Fourth edition of the Film Diary; covering films I've watched within the span of a week, accompanied with a short review and rating. I will try to churn these out as quickly as possible, but there's never enough hours in the day. These reviews won't appear under the index of reviews as I prefer to keep that reserved for more lengthier entries.

Films watched between Monday 21/11/2022 and Sunday 27/11/2022.

Monday 21/11/2022
Haute Tension / High Tension / Switchblade Romance (2003)

Director: Alexandre Aja

I've long believed this to be Aja's best work, followed closely by his updating of The Hills Have Eyes (2006). I can distinctly remember becoming obsessed with this film as a teenager, so I suppose I'm bringing a lot of personal bias to my rating. The plot sees two best friends, Marie and Alex, planning to spend a weekend with Alex's parents at their country, however events take a grisly turn when a boiler suit-clad maniac shows up on the night they arrive, and begins to systematically murder Alex's family. Overflowing with the red stuff, Haute Tension offers copious amounts of bloody bodily destruction and a veneer of psychological horror. Philippe Nahon brings an unstoppable and menacing energy to his role, and the sound design is unforgettable. A key ingredient in the New French Extremity. Check it out.



Monday 21/11/2022
Sissy (2022)

Director: Kane Senes, Hannah Barlow

Sat down to check this one out with Emily; we checked out the trailer, gave it a shot, and ended up having a real good time with it. Two girls who were best friends as teenagers, Cecelia (don't call her Sissy!) and Emma, have a chance meeting after a decade, an encounter that results in Emma inviting Cecelia to her bachelorette weekend in a remote, but luxurious cabin in the woods. Silly, bloody, oddly endearing and surprisingly dark; this is certainly one of the better Shudder originals. Nicely paced and not too predictable, give Sissy a chance.



Tuesday 22/11/2022
Knock Knock (2015)

Director: Eli Roth

I'd been waiting to see this for sometime and unfortunately I found it to be a relatively dull affair, and a really poor effort from Eli Roth, who's last semblances of creativity seem to have thoroughly dried up. Knock Knock is effectively a remake of a remake; for those unaware, this is based on the gripping psychosexual thriller Death Game (1977), which in turn was heavily influenced by the earlier Little Miss Innocence (1973). Performances are decent; perhaps it's just me, but this seemed like a really strange role for Keanu Reeves, he plays it very well, albeit for a hammy screaming during the in the closing moments. Lorenza Izzo (who's married to Eli) and Ana de Armas (who's not married to Eli) are entertaining, spunky, and convincingly cracked as the deux femme fatales terrorising poor Keanu.



Tuesday 22/11/2022
Night of the Creeps (1986)

Director: Fred Dekker

Another favourite from my teenage years. The film offers further evidence that Tom Atkins is a blessing for genre film. I watched this one alongside Emily who at first was a little thrown off as the film opens aboard a spaceship, with dwarfish aliens scampering around, firing laser rifles, before cutting to a black and white sequence. The fact character names are based on (mostly) horror filmmakers shouldn't be lost on any bonafide fan. I remember when I copped one of the first trailers for James Gunn's Slither (2006) and crying foul about the similarities; space slugs entering people's bodies and turning people into zombies. Essential; check it out.



Friday 25/11/2022
Slash/Back (2022)

Director: Nyla Innuksuk

Odd little film I checked out via Shudder. I started watching this with Emily, who after about 35 minutes could no longer withstand the wooden acting from literally everyone on-screen. I watched the rest by myself a day later and she was right, there's some terribly wooden performances, but I enjoyed the Inuit take on genre film. It reminded me of the recent and excellent Canadian zombie horror, Blood Quantum (2019); a film that revolves around a First Nations reserve during a zombie outbreak, who's residents are immune to the plague because of their indigenous heritage. If you could imagine John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) set within an isolated Inuit community, and instead of testosterone-heavy Arctic researchers, they're bored adolescent girls, then you're on the right track. Not all bad, but not enough to shout about.



Saturday 26/11/2022
Centipede Horror (1982)

Director: Keith Li

Hong Kong lensed black magic shocker, infamous for featuring scenes of people vomiting live centipedes. The film manages to tap into a primal and hereditary fear of creepy crawlies. There's something so utterly grotesque and repulsive about centipedes that the sight of them alone is enough to make your stomach flip and your skin crawl. The worst part about this movie is its pacing, after a strong opening it feels like an eternity before there's any follow-up centipede action, and admittedly, it does get a little silly in the last act with a duel between two mages, but overall is a satisfyingly unpleasant flick. Check it out.



Sunday 27/11/2022
Crash (1996)

Director: David Cronenberg

Decided to watch this as it was my birthday and I was given carte blanche of choice by Emily. I opted for something relatively "normal", instead of choosing an edgy or provocative title like Passolini's Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) or Shaun Costello's Water Power (1977), I settled on the somewhat controversial adaptation of J.G. Ballard's Crash. Hot off reading the novel, I thought it would be a great idea to tackle Cronenberg's screen adaptation. Strange. Strange may be the best word to describe how I feel about it. I felt like a few liberties had been taken with the source material, as if Cronenberg blindly assumes everyone has read the novel prior and is familiar with the story, because a few plot points are barely fleshed out, or are entirely glossed over. As it stands, I quite liked it; Emily loathed it and after a recent viewing of Videodrome (1983), she's subsequently banned all Cronenberg from our filmic choices. We'll see how long that lasts.