Triple Bill Mini Musings: Ghosts, Pirates, and Boozers...

The Borderlands:
What's it about?
British 'found footage' style horror film about three representatives of the church going to a small village parish to investigate signs of apparent divine intervention. Is it just attention-grabbing trickery, or is there something truly otherworldly happening?
Who would I recognise in it?
Gordon Kennedy, Robin Hill, Aidan McArdle.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Found footage films are so played-out right now, and ghost stories have become rather over-saturated lately, however The Borderlands is one that's worthwhile seeing. Using mounted cameras in the two main locations, as well as head cams, the actors are freed of the shackles of hand-held documentary filmmaking that often feel woefully contrived in other films when the shit hits the fan. Furthermore, with characters that are actually believable with personalities worth paying attention to, and a genuinely chilling atmosphere, the horror works. Building up gradually over the course of the film, it's not interested in loud noises and jump scares - which is most pleasing - instead using suggestion and slight movements to get those hairs on the back of your neck standing to attention. Well worth checking out - in spite of a glut of spooky/ghosty/haunted housey and cheapo 'found footage' flicks out there, The Borderlands manages to find slivers of gold amidst the muck. Good.

Click "READ MORE" below for piracy thrills and boozed-up chums...

Triple Bill Mini Musings: December 2013...

Cloud Atlas:
What's it about?
Centuries-spanning sci-fi epic from The Wachowski siblings and Tom Tykwer that's pretty damn hard to summarise.
Who would I recognise in it?
Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant, Keith David, Ben Wishaw, Jim Broadbent, Susan Sarandon, and more.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Covering numerous intertwining stories that cross centuries, cultures, nations, genders, sexualities, race, and more, this near-three-hour venture is a tough sell from the get-go. However, the sprawling story is chopped up into constantly changing bite-size chunks, so you're always getting a new piece of information, and a different setting at regular intervals. Themes of imprisonment (physical, mental, or social), slavery, and good-versus-evil bind the disparate tales together, all of which feature the same group of actors in different guises. Actors swap gender, race, and colour, just to make things a little trickier, but at the same time surprisingly more cohesive than you'd initially think. Told across various points in history (slavery-era 19th century, pre-WW2, the 1970s, the present day, futuristic Neo-Seoul, a strange post-apocalypse, and then even further into the future), it's a heavy load at first, but the constant drip-feed of answers and questions keeps the film fresh and the pace moving forward. It certainly won't be to everyone's tastes, and while I was dubious at the start of the film, by the end I was won-over. It's strange, it's out-there, it's complex, but it's a smart and commendable piece of filmmaking that can't manage to reach the dizzying heights of The Matrix, but easily swats away the overblown funk of Speed Racer. Good.

Click "READ MORE" below for Compliance, and Seduce & Abandoned...

He Knows You're Alone (Armand Mastroianni, 1980) Review

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In 1978 John Carpenter's Halloween (following the likes of Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Black Christmas) popularised the slasher movie format to such an extent that a torrent of imitators would soon follow. Some became enduring genre classics like Friday the 13^th, while others were rushed knock-offs … He Knows You're Alone is, unfortunately, one of the latter. However, some of its cast members went on to become very well known – one of whom even became an A-List Oscar winner.

Click “READ MORE” below for the full review, many more screenshots, and to find out who the Oscar Winning cast member is...