tom Six will come up with for the sequel (Full Sequence).

Unsurprisingly, Hooper’s first part still leads by a long margin (it couldn’t be otherwise, it’s one of the best horror movies ever), but this sequel is not that bad. The atmosphere is thick, the swamps and the dark forest work really well, and the occasional dark humour doesn’t hurt, either. Except for the ending, when “dead” characters reappear happily alive of nowhere, I’m very satisfied.