31/08/15 Harbinger Down (2015)

Low budget cover version of The Thing.

Not as good as the original, much better than the recent sequel.

Acting's a bit arse in places, but ace effects.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3397918/
6.7/10

Perkin.

31/08/15 Pod (2015)

Man goes a bit wobbly in the head. His brother and sister visit. He claims there's an alien in the basement.

Twat!

Aliens should always be kept in the loft. Everyone knows that!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3541080/
7.2/10

Perkin.

30/08/15 Time Trap (2014)

A short Sci-Fi film that's well worth ten minutes of your time. Well made and great fun:

30/08/15 Hot Rods To Hell (1967)

Review to come.

And here it is:

Silly old film about a man with a bad back and a teenage gang in their '30s.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061784/
Nonsense/10

Mimsy Farmer? LOL etc.

Any relation to Sausage Smallholder?

"Fo' sure, fool, I got 'em waiting for you. Noe get yo' bitch ass here wit' my money!"

"Much obliged, Pimp Silverbeard."

This custom 'Vette and Ford are possibly this film's best actors.

This guy, seriously, is supposed to be a delinquent teenager. 

Fuck off, J. R. Hartley!

Looks like a squashed version of Jeff Bridges.

Perkin.

29/08/15 Cannibals And Carpet Fitters (2014)

Short film. Well made, occasionally amusing script.

You can watch it yourself here: http://www.cannibalsandcarpetfitters.co.uk/the-film

I imagine the director will go onto bigger things.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3425302
6.4/10

Perkin.

29/08/15 Wasteland (2013)

Mini-budget zombie effort that benefits from having a very good performance from the main player, but suffers from terrible hammery by everyone else. Also makes the mistake of continuing, on an entirely unrelated plot strand, for twenty minutes after it should've ended.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2352892/
4.1/10

Perkin.

28/08/2015 Big Sky (2015)

A girl is travelling across America with her mum for agoraphobia treatment when their car is held up by gunmen for reasons that aren't particularly clear but we weren't particularly watching as the film's pretty dull.  The moral of the story is agoraphobia specialists should understand their subject better and do home visits.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2689958

4.5/10

Podd

28/08/2015 The Dark Knight (2008)

There's likely a previous scathing Film Plop review but we folk at Plop Towers are apparently the only people on the planet who believe this film to be a sack of overrated old balls.  In the fog of meh Heath Ledger's Joker is entertaining in a hammy way but Christian "Whispering Makes Me Intense" Bale's Batman makes me want George Clooney to cape up again. Although Batman & Robin was nothing special it didn't take itself too seriously and it didn't have the entire world think it was a masterpiece of cinema. This film lasts for fucking days and although I was only semi watching Batman doesn't seem to actually feature that much. Does anyone genuinely think the Nolan Batman films are amazing or is it just because an iPhone app said they should? And what happened to Robin anyway? Not even a zero hours contract for the little fella?!

Dark Knight (Old Shite)/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569

Podd

27/08/2015 Tiger House (2015)

Boy meets girl. Boy dates girl. Boy accidentally shoots girl in the leg with a crossbow (as you do). Boy and girl are in his posh family home when it's raided by crim types. Not badly acted (especially by the standards of the old pony we watch) but beige.

5/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2911674

Podd

25/08/15

Happy birthday, Smalls!

24/08/15 7lives (2011)

If Hollywood is the western world's city of films, then London must be a small, distant village. Every village needs an idiot.

Anyway, this is a Danny Dyer film.

I'm trying to picture his face, but all I'm seeing is A pint of lager wearing a West Ham shirt, with twenty Bensons floating in it as it swaggers around telling people to 'Leeev it aaaaht, Shirley' and other such rubbish.

I dunno, the film's actually got an interesting idea going on and I'd be lying if I said it didn't hold my attention. So, yeah, not bad.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1558246/

5.7/10

Perkin.

24/08/15 Broken Horses (2015)

Some, critics have bigged this film up as a bit of a masterpiece.

Here's why it's not:

The plot. Two brothers grow up in a small town, the younger one is sensitive and upon reaching adulthood, goes of to live in the big city. The other, a rather lesser-witted fellow, stays behind and makes a living as a goon for the local crime boss.

Younger brother returns and infiltrates the gang in an attempt to extract dummo from its clutches. Along the way there's the occasional shooting and beating.

The main activity of the gang of bad guys appears to be, well, just that, 'Grrr, we're baddies! Be careful around us!'

Is there anything in that plot which isn't straight out of some piss-poor Stevan Seagal bollocks? This doesn't even have the comedy value of that mumbling, tubby pensioner pretending to beat up people much younger than him.

The acting. I think Anton Yelchin has been very good in everything I've seen him in, certainly the ONLY thing of merit in Terminator Salvation. However in this he spends most of the film squeaking a few lines of dialogue and looking like he's about to cry. The guy playing his brother is less like a realistic portrayal of someone with a limited IQ, and more like someone doing a prolonged playground 'spazz' impression. Vincent Donofrio's gang leader lacks any real sense of menace and seems rather portly and camp, like a redneck version of Uncle Monty from Withnail And I.

I think the relationship between the brothers is meant to be akin to Steinbeck's Lenny and George, including the sense of trying to avoid inevitable disaster, but instead... Fuck all this, the film's shit.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2503954/

3/10

Perkin.

22/08/15 Wrong Turn 3 (2009)

The first Wrong Turn film is the best. When I saw that again recently, I thought it was shit. Therefore...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1261978/
1/10

Perkin.

21/08/15 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

Played much straighter than you'd think. It mostly works. I mean it's shit, obviously, but fun enough in an undemanding way.

Abraham Lincoln is very nearly an anagram of Colin In A Ham Bra. Thank you.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1611224/

6.5/10

Perkin.

21/08/15 The Detective (1968)

The trivia about this film is that it was based on a book, the sequel to the book was the one that Die Hard was an adaptation of. Due to some contract law or something, Frank Sinatra, the star of this, had to be given first refusal to play John McClaine when Die Hard went into production.

I was going to say how different a film that would be, but thinking about it, seeing a septuagenarian in a vest leap off a skyscraper using a firehose bungee might actually have been magnificent.

Hans Gruber "Go and get McClaine!"

Henchman "How do we find him?"

Hans Gruber "Follow the trail of Werther's Originals wrappers. And piss."

Henchman "He's stealthy, Hans. Those carpet slippers make him almost silent!"

Hans Gruber "The creak of his hip will always give him away if he's close. Or place a bus stop somewhere in the building, people of his age seem to be magnitised to them."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, when the film's doing the investigative, policey stuff, it's pretty good, when it's droning on about Sinatra's marriage, it's boring. Also, it's possibly the only time you'll ever hear Ol' Blue Eyes say the words 'semen stains'.*

*Apart from his little known 1958 album 'The Mrs Is At Bingo, Break Out The Blast-Sock'.

Fucking hell, you've read this far? Well done, I would've given up ages ago. Such a load of twaddle.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062883/

6.4/10

Perkin.

20/08/15 Poltergeist Activity (2015)

A recently widowed chap and his daughter move into a haunted cottage.

Not on purpose of course, that'd be bloody silly, wouldn't it. Unless you were a hauntologist or something, then you might choose to move there. Although you'd also probably want to keep your hauntolgy to office hours.

Anyway, point is they didn't know it was haunted. They do by the end of the film due to ghost things happening.

It's a pretty formulaic low budget, spooky house (cottage) film, but the performances from Pops and daughter are actually pretty decent and they were enough to forgive some of the more patchy moments.

The post-credits sequence is silly bibbins though.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3231734/

6.2/10

Perkin.

20/08/15 Full Circle (2013)

Some idiot who delivers pizzas for a living finds a bag full of money that is related to crime stuff. He does what anyone would and keeps it. Memory's a bit vague, but I think we quite enjoyed this.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2375037/

7/10

Perkin.

19/08/15 Cop Car (2015)

Two children steal a cop car that they find out in the sticks. Unfortunately it belongs to Kevin Bacon's dodgy sheriff and so he goes after them to get it back.

Did you know that in Spain, Kevin Bacon is known as Murillo Jambon. In Germany it's Hans Speck. Italy its Vespa Pancetta. Among the vast numbers of Esperanto speakers, he's known as Nivek Lardo.

Not really.

Anyway, unusually for children either in a film or real life, the two kids in this are actually likeable, and the film's a good 'un.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3813310/

8/10

Perkin.

18/08/15 FPS: First Person Shooter (2014)

The first ten minutes of this, I was thinking "Yeah, this is fun. It's captured what I really enjoy about playing FPS games well, especially in the dialogue, very vintage Duke Nuke 'em"

After thirty minutes I was wondering if perhaps it might've worked better as a short film or high-end YouTube effort.

After an hour I wanted everyone to shut up and go home.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3530830/

3.5/10

18/08/15 Alarmed (2014)

Some young lady goes away on a boat, the same one that her family got murdered on or something. There's suspicion that she was involved in the murders at some level. Anyway, there's some ghosts or suchlike on the boat and something that looks like a microwave keeps telling her to cut her fingers off.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4205920/

4/10

Perkin.

14/08/15 Lawless (2012)

Film about some bootleggers during prohibition and the people who want to stop them. All things are where they should be but none of the characters are particularly likeable.

That'll do. Can't be bollocksed to type more about it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1212450/
5/10

Perkin.

11/08/15 The Last Dragon (1985)

Silly old nonsense about an ethnically confused young fellow who seeks a mystical producer of fortune cookies, a midget mobster/arcade owner with a wannabe pop star wife, and a local street gang who dress like the very gayest of Eurovision acts with a leader called Sho'Nuff.

One of those good old fashioned kids films where violence solves everything.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089461/
Not got a clue/10

Undoubtedly William H. Macy's finest moment.

Very threatening. Not gay*

*Gay.

I meditate just like this before writing these reviews.

Nah, not really, I just type whatever old shit falls out.

"Looking good, Terry. Been hittin' the weights?"

"Nah, just the butter."

I won't go into another boring drone about how crap the '80s were.

They weren't fun, just embarrassing and shit.

The inspiration for Apple's 'Siri' feature. But less shit.

"Sausages?"

"Agreed."

Perkin.

10/08/15 Body Melt (1993)

People online claim this is a little seen gem with excellent horror effects and some clever satire. 

Never trust the internet.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106450/

4/10

Collins disapproves of Clegg's pyjamas.

They look happy, don't they? Good for them.

The Neighbours episode 'Harold's Meltdown' never got broadcast. 

Shame, he really fucks some shit up.

Perkin.

10/08/15 Glass Chin (2015)

Former boxer gets framed for a crime he didn't commit. Everyone has lots of dreary, mumbling conversations. Very little happens. Well, very little that held out interest.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1714843/
4.5/10

Perkin.

06/08/15 Safe (2012)

This currently on TV. We're too lazy to turn it over. It's not great. Our last 'Plop covers it:

http://filmplop.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/310512-safe-2012.html

Ta.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1656190/

Perkin.

05/08/15

I remember saying to my brother that by time this film came out, the Lethal Weapon series had pretty much turned into Happy Days with pistols.

Amazed Mel Gibson managed to do so many films with a black co-star. The silly, racist walnut.

As my brother pointed out back then, having Jet Li in the cast is a definite bonus, he does the fast kicky stuff very well. The rest of the film's fairly bollocks.

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122151/

4/10

Perkin.

05/08/15 Hooked Up (2013)

Apparently the first feature film to be shot entirely on a cocking Iphone.

Hope it's the last.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3160020/

3/10

Perkin.

04/08/15 Escobar: Paradise Lost (2014)

A young Canadian fellow meets a Columbian girl and they fall in love. Turns out she's the neice of Pablo Escobar.

All is well for a while, but then the young chap starts to suspect Uncle Pabby might be a bit shady.

Reminds me of the great line of dialogue from Con Air: "If you can't trust a South American drug lord, who can you trust?"

Pablo Escobar is an anagram of Bear Polo Scab. Like if a bear grazes his furry knee playing polo.

Although only posh wankers play polo and I'm pretty sure those arseholes would shoot a bear for sport before allowing it to join theirs.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2515030/

6.5/10

Perkin.

04/08/15 The Ward (2010)

I watched this when it first came out. I was very excited that John Carpenter had come back to direct a horror film. I remembered being very disappointed and thinking that the film seemed to be a continuous series of slow moving corridor shots with nothing in the way of tension or peril.

Whaddya know, previous me was correct. If I ever get a time machine, I'll go back and tell him he was right. I'll probably tell him to get off his arse and watch less shit films as well.

And wank less.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1369706/

5/10

Perkin.

02/08/15 Extinction (2015)

I once read a description of Honda vehicles as "Reliable, good looking and capable but completely devoid of any excitement or soul".

I think Honda have started making zombie films.

5/10

Perkin.

01/08/15 The Cutting Room (2015)

Another found footage film. At least they put some thought into it. Not much, but enough to justify its existence.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3772918/

4.8/10

Perkin.

01/08/15 Spy (2015)

Are you an undemanding, mentally soft, fleshcog in the machine of absolute cultural hegemony? Then you'll love this film! It has a fat lady who wears wigs and swears! You'll think it's brilliant, then when it's finished drive home in your four-door diesel car back to your semi-detached house, drink a single glass of supermarket wine, tut at the late news headlines, then go to bed and possibly perform unsatisfactory sex with your partner whilst secretly thinking of that person from work.

Awful film made for cretins that deserves to have every single copy put into a giant wicker fat lady and burned whilst spectators perform pagan acts of rutting, invoking the ancient dark ones who will bring destruction to the writers and financiers responsible for creating such horrendous sensory assaults.

Utter fucking bumwash.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3079380/

1/10

Perkin.

--/07/15 War Inc. (2008)

Little seen John Cusack film that was originally intended to be a sequel to Grosse Point Blank.

I'll have to watch GPB again as everyone seems to wank themselves purple over it and I remember it being a bit meh.

Anyway, this films definitely meh.

Shame as I've always liked John Cusack. With his funny face and stuff.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0884224/

5/10

Perkin.

--/07/15 Ghoul (2015)

Until recently, pretty much up until I put this film on, I was one of the few remaining fans of the found footage style. However this one has pretty much dropped it all in the bollock-bin for me.

Shite premise. Annoying, screechy acting. Unlikely character decisions.

Using a real life child killer, many of whose victims will still have surviving family, as the supernatural threat of your fucking rubbish spook-flick is also something of a cunt's move.

All in all a poorly made heap of fucking rubbish that all involved should be ashamed of.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3101132/

1/10

Perkin.

--/07/15 Break A Leg (2005)

Hello again.

Missed out on July's final few entries, so you can have them now. Aren't you lucky?*

Struggling actor decides to start doing dodgy stuff to get noticed. By dodgy stuff I mean pushing casting rivals down stairs and suchlike, not fisting porn or midget snuff.

Stuck somewhere between a comedy and a drama without being very strong in either, it was still a fair effort.

Could you imagine if this was a British film? Rather than pursuing small roles in mega-budget blockbusters, and drowning their sorrows in balmy, neon-lit bars, it would be about some actor hoping to get a role in a panto and dipping his fishfinger in a cup of tea.

Heh. Dipping hi fishfinger. Sounds rude.

*No.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315323/

6/10

Perkin.