GANGSTA (2018)

 

Directed by: Adil Elarbi & Bilall Fallah  Written by: Adil Elarbi, Bilall Fallah, Nabil Ben Yadir, Bram Renders, Kobe Van Steenberghe & Handrik Verthe  Cinematography: Robrecht Heyvaert Editor: Adil Elarbi, Bilall Fallah, Kobe Van Steenberghe & Thijs Van Nuffel 

Cast: Matteo Simoni, Junes Lazaar, Nora Gharib, Said Boumazoughe, Nabil Mallat, Paloma Aguilera valdebenito, Werner Kolf 

Antwerp. The lives of four dealer friends, who want to become real-life swaggers, spin out of control when they steal a shipment of cocaine. They trigger a full-out war between them, an Amsterdam drug lord and the ruthless Colombian cartels.

PRINCE (2015)

Written & Directed By: Sam De Jong Cinematography: Paul Ozgur  Editor: Mieneke Kremer 

Cast: Ayoub Elasri, Jorik Scholien, Oussama Addi, Achraf Meziani, Elise de Braun, Sigrid Tennepal, Olivia Lonsdale, Chaib Massaoudi 

A troubled teenager attempts to conquer the love of his life by becoming the baddest boy on the block.

THE FAMILY (2013)

 

Directed By: Luc Besson  Written By: Luc Besson & Michael Caleo Based in the Book Written By: Tonino Benacquista Cinematography: Thierry Arbogast Editor: Julien Ray

Cast: Robert DeNiro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Dianna Agron, John D’Leo, Domenick Lombardozzi, Vincent Pastore, Jimmy Palumbo 

The Manzoni family, a notorious mafia clan, is relocated to Normandy, France under the Witness Protection Program, where fitting in soon becomes challenging, as their old habits die hard.

WILLY’S WONDERLAND (2021)

Directed By: Kevin Lewis  Written By: G.O. Parsons Cinematography: David Newbert Editor: Ryan Libert

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Emily Tosta, Beth Grant, Ric Reitz, Chris Warner, Kai Kadlee, Caylee Cowan, Terayle Hill

A quiet drifter is tricked into a janitorial job at the now condemned Willy's Wonderland. The mundane tasks suddenly become an all-out fight for survival against wave after wave of demonic animatronics. Fists fly, kicks land, titans clash -- and only one side will make it out alive.

THE BANANA SPLITS MOVIE (2019)

Directed By: Danishka Esterhazy Written By: Jed Blinoff & Scott Thomas  Cinematography: Trevor Calverlay  Editor: Michael P. Mason 

Cast: Dani Kind, Steve Lund, Celina Martin, Finlay Wojtak-Hissong, Sara Canning, Romeo Carrere, Maria Nash, Naledi Majola 

A family attends a live taping of The Banana Splits television series, but are forced to survive as soon as the characters go haywire and start a killing spree around the studio.

You know what you are going to get from this type of film. Then again you might not of expecting this to be an exact big-screen version of the television show. Anyone going into this film can’t complain too much. As for how good or bad quality did you really think it would be?

As this is more a kind of reinvention. we have the characters more or less going on a murder spree. This is explained but seems a rather thin reason.

At first, the characters who are killed are generally unlikeable so you pretty much know they are going to be victims and the film doesn’t try to hide that fact, but then some rather likable and innocent characters start to get off.

The most enjoyable aspect of this film is the kills. The violence which like the show is very over the top and impressive in a ridiculous way. Keep in mind this Film was made to premiere in the Syfy network. Though bathes itself in gore.

The film plays like a dark comedy the only problem is that it really has no style. It just leaves the audience waiting for the kills. Then at first seems like a more demanding black comedy that at first is a revenge movie of sorts. Then just becomes a horror film. That flirts with killing children but then backs away from the edge that it tries to push us over.

There is an interesting part of the movie when a character cracks and becomes a totally different type. One that actually might relegate a sequel.

Though the film ends up being pretty predictable and comes off as a rushed Canadian horror feature. That is generic except for its pop-culture tie-in. That seems the best way to use the characters as we have already had a kind of animatronic live-action feature film in WILLY'S WONDERLAND

It doesn’t seem anyone including a studio was interested in trying to update it into a Family Comedy. So this seems an inventive way to go or at least a way to make a quick dollar for the franchise and bring them up to date maybe even be slightly subversive.

GRADE: D

 

SLAXX (2020)

Directed By: Elza Kephart Written by: Elza Kephart & Patricia Gomez Zlatar Cinematography: Steve Asselin Editor: Miranda Ouellet

Cast: Romane Denis, Brett Donahue, Sehar Bjojani, Kenny Wong, Tianna Nori, Jessica B. Hill, Erica Anderson, Hanneke Talbot 

When a possessed pair of jeans begins to kill the staff of a trendy clothing store, it is up to Libby, an idealistic young salesclerk, to stop its bloody rampage.

DEERSKIN (2019)

 

Written, Directed, Edited  and Cinematography By: Quentin Dupieux

Cast: Jean Dujardin, Adele Haenel, Albert Delpy, Coralie Russier, Marie Bunel

A man's obsession with his designer deerskin jacket causes him to blow his life savings and turn to crime.

A BLADE IN THE DARK (1983) LA CASA CON LA SCALA NEL BUTO

 

Directed & Edited By: Lamberto Bava  Written By Dardano Sacchetti & Elisa Briganti  Editor: Gianlorenzo Battaglia 

CAST: Andrea Occhipinti, Anny Papa, Fabiola Toledo, Michele Soavi, Valeria Cavalli

A composer, working in isolation on a score for a horror movie meets two women who used to know his house's former tenant. When the women disappear, he's forced to look into the film he's working on to determine what happened to them, and who's responsible.

TORSO (1973)

 

Directed & Story By: Sergio Martino Written By: Sergio Martino & Ernesto Gastaldi  Cinematography: Giancarlo Ferrando  Editor: Eugenio Alabiti 

Cast: Suzy Kendall, Tina Aumont, Luc Merenda, John Richardson, Roberto Bisacco, Ernesto Colli, Angela Covello 

A string of appalling lust murders shocks the University of Perugia as a sadistic serial killer strangles to death beautiful college girls with a red and black scarf.

MOVIES WATCHED IN APRIL (2021)

COME TO DADDY (2020)

 

Directed By: Ant Timpson Written By: Toby Harvard  Cinematography: Daniel Katz Editor: Dan Kircher

Cast: Elijah Wood, Stephen McHattie, Madeline Sami, Martin Donovan, Michael Smiley, Garfield Wilson 

A man in his thirties travels to a remote cabin to reconnect with his estranged father.

NOTHING BUT TROUBLE (1991)

 

Directed By: Dan Aykroyd  Written By: Dan Aykroyd & Peter Aykroyd  Cinematography: Dean Cundey  Editor: Malcolm Campbell & James R. Symons 

Cast: Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Taylor Negron, Raymond J. Barry, Brian Doyle Murray, Daniel Baldwin, Valri Bromfield, digital underground 

A financier agrees to take the lawyer to her business meeting. On the way, they run a stop sign in a small town in the middle of nowhere and are arrested. But all is not as it seems: the courthouse and the "prison" are a maze of zany booby- traps and deadly contraptions. The antics of the captured couple as they try to escape from the mad judge and his bizarre family make up the rest of this unusual film.

JEFF OF THE CINEFILES & UNFINISHED BUSINESS: HALL OF FAME - FILE #0066: WEIRD SCIENCE (1985)

 

Written & Directed by: John Hughes  Cinematography: Matthew F. leonetti Editor: Chris Lebenzon, Scott Wallace & Mark Warner 

Cast: Anthony Michael Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Kelly Lebrock, Bill Paxton, Robert Downey Jr. Robert Rusler, Suzanne Snyder, Judie Aronson, Vernon wells, Michael Berryman, Britt Leach, Wallace Langham

Two high school nerds use a computer program to literally create the perfect woman, but she turns their lives upside down.

THE KID DETECTIVE (2021)

 Written & Directed By: Evan Morgan Cinematography: Mike McLaughlin  Editor: Curt Lobb

Cast: Adam Brody, Wendy Crewson, Kaitlyn Chalmbers-Rizzato, Jonathan Whittaker, Kaleb Horn, Sarah Sutherland, Steve Gagne, Sophie Nelisse, Griffin Wardle 

A once-celebrated kid detective, now 32, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity. Until a naive client brings him his first 'adult' case, to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.