Inside The HCF Headquarters!
Welcome to a new week at the fastest growing film website where this week we at the office have been munching away on our chocolate eggs while writing away to bring you even more new features to read in the world of entertainment!
This week Matt is sharing you his near death experience with Sadako as he looks back on the J Horror classic Ringu and its two sequels. See the wonderful piece here: https://horrorcultfilms.co.uk/2011/04/the-ringu-trilogy-my-near-death-experience-with-sadako-by-matt-wavish/
We have our first entry in our new Computer game section with our new member Juanvasquez bringing you his view on Deadly Premonition, I think you agree that its brilliantly written and makes me want to rush out to buy this game!
Don’t forget this review section is open to anyone, so if you think you can do better than Juanvasquez then please pop into the forum, leave your suggestion of the game you want to review and we will soon get back to you to see if it covers the criteria.
Darren has written more of his unique outlook within the film world with his very popular Riding the Midnight Express column. This week he looks at a couple of cult offerings, first an icon of the Cult Status Tiffany Bolling and also two films, The Girl Who Lived down the Lane and also Blood and Lace!
Also and please forgive us, we at HCF are sharing our Guilty Pleasures with you, films that we should not like but are admitting it we do. Want a peek, well take a glance at this, but please readers, be gentle with us!
Please also do not forget our Forum. We are desperate for new people to talk to and share their views, do not be shy and join in the fun!
As for me, well I am all set to embark on a trip of nightmares, a bold ambition to bring to our readers all films of one nature, to give you the readers one place to go when you want to check out what is the best and which to avoid! I will reveal more on this ambitious project later!..
LATE HCF NEWS: Our Queen Bee Bat and the Dr are doing a special lookback on Martial Arts Movies, the first reviews are up. Here’s the Kickboxer review.
EVEN MORE LATE EDITED NEWS: I forgot to mention that Dr Lenera has posted his 3rd part of his awesome lookback on the Friday 13th Franchise.
THE NEW HORROR CONVERSATION!
When Gus Van Sant decided to give the world his vision of Psycho I bet he did not imagine the door it would open! Since that ill-judged new version of Norman Bates having a wank, we have had a mass of re-makes that have swamped the cinema and you can count on one hand the ones that have been worth the effort! You can imagine the scene in many households when a horror fan is trying to convince someone new to the genre:
“Do you want to watch Halloween?”
“What is that about?”
“A killer in a William Shatner mask who stalks babysitters”
“Wow! That sounds cool!”
“It is! So which one? The 1978 version or the new one?
“What’s the difference?”
“Nothing really just the new one has a back-story! We can watch that and then the sequel!”
“Does the old one have a sequel?”
“Yes! But it differs from the new one!”
“How?”
“Well, that mainly takes place in an hospital while the new one does not! Saying that, it does for a bit so it makes the old fans think they are watching a homage of the original sequel but then it turns out it’s all a dream and we head for somewhere else!”
“Sounds very confusing! What else have you got?”
“Friday the 13th”
“What is that about?”
“A killer who wears a Ski mask and stalks campers”
“Wow” That Sounds cool!”
“It is, So which one? The 80’s version or the new one?”
Sigh! …….“What’s the difference?”
“Well in the original it was the mother not Jason, but in the new one it’s just Jason, though you do see his mother get be-headed at the beginning which riffs on the original because that is how that ended!”
“Who’s Jason?”
“The killer, he drowned, well supposed to have drown has a child but he came out of the woods to avenge the death of his dear Mum!”
“But he was the killer in the new version!?”
“Yes, but only after we see his mum die again. It’s like a brief copy of the original but cut down to five minutes!”
With a look of despair….”Shall we just watch X-Factor?”
WHY JACK BAUER MUST WATCH HIS BACK!
Usually by now, us 24 fans are half way through another torturous time by the side of former CTU agent Jack Bauer who is having one of those really bad days! The series ended last year after 8 seasons where seven we really watchable and one was really horrid, but with fans crying long into the night with the demise, what kept us going is the promise of a feature length movie! This was all well and good but it seems now that the last few months silence has surrounded the entire production. With no news on script, signed on actors or even a director there were strong rumours that the studio were having second thoughts about the entire thing! Well two weeks gossip came from the hills that there were plans for a cross over! A Bauer meet McClane Die Hard 24 joint picture that had fans foaming at the mouth. Now it seems that John is going on his own with the announcement that Die Hard 5 is to be called Die Hard 24/7 a title that suggests a play on the 24 concept. This new development story has not been denied by the studio or it has not been officially approved but if this is true then Jack Bauer may have finally met his match. There is no question that John McClane is an icon of action; box office gold who is well loved by the junkies and who is something that Bauer is not and
that is mainstream. Jack is or should that was TV Royalty but the jury is out if he has enough fans to transpire onto the big screen. With McClane jumping into the time concept before Bauer, it may seem too late for the man who must hate to wake up in the mornings! With Scre4m showing the dangers of leaving a franchise for too long in the shadows, the makers of 24 may have missed the boat in bringing their hero to the box office and for that they only have themselves to blame.
TALKING ABOUT SCRE4M…….
Can you hear the death chimes? No, Ghostface has not struck again, it seems the horror fans have and the horror genre is stunned by the failure of the 4th film in the Woodsboro saga! The dismal showing the film has displayed at the box office not just in America but around the world has put paid to any hopes for a fifth instalment.
The reason behind the failure cannot even be pinpointed! Reviews have been pretty good, 85% of the fans love it but that seems to be not enough and weirdly the film has not even suffered similar fates to that of the Friday 13th and Freddy re-makes, in which the film opened to massive takings and then had a severe drop in its second week! Scre4m did not even have the joy of an opening surge, it’s just no one has bothered to turn up despite a positive word of mouth!
This of course has stunned even me who was confident that with a modest budget of £40 Million the horror would easily recoup some its budget and while after DVD sales are added the film should make the target, the expectancy level of a film series which was supposed to be up there with the likes of Halloween has become nothing but a whimper!
The only thing I can put it is the time scale of how long the series has been out. Teenagers who are 18 now were only at the age of 4 when the original was released and since then the Saw franchise has become the biggest horror franchise of all time, which means this generation can not quite get around the idea of a silly teenager dressed in a black cloak and white mask going around killing people! The ones who rushed to the cinema are those from the 1996 era but that was not enough to sustain any hopes for a new franchise! Website Moviehole have commented that “The Scream franchise will likely end here! E! Online were even harsher by saying that “If Scream 4 proved anything, its that horror reboots have a better chance of survival than continuing sagas and if there was going to be a Scream 5, expect it to be re-titled Scream and do not expect the usual trio to return!”
Personally I can see Ghostface returning but not at the box-office, expect a straight to DVD cash in before the expected re-make!
MY COMPUTER IS ILL, CALL A DR!
I wrote a really negative review of the new series of Doctor Who last weekend only for my computer to crash and I lost it all! Maybe it was the power of the Who fans who could sense a review that did not fit the normal praise because let’s be honest it’s hard to find a critic who does not like the Moffat era! What was my problem with it all? Well it was the news that they were going to kill off one of the main cast in the series opener and then it showed us it was the Doc himself who bit the bullet! Of course I for one did not expect the BBC to then announce that the show would now be called Who because before we knew it, the man in the Tardis was back!
Was this Moffat being too clever for his own good? Maybe, but after that cop out, the opening episode just went straight over my head and I hope the 2nd part will resolve some of the questions let lingering over! I mean everyone complained about LOST but at the moment this Doctor Who era is engulfed with too many questions and not enough answers and this fan is beginning to get the feeling that everyone involved are trying just too damn hard to make the show this unique piece of TV history that it’s so desperate to achieve.
Emails of the Week:
“Great feature on that Ringu Feature, the film scared the shit out of me when I first saw it…that bitch climbing out of the TV…damn man, freaky shit!” Darren24
You were scared? You should have seen Matt; even to this day he won’t watch an old VHS tape!
“Suspiria re-make is the worst idea since Psycho, I for one won’t be watching!” Slugattack
You and Evil Bill will get on really well!
“Can you lend me some money?”
Wrong website son!
Want a say? Just Email me at rosshugheshcf@hotmail.co.uk
Words heard in the HCF Office: “Bugger My Computer Has a Virus!”
And Finally! ….Why do I just not want to watch THOR?
Until Next Time guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Why do I just not want to watch THOR?” – cos its all fur coat and no knickers? If you get me drift….
Shame about Scream 4. I was so hyped about it, but it didn’t do it for me. You know what they should do instead… Put the original first SCREAM movie on cinemas nationwide. Introduce the kids of now to it. I’d love that me. Why aren’t there cinemas that do this? If every weekend they had old films on big screen and at 10pm had a well loved horror film on, I’d go!
Good Hacked to Pices again mate. Now listen, put Bauer up against McClane and you know who will win, as much as i like Bruce Willis’ character, no one on Earth can defeat Bauer, NO ONE!!!
Scream really did die a death, sad really, but thankfully Insidious is proving horror is far from dead. I hate to say it me old son, but maybe slasher needs to take a breather for a while, its all realism, handheld cameras, ghosts and giant monsters right now. Slasher films will have their day again