Hellraiser - Hellworld

Part 8 of the franchise, I must be mental.

Yes I am mental, the story line is quite clearly adapted to fit Hellraiser  It is obvious to me that this film was meant to be something else and they fitted in the cenobites around the story line.

It starts with a group of friends at a funeral, a friend has died because of obsession with Hellraiser and cenobites they all blame themselves for not preventing his death, 2 years later they go onto a website to try a win a challenge to go to a Hellraiser party, which unsurprisingly they all win entry too.

When they get to the party they are greeted by the host (Lance Henriksen), he shows them around the building which was designed by Larmarchand (puzzle box designer) and tells them about the terrifying history of the building as that it was a mental asylum run by a Nun of all people.

Anyways the party gets into full effect and the group of friends start to get slowly picked off by either the host or various cenobites.

The only redeeming quality about this film is the ending as it offers a unusual ending but that also relegates the involvement of the cenobites during the film and that is annoying because isn't part of the film title called Hellraiser !, and the cenobite presence in the film must only a couple of minutes at the most, also I cant believe Lance Henriksen saw the script for this and thought "yeah this looks good !", c'mon fella you where bishop in Aliens.

You have to wonder what Clive Barker thinks of what they have done to his beautiful creation, no wonder he has distanced himself from these I would have too.

Insidious

Heard a lot of good things about this and was not disappointed.

A family move to a new house and immediately notice strange things happening, one night one of the children Dalton hears something in the attic and goes to investigate he falls on some steps and bangs his head, his parents hear his scream and rush to him, he appears fine and they put him to bed as normal, in the morning he gets called for breakfast but doesn't respond, he gets rushed to hospital and the parents are told he is in a unexplained coma.

A little while later Dalton gets moved back home whilst still in his coma, his mother Renai starts believing the house is haunted, she confronts Husband Josh about this and he agrees to move home again to please his wife, however in the new home the paranormal events carry on occurring and getting more realistic and violent, Josh's Mother learns of this and contacts a friend who specialises in paranormal phenomenon, as she investigates she see's a dark evil presence in Dalton's Room.

It is then explained to the parent's that Dalton can astral project and that he inherited this ability off his father and why he scared of his picture being taken, because as a child, a spirit attached herself to him and tried to use his astral projection to enter the human world and that is why spirits are surrounding Dalton's body as they too are trying to use him to gain entry to the human world but the main worry is dark evil presence that was spotted in his bedroom, is keeping Dalton's spirit hostage and that's why he can't wake from his coma.

So cue the ending where Josh has to astral project and rescue his son.

A wonderful film, a true mind screwer and works that angle so beautifully, it is so well acted and the twists in the film do not disappoint, so if you discover this film enjoy it, it proves that sometimes a horror film doesn't need gore to be successful, and the ending is not what you expect at all.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes

I got the saga on a DVD box-set so the sequel was always going to be watched.

So it carries on exactly from a first one with Nova and Taylor on a horse, Taylor goes exploring and just literally vanishes out of thin air, leaving Nova wandering upon the horse on her own, In other place another spaceship has crashed this one was sent to find Taylor and his crew and like Taylor when he gets there he believes he has landed on another planet, Brent bumps into Nova and notices Taylor's dog tags being worn by Nova and tries to asks her questions but with Nova being mute she cant respond. Hoping his friend is still alive he rides with Nova and encounters the Ape city, he observes the Apes aggressive nature and attempts to flee with Nova but is Injured by a soldier but  they find Zira and Cornelius where they talk about Taylor, They hide however when Dr. Zaius arrives and tells them about the upcoming invasion of the forbidden zone.

Brent and Nova eventually escape the city after getting captured, they hide in cave which Brent discovers is actually they entrance of a New York subway and realizes he is on earth, whilst exploring the cave his mind hears voices telling him to kill Nova he fails in this and encounters a group of telepathic humans who worship a nuclear bomb which they call a divine bomb, they interrogate him and learn the apes are marching on an the forbidden zone and plan to detonate it if they need to.

Brent is separated from Nova and is placed in a cell with Taylor, where they try to escape, and this sets up the ending.

I didn't really enjoy this film, I found it long and drawn out and also found the plot ridiculously complicated, I feel it could have been a lot easier and simplier and also feel Charlton Heston did this film probably because he was contracted to and didn't want to hence the lack of screen time.

Planet of the Apes

The original Charlton Heston classic.

A team of human space explorers land an a planet, the planet seems desolate but habitable, they explore their environment and find other humans, they seem like cavemen compared to them, then a hunt occurs after a hunt the humans and Taylor (the astronaut) are captured by what appears to be intelligent apes, humans on this world are mute and primitive and as he has been injured during the hunt he is unable to communicate to the speaking apes that he is intelligent as they are.

When they get back to the ape city, the ape scientists take an interest in Taylor, he tries to communicate with the scientist Zira who is convinced he is intelligent as he mimic's her actions, this pleases her and decides to put him in a partner a female called Nova.

Later Taylor steals some pen and paper from Zira and this convinces her of his intelligence, Zira enlists her partner Cornelius to help and with written communication he tells Zira and Cornelius where he came from, then Cornelius's boss a Dr. Zaius as learns of Taylor's intelligence but thinks this as some sort of sideshow mimicked intelligence and orders him to be castrated, Taylor tries to escape and during the escape speaks uttering the films probably most famous lines.

The Apes then have cause to take Taylor seriously but refuse to believe his stories of space travel and threaten to labotomize him, he tells them of others that came with him but he later finds one was killed and the other has been labotomized.

Taylor with help from Zira and Cornellious and other apes that believe in fair treatment for humans manages to escape taking Nova with him and also kidnap Dr. Zaius building up for a dramatic ending.

The film is a stone cold classic, and is filled with many memorable scene's but tends to drag in places and for me has too much plot build up in places.

Warrior

A Tom Hardy film about MMA, go on then.

The film is essentially about 2 brothers and an alcoholic father, who's alcoholism and the death of his wife tore apart the family.

One is a Iraq war veteran the other is a teacher, when the war veteran (Tom Hardy) returns home he causes a sensation when he goes into a gym and whilst sparring with the No.1 contender he dominates and destroy's  him, this goes onto YouTube and goes viral appearing on MMA shows, the other brother is struggling to make ends meet and starts training again in order to appear on local house shows to make some money.

Its also revealed that the brothers love of MMA comes from a father who was a trainer, The elder brother (the teacher) Brendan, finds out that he needs more money as his daughter needs open heart surgery and is struggling to make his mortgage payments and decides to go full pro again, we also get a rockyesque Adrienne type whinge from his wife about him promising not too fight again, so cue a montage of him get better and winning a few fights.

It is announced that a Middleweight tournament is coming and that the best fighters from around the world are fighting in it, Tommy (Tom Hardy) gets contacted and he agrees to participate getting his fathers help as a trainer on the provision he is a trainer and not a father, Brendan also gets in by default as the best fighter in his gym is taken injured, we also get introduced to the unstoppable Russian fighter Koba played by Kurt Angle.

So now you know the basics you can pretty much guess whats coming up, brotherly healing, father realizing he was a prick etc...... and cue a cheesey ending, it's an OK film but there was so much more than could have been done with it and I think that they could have got a proper MMA fighter to play Koba, not an Ex amateur wrestler and current pro one,as they did have some proper MMA fighters during some of fight scenes.

By the way the other half does recommend this as Tom Hardy has beefed up and spends must of his time with next to nothing on.

Summer School

A very under-looked 80's teen type film.

The film revolves around slacker gym teacher Freddy Schoop and his gang of miscreant summer school kids, he has to teach summer school in order to retain his job.

The film does fall into nearly every 80's feel good stereotype feel good teen movie, you have the 2 slacker waster friends, the hot student (who the boys all lust after), the air-head with the unrequited crush, the one with a chip on her shoulder who softens and the nerd, but they do the roles very well.

So Mr.Schoop has to get them to pass remedial English or he loses his job, he agree's to grant them one wish in order to get their attention and then cue a lot of inspirational music and montages and funny moments as they have their wishes fulfilled and start to educate themsleves.

It may seem like I am having a downer on the film but I am really not, It is very amusing and the roles are very well played, I am also guessing you don't need me to tell you it also has a happy ending.

Escape from Alcatraz

Based on a true story but obviously a lot of Hollywood poetic license was used.

Frank Morris is sent to Alcatraz a man with a genius IQ, he is introduced to the governor who informs him that no has ever escaped from Alcatraz, he is stripped and sent to his cell.

He immediately makes friends of Doc a inmate who likes to paint and Litmus a man who can lay his hands to almost any contraband in the prison, he also makes an enemy of prisoner called Wolf who essentially wants Frank to be his "bitch", Frank defends himself and beats Wolf where they both get sent to isolation, he also makes a friend of a man called "English" a black man sentenced to 2 life sentences for the self defense killings  of 2 white men.

During time in his cell he discovers the concrete around the grill in his cell has softened and starts planning his escape, he also meets a pair of brothers who are escape artists and uses them to help him in his plan and also enlists the help of new cellmate Charlie, they use litmus to get them supplies to aid with their escape which he asks for their desserts in payments, around this time the Governor does a usual inspection of the cells where he discovers Doc's painting of him and the various prison staff he revokes his painting privileges and the next day in wood-shop Doc cuts his fingers off feeling he as nothing left to live for.

The escape plan progresses and it gets very involved with the characters.

 A Well shot and a very enjoyable film.