Be Excellent To Each Other

I love vampires, and pretty much any story about them (especially written ones).
Except for Blade 3.

Scandinavian based vampire/zombie films I must get around to seeing:

1) Let the right one in (2008)
2) Dead Snow (or Død snø) (2009)

Anyone seen?

I'm thinking MarkG has.

TOP TEN THINGS NOT TO LIKE ABOUT UNDERWORLD

1. It's an action movie without a single memorable or even remotely interesting action sequence.

2. It's a monster movie whose monsters looked utterly shit.

3. The names. Kraven. Selene. Viktor. Lucien. Singe. Fuck’s sake. Did I blink and end up back on the White Wolf chatsite? Don’t vampires ever Sire – sorry, Dark Father – anyone called Dave?

4. The unrelenting po-facedness of it all. There’s not a moment in the film that isn’t played completely straight. There’re exactly no wisecracks or funny lines. There’s zero indication that this ludicrous movie takes itself less than totally seriously. There’s exactly one mood throughout the entire flick, so if you don’t like things grim, dour and portentous then you’re shit out of luck.

5. The quite staggeringly stupid storyline and the way that the film confuses “tedious, nonsensical, background detail and clumsy lumps of exposition” with “a plot”. If the filmmakers expect us to take this ridiculous storyline at face value (which I'm assuming they do because as alluded to previously there are more laughs in Schindler's List than in Underworld), then they really have to pull out all the stops to engage the fuck out of us. Bit of a shame then, that...

6. At no point in the entire film are we given reason one to give a shit about what’s happening to any of the characters in it, who are almost without exception either entirely unsympathetic or entirely wooden. So far as I can tell, we’re supposed to be rooting for Kate Beckinsale through the first two-thirds of the movie purely because she looks good in black PVC.



10. It spells "vampire" with a fucking y.

I saw Let The Right One In months ago as it was available in America on region free BluRay the same time it got a cinematic release here.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3817&p=230534&hilit=let+the+right+one+in#p230534

It is a beautiful beautiful film - not a horror film in any fashion I would say, but a lyrically mesmerising look at the concept of isolation, loneliness, friendship and trust and the title is a play on words relevant to both principal characters.

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel is not terribly good.

I thought it was ok. Not brilliant, but not awful either.

Anyone else like Van Helsing? I think it was panned at the time but I enjoyed it - it was like Castlevania:The Movie.

Yeah, didn't turn it off in disgust or anything but when it started out I was expecting a clever little story and then it all just turned to pish.

So you thought it was alright then?

To be fair, it was miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiles better than the second one, which made the first one upgrade from above average to good in comparison, in my internal reviewer's notebook. The second one was everything you've just listed, but times infinity. And pointless and stupid, too.

There were problems with it, sure, but Kate Beckinsale in leather. KATE BECKINSALE IN LEATHER. Christ, that director knew how to paper over the cracks. Sadly, her not inconsiderable talents were not enough to save the excecrable execcrb crap second instalment.

Didn't they make a third recently?

On sequels, I think Blade 2 is the only example I can think of of a sequel being better than the original. Other than Empire Strikes Back.

Anyway - top vampire film list time:

Blade
Blade 2
30 Days of Night
The Descent (it basically is)
Interview With a Vampire
Buffy (series not film, obv)
Nightwatch (it *sort of* is)
From Dusk Til Dawn
Ultraviolet (alright, it's a TV show without a film for me to refer to. I'm stuck now, I give in.)

Of course, all that vampiric good work gets undone by Twi-Cocking-Light.

Zombie movies - too many to list. However, I did see in Fopp the other day Diary of the Dead and zombie Diary. Have I misunderstodo or have the done Zombie Nazis meet Ann Frank?

Also - Zombie Dairy should be made, documenting the struggle of a farmer to maintain his organic certification from the Soil Association when his herd becomes infected by a stray zombie.

I want to see that.

Kalmar, you appear to be missing Lost Boys from your list.

Hmm. Good call on From Dusk Til Dawn , I'd forgotten that them vampires were certainly ones that gothemotwatarses wouldn't want to 'be'. MMmm. Selma Hyackekkekykekcakckekeck.

I enjoyed it the first time I saw it, then rewatched it with some relatives, and cringed with embarrassment at having said beforehand "yeah, let's watch that - it's a good film" and got glared at the whole way through.

"My Big Fat Greek Zombie"

The Descent isn't a vampire movie in any size, shape or form. It's still awesome, mind.

Near Dark is the best vampire film. The Lost Boys a close second.

The monsties are quite clearly vampire-inspired, though, as I mentioned earlier. Mind you, I only included it to bulk out the quite short list.



I've not heard of Near Dark, so will look that up. However, Lost Boys is totally Gayula, you realise.

"Mamma Mysentary"

Interview with the Vampire was one of the first decent vampire movies I saw, and I remember it fondly. Must re-watch it to see if it was actually rubbish.

Of course I realise. It's still awesome.

Near Dark = a bunch of hick vampires led by Lance Henriksson roll around the South in a Winnebago. You'd think a concept like that couldn't miss, and you'd be right.

I can't think of a single thing wrong with that idea. To the Amazon Marketplace!

Hang on, "clearly vampire-inspired" in what way? Do they do anything that vampires (Trad. arrangement) do? At all? Ever? Apart from live in the dark and eat people (not drink blood, you'll note)?

DON'T PISS ME OFF!
\

The Descent played on my claustrophobia something awful. I had to leave the room as I couldn't stand the thought of all that rock above them waiting to crush. Potholers are mentils.

Well, of course they're not *exactly* the same. Hence "inspired". They looked like the vampies form Dusk til Dawn, to me, and lived in the dark and et people.



Ditto. I've been potholing a few times in the larger well-travelled bits, with school groups and the like, and that was okay. But anything more than that gives me the heebies. Mrs Chris has been off-piste potholing a few times before with some mentalist potholing friends of hers at a place where they and some other clubs had a key to get in, and which involved watching the amount the water level was rising to make sure they got out before the flood water blocked them in, and that sort of thing. Proper stupid.

You got Shockered?

Supernatural is good for proper monsters, indeed. So was the x-files. That's dated terribly, and the over-arching plot was numbingly tedious, but its monster of the week days were great. Lots of ropey sci-fi serieses are good for unusual (so to speal) monsters. The bloke who vommed over people and ate their fat, and that tooms bloke who could stretch down chimneys and come to eat your liver. It's no sillier than a vampire or werewolf, and it's something different for a change. Hardly anyone gets vampires right, anyway, they all miss the satanic point.

I love the new glittery Vampires.

I saw two movies over the weekend.

The Sound of Music - Little-known tale of nuns who help navy chap find love and evade Nazis through the power of song.

B.T.K. - Kane "Jason Voorhees" Hodder stars in this movie loosely based on the real-life serial killer. Wasn't expecting much from Hodder, as I'd never heard him talk on screen before, but he puts in a decent performance in this pretty average, very low budget direct-to-video fare. I mean, it's no Zodiac or anything, but it's not down there with Ulli Lommel. (Not that I've seen Lommel's B.T.K. movie, but his Black Dahlia movie is by far and away the worst film I've seen in my life. Seriously. I dare you to watch it all the way through in one sitting. I fucking dare you.)

Bourne.

Evil Dead 2

Zardoz always says Evil Dead 2 is better than the first one. I should probably watch it soon before he asplodes.

Hmmm. Maybe, but it would only be marginal. All three were Something Special.

Fuck off. The second one was a decent script ruined by the fact that the cameramen were all quite clearly in the middle of epileptic episodes for the entire thing. Two of the main scenes - the fight with the russian (german?) guy and the car chase in the tunnel were impossible to follow and just left you with a nasty headache. Worst example of trendy shakycam filming I've ever seen.

Terminator 2.

Superman 2.

X-men 2.

Dawn of the Dead

What? That "quite clearly a filler between two other films in a franchise" piece of nothing was better than the original?

My problem with The Descent was that despite the main characters being a group of pretty women - I still wanted them all to die horribly.

I agree and disagree with this. I agree because the first time I watched it and it's subsequent sequel I found the over-edited shaky camera work to be excluding rather than engaging - however, on subsequent viewings it becomes easier and the films are good enough to warrant repeated viewings, so I disagree with the film being ruined.

It is a matter that editing is tricky, very tricky to get right and it's all too easy to get too close to something when you've seen it probably thousands of times in the process of cutting it. But with Bourne, overwhelming as it first feels, it does get better if you watch it again. The arguments on whether that's a good thing or not is one that could go on for some time.

Also, Superman II is much better than the first one. Godfather II is better than the first one.

To be fair, if you had to watch it again because the camerawork meant you couldn't take it in properly the first time, the camerawork was shit. I don't watch films twice to make up for the director's failings.

Can you actually say that there was any aspect of the camerawork that improved the film?

Saw Night of the Hunter last night.

Yeah, it's still in my top five films list. Mother Goose meets Tim Burton meets the bible meets Cape Fear meets David Lynch.

Alien.
Godfather.
Bill & Ted.
Back To The Future (maybe, not sure).
Star Trek.
Mad Max.
Night Watch (again, maybe).

On the other hand, I actually watched Cloverfield last night, and found it really quite good. I had feared that the handycam-filmed part of it all would mean a total inability to see pretty much anything at all for the entire film, but it doesn't distract from the rest of the film at all. Not sure it adds to it either, mind. Happy to have been proved wrong on that one.

I enjoyed cloverfield but couldn't get past the fact that he just wouldn't still be filming everything

Well true, other than the fact that he was quite clearly a penis.

Blade 2 was bloody awful. The second Bourne film was good - the action bits could have been much better, but as a whole it was neat.

I saw X Men 2 before the first one, and really didn't know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised, as it was great fun, with some really inventive tricks (Magneto and the grenades was hilariously evil), and some really brutal rampaging. Then I saw the first one, and it was okay, but ... well, there was a human frog, and we were supposed to give a toss about halle berry's continuing attempt to be an actress, and whatshisface waiting just long enough for it to be dramatic to shoot, for no good reason, and ... I don't know, it just didn't grab me half as firmly.

It's a pity they never made a third one. Yes, no third one was ever made. Of it.

No. It. Wasn't.

Really, it wasn't. Luke Goss FFS!

I really like Blade 2 also.

I fucking love vampires, though. I even read (and enjoyed) all of Christopher Pike's 'Last Vampire' books.

The best thing about the X-Mans is in the third where Scott gets exploded and no-one bothers even pretending to care, or even really notice. It's an otherwise dreadful film that shouldn't have been made and is in no way comparable to the first two, but for that I thank it (also naked Rebecca Romijn).

God I hate the Cyclops in the X-Mans.

Does the recent Nosferatu (the one about the filming of the original Nosferatu, that's got Izzard in it) count as a vampire film?

"Hi! I'm a vampire who dies in the sunlight. But I've developed a suit that lets me walk about in UV lights and the sun and stuff! I'll use it to deliver this message to a vampire hunter, because couriers or emails or the post are ... um... made of garlic. With that done, I'll go off hunting some super-vampires who are better than me in every way, but also share my weakness to sunlight, but don't have access to, for example, my UV-proof suit. I will of course leave the UV-proof suit at home for some reason."

"Hi! I'm a vampire hunter, and I know my assistant is a double agent. I won't use this to my advantage in any way at all, and will in fact entirely fail to do anything that would prevent him from getting me captured, and will instead hope that he happens by chance to pick up a remote mine I have the detonator to while I am in captivity."

"Hi! I'm a monster vampire thing hiding underwater. There is a vampire hunter standing over me and several of my friends, counting slowly up to a coming explosion that will kill us but not him. Instead of, for example, attacking him now and killing him, I will for no reason at all wait until precisely one second before his countdown finishes, so that he can strike a mean pose and look cool as the explosion kills us all. I am totally a tactical genius and a monster to be feared."

"Hi! I died when I was shot through the face by a vampire hunter who knows pretty much everything about vampires, and would do anything rather than see me turn into a vampire. Oh wait, I'm not dead after all! I will reappear and feature throughout the whole film, but will do precisely nothing at all. Quite why they even bothered bringing me back at all is beyond me, but fuck it, I get paid either way!"

"Hi! I'm the vampire hunter again. You know how I was becoming resistant to the serum that kept me from turning into a proper vampire? Well, I ... er... HEY LOOK A SWORD COOL"

"Hi! I'm the only other survivor of the first film, and I- [FOOTAGE NOT FOUND]"

"Hi! You liked the gun fights and swordy fun in the first film, right? Well, here's some ropey cgi WWF moves instead. That'll be eight quid."

"Hi! You know how the sun kills vampires, making it something we loathe and fear? Well, my script was written by someone with no imagination, so my last wish is to see the sun rise. It's a bit like a human wishing on their deathbed to be smothered with cyanide. How romantic. Also, you know how vampires explode violently in the sun? Not me! I flake daintily into cgi snow. Aww."

"Hi! I'm the super vampire villian that is in no way derivative of both alien and predator. But wait! I'm actually quite reasonable and have decent motivations and everything! I'm not the villain after all! Oh wait, that won't do. I'd best turn evil for no reason whatsoever so the film has an excuse to kill me off. Raaargh!"

Etc.