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Ian wrote:And more...

At last.
You've seen a horror film that sound half decent to my delicate sensibilities.

Cooties. Elijah Wood stars in this comedy-horror about a substitute teacher having a very bad day when a virus turns all pre-teens into ravenous zombies. Some amusing moments in this latest gimmick for a zombie movie, but largely mediocre.

Saw Lights Out at the cinema today. A dysfunctional family is plagued by a female spectre (who appears to have ripped her main gimmick off of the Weeping Angels) that has been haunting them for a very long time. This little B movie horror flick with a fairly no-name cast has gotten surprisingly decent reviews, and even more surprisingly a theatrical release down here, but to be honest I found it fairly mediocre and nondescript. Nothing terrible but a bland cast and a leaden pace even at just 90 minutes made it fairly dull and lifeless for me. Ho hum.

Hard Rain. Christian Slater is a security van driver whose truck gets hijacked by a band of crooks just as their small town is hit by a massive flood. There's a great cast including Morgan Freeman, Minnie Driver and Randy Quaid in this entertaining late 90s action flick that mixes heist thriller with disaster movie. Unremarkable but decent enough fun.

Wolf. Jack Nicholson is a tired middle aged book editor who finds he's been replaced at work and in the marital bed by his backstabbing young protege (a slimy James Spader, who becomes as creepy as hell by the end). An accident on a lonely, icy country road that results in a bite from an apparent wolf sees him unexpectedly regain his spark and drive and he sets out to win back his job, destroy his treacherous protege and win the affections of a much younger woman (Michelle Pfeiffer). But every silver lining comes with a cloud... This 1994 werewolf flick is more of a supernatural drama/thriller than an out and out horror flick, and was deliberately old fashioned even then, but I've always thoroughly enjoyed it and found it very underrated. The leads are all great, with a fine supporting cast including Christopher Plummer and David Hyde Pierce (and spot a (just) pre-Friends David Schwimmer in a small role as a cop!). Well made, well acted and just a good story, well told.

Tales of Halloween. Mediocre 2015 anthology horror which has too many tales for the runtime, most of which are pretty uninteresting anyway. To be fair, the one with the kidnappers who abduct a millionaire's son only to find it's not a child but a malevolent little demon he's been trying to get rid of was fun, and the one with the Friday the 13th style killer getting his comeuppance from a ticked off alien was absolutely hilariously OTT, but again too brief. I'll confess to a snicker or two at the closing tale with the killer pumpkin too, but again it was woefully underdeveloped. All three of those were in the last half hour too, and the ones in the opening hour or so were all largely completely forgettable.

Saw The Shallows at the cinema today. A young female surfer is terrorised and stalked by a killer shark in an isolated beach miles from civilisation in this passable if fairly unremarkable thriller. Watchable but nothing special.

Ian wrote:...A young female surfer is terrorised and stalked by a killer shark in an isolated beach miles from civilisation...

That can happen.
As far as I can tell the likelihood is directly proportional to the attractiveness of the woman.

A Perfect Murder. Michael Douglas is a wealthy businessman facing financial disaster who is less than impressed when he finds his young wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) has been having an affair, and decides the best option is to have her removed from the picture permanently, thus still enabling him to keep all her dosh - and hires/blackmails her own lover to do the deed! But the best laid plans of Mike and men never go smooth.... Douglas is on top form in this twisty-turny and thoroughly enjoyable late 90s thriller.

Colonia. A young couple are caught up in the Chilean revolution of the early 70s, and the young man is sent to a supposed detention center that's run more like a wacko and seriously cruel religious cult, prompting his lover to join up as a supposed recruit to try and get him out. This mediocre thriller has a couple of good performances from Emma Watson and Michael Nqvist as the heroine and the crazy villain, but is otherwise thoroughly run of the mill. I'm beginning to think Emma needs a new agent! (Mind you, hopefully Beauty and the Beast and the sci-fi thriller The Circle with Tom Hanks and Karen Gillan in 2017 will be a bit more like it!)

The Nice Guys. Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are a self-employed enforcer and private eye respectively who are thrown together while looking for a missing girl whose connection to a number of suspicious deaths soon lands them in a murderous conspiracy way over their heads. Mildly amusing 70-set comedy-thriller with some good moments but nothing particularly remarkable.

10 Things I Hate About You. Back in the days of yore, in a time when Hollywood comedies were actually funny and witty and clever rather than just crass and vulgar to make up for a complete lack of intelligence, they made a sort of thin "reimagining" of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew with Heath Ledger, Julia Styles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the lovely Larissa Oleynik. And yay, it was funny and witty and clever and sweet, in a way that, with all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, just does not seem to get made anymore. Or to put it another way, I laughed my ass off at this last night. Something of a classic.

Ian wrote:...in a time when Hollywood comedies were actually funny and witty and clever...

Nnnnoooo.
Sorry.
My memory isn't that good.

Monty Python's Meaning of Life. The weakest of the MP movies, as it's really just an extended episode of the sketch show rather than a proper movie/story, but amusing nonetheless.

Saw The Girl on the Train at the cinema today. Emily Blunt is an alcoholic who becomes the prime suspect when her ex-husband and partner's nanny (who looks a lot like his new wife) turns up murdered in this entertaining thriller. Nothing special but decent.

It was such an thrilling read, The Girl on the Train, still having my fingers crossed for the film.
An exciting cast as well.