Black 47 (2018)

Director: Lance Daly.
Starring. Hugo Weaving, James Frecheville, Stephen Rea, Freddie Fox, Barry Keogham, Sarah Greene. USA. 1h 40m.

This brilliantly dark poetic revenge flick from the bleakest part of Irish history is rough but so intense. Based on the Irish Language short called An Ranger by PJ Dillon and Pierce Ryan, this lengthy retelling is focused on an Irish Ranger returning home from war and finding his homeland is very different to how he left it.

Starting on another tangent, the film opens with Hanna (Weaving) losing his temper with a prisoner, a member of the Young Irelander movement, while losing his temper he strangles the man he sips from his canteen while another guard realises Hannah has killed the prisoner.

Meanwhile Martin Feeney (Frechville) a former Connaught Ranger arrives in Connemara, west Ireland in 1847, the worst part of the Great Famine, he finds family home hollowed out and filled with pigs, he learns that his mother died from starvation and his brother was hanged after stabbing a bailiff during the family’s evection. Feeney stays with his brothers widow (Greene) who are squatting in one of the few remaining houses. Soon the landlord arrives to evict the family, killing Feeney’s nephew and destroying the home. Feeney is arrested but managed to kill his captors and destroy the barracks and re returns to find his sister in law and her daughter dead from exposure. This sparks something dark inside of Feeney and he begins to seek a tortuous bloody revenge on the men who have wronged him.

Eraserhead (1977)

Director: David Lynch
Starring: John Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Judith Anna Roberts. USA . 1h 49m

A cult classic surreal black and white masterpiece… to some.. But not for me! I’m not going to bullshit, I’ve never been really into Eraserhead, I adore black and white movies and I really love surreal art (something I paint myself) and films. I’ve never been heavily into Lynch and for me this film is creepy, unusual but nothing all that special. I feel that there are two types of surreal movies, the first is a movie which is all out surreal, no easy to follow story line and completely wacky, for argument sake Dali’s Un Chien Andalou (1929), and there are other films which have a pretty liner storyline but just go about it in random ways.. Much like this one.

Naked Lunch (1991)

Director: David Cronenberg
Based on – Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs
Starring: Peter Welller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, Julian Sands, Roy Scheider. Canada, Japan, UK. 1h 55m

This bold, Kafkaesque putrid remake of the legendary novel by William S Burroughs, is possibly as vivid and imaginative as the original book, but if you’ve read the book you’ll realise that no film could ever really be a true adaptation, so the screenplay is a metatextual adaption. Detailing characters and scenes from a complex novel and other works from Burroughs, both fictional and from his journal and the events which lead to the 1951 death of Joan Vollmer, Burroughs’s common law wife.  So while it’s not entirely Naked Lunch, it should at least FEEL like Naked lunch and at times it feels a lot like Burroughs but slightly more coherent.

As a surreal autobiographic piece the film follows the life of William Lee, who is basically Burroughs, a bug exterminator who discovers his wife is stealing his insecticide and using it to get high. Lee is arrested and starts hallucinating because of his exposure to the powder. Believing that he’s a secret agent  he beings a strange relationship with two handlers, one is a insect typewriter and an alien “Mugwump“. The typewriter assigns him a mission of killing Joan, she’s allegedly an agent of an organization called “Interzone”, Lee dismisses this notion but on returning home he finds Joan having sex with a friend and kills her, inadvertently carrying out the mission, he flees to interzone, a city in North Africa where he spends his time writing reports to his handlers, this slowly becomes the Naked Lunch book and after taking more mind altering drugs and getting a new typewriter, a Clark Nova, this insect  stresses that he needs to find Dr Benway by seducing Joan Frost who’s a doppelganger of his dead wife and then things get really weird, and with the addition of a drug that is made from a centipede.

Faust : Love of the Damned (2000)

Director: Brian Yuzna
Starring: Mark Frost, Isabel Brook, Jeffrey Combs, Andrew Divoff, Monica Vam Campen . Spain . 1h 38m

Based on Tim Vigil and David Quinn (graphic novel) Wolfgang Von Goethe (play)

There’s a magical era of horror which isn’t to be taken too seriously but it is to be thoroughly enjoyed. I haven’t really been able to put a name to it, if one exists then please hit me up on twitter @admitonefilmadd or comment here. But it involves great special effects, a bit cheesy for modern audiences but so very treasured for the community.

It’s not too hard to work out the basis of this gory horror, it’s a modern rendition of a play by Wolfgang Von Goethe known originally as Urfaust dated between 1772-1775, so the story is well known, but there are additional twists so keep new eyes riveted on the action.

Kill Your Darlings (2013)

Director: john Krokidas
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Michael C. Hall, Elizabeth Olsen,  Ben Foster, Jennifer Jason Leigh . USA . 1h 35m

A sort of coming of age  of the Beat Poets, Kill Your Darlings presents a “as they were” to the major literary movement. Krokidas uses a small time 1940’s murder as a feature to lead into how these soon to be famous writers first met. He romanticize everything, including all the negative aspects of the characters, their argumentative  nature and self destructive tendencies are all keys of inspiration but the film wallows in a faux nostalgia and sensationalism rather than digging deeper to provide a better insight.

Rise of the Foot soldier 3 :The Pat Tate Story (2017)

Director: Zackary Adler
Starring: Craig Fairbrass, Emily Wyatt, Emma Butt, Shaun Ryder, Larry Lamb, Jamie Foreman, Daniel Stisen,Roland Manookian . UK . 1h 39

Rise of the foot solder (2007) was such a brilliant insight into the world after football hooliganism. Coming to screen around the same time as other brilliant British movies such as Cass (2008) it crested a wave and it’s brilliance among the genre really glimmered., it was brash, ambitious and savage. Often run into the ground by critics but while it’s not acclaimed it’s bloody brilliant.

After this a range of sequels and Rise of the foot soldier II (2015) saw the return of Carlton Leach, Bonded by Blood (2010+) ran alongside the Foot soldier story.

Chappaquiddick (2017)

Director: John Curran
Starring: Jason Clarke, Kate Mara,Bruce Dern. USA.

Jason Clarke impresses as the last Kennedy whose reputation sank along with the demise of a young supporter in murky mystery.

The history of the Kennedys and their prominence in the hearts of the American public as they rose to new heights of the country’s political area. But after the demise of Bobby and and Joe Jr, everything landed on the shoulders of Ted. This is all mapped out in Chappaquiddick, attentively directed byChappaquiddick (2018). The writing was all down to Allen and Logan, a screenplay not adapted from any specific research as no one knows what actually happened. But this becomes part of the point. But Chappaquiddick isn’t all about the facts from this fateful night, it’s microscopic lense is pointed at the Kennedy’s behaviour during the turmoil, and eventually turns it’s analytical finger at the audience and makes you question what you would do with such a powerful network at your disposal and a presidency at risk.

Howling VI : The Freaks (1991)

Director: Hope Perello
Starring: Michelle Matteson, Bruce Payne, Carol Lynley, Deep Roy, Brendan Hughes, Antonio Fargas . USA . 1h 42m

(Loosely) based on The Howling Series of novels by Gary Brandner especially Howling III Echoes.

Have you ever woken up from a hazy dream and tried to piece it back together to make a story..that’s kinda how this installment of Howling plays out. Loosely based on the third Howling book, it’s set around the life of a unusual drifter who stumbles on the wrong town. Despite his natural ability to look like Charlie Chaplin he actually has a much more dangerous and darker secret, being part of the Howling series it’s no surprise really but there’s more, just follow him down the rabbit hole…

October 2018 Film List

X the man with X-ray eyes

True grit

Incredible melting man

Ghostbusters

*Let sleeping corpses lie 6/10

Don’t blink

Doom

Screamers

Brighton Rock

Possum (2018)

Director: Matthew Holness
Starring: Sean Harris, Alun Armstrong  .UK. 1h 25m

There’s a place that some dark artist like to go, it often involves gloomy and eerie aspects from a fuzzy past that are easily recognised but often pushed back to those obscure corners of our minds, like a suppressed memory Possum manages from slither its way out of the dank interior of an old English home, and hides itself in the brown bag carried by a disgraced children’s puppeteer as he embarks on a journey to confront his stepfather and his own inner demons.

The film opens with Philip (Harris) wandering aimlessly around a remote area of Norfolk with his bag clutched tightly to him, after some atmospheric art house scenes backed by a heavy Radiophonic Workshop soundtrack. He spys a few teenage boys on a train he tries to talk with one but he runs away from the creepy man, Philip returns to his home, a dank rundown home with a disheveled garden, here he opens his bag and chucks the contents into a metal barrel with the promise to destroy the leggy creature, eventually we are made aware of Maurice (Armstrong), a sly and controlling character who seems to want to encourage Philip to keep his puppet, while constantly keeps asking if he’s going to burn it, which Philip agrees to but then never does. Little by little Maurice exerts control over Philip and suggests different places for him to visit, while the puppet is slowly revealed  and each time the effects on Philip get more disastrous. As a news story about a missing school boy flourish in the news, questions are raised over Philips possible involvement.