Couple of Corman’s

Dean Stockwell leads the cast in The Dunwich Horror a Roger Corman adaptation of the famed Lovecraft short. Stockwell turns up at a library hoping for a squiz at the Necronomicon in an effort to continue his ancestor's research but after entrancing one of the librarians it becomes clear his interest is more practical then academic. Despite the low budget and a hokey script this is still a half decent Hammer-ish chiller mainly down to Stockwell's creepy, weird performance which only falters during the climactic, highly amusing, ritual. Goofy fun.

Doug McClure stars as a fisherman-buffoon in another Corman produced horror B, Humanoids from the Deep. A spate of fishy attacks and a couple of corpses eventually lead the dull witted locals to the realisation that they're being invaded by murderous bottom feeders who also appear rather keen to make sexy time with catchable ladies. I suppose there’s some so-bad-it’s-good titters to be had along the way but the dreadful acting, dire script and piss poor production values (bad even for a Corman flick) meant that this was almost switched off more than once. Don’t bother.

Frightfully Eighties

Scott’s smoky vampire flick The Hunger with Bowie & sapphism.

Mann’s spooky castle The Keep sports a Tangerine Dream soundtrack.

Cushing, Price & Lee unite for a horror spoof The House of Long Shadows.

Mental Matters

Interesting excerpt  about the role of placebo/nocebo and Dancing outbreaks. Scientific American.

Seeing sound? Livescience have an article worth reading.

The sense of self seems to lurk behind children’s peekabo behaviours according to Cambridge labcoats.

Mindhacks has a nice article about the psychological lure of puzzly videogames.

Looks like the mechanism behind prosopagnosia has been found. Reddit.

Science Daily has an article about our revealing predilection for monsters in our culture.

Dishonesty is unpicked by a Duke University boffin in an interview with Scientific American.

Investigating the body/brain’s interaction with weight gain. Reddit.

Decoding dreams in Japan? Telegraph.

Terminating Teens

A deserted, overgrown town situated near the meltdown site provides a suitably creepy background to the by-the-numbers chiller Chernobyl Diaries. A bunch of yank tourists take an ill-advised tour of the ramshackle settlement and quickly become prey to it’s current, rather murderous mutated inhabitants. There’s a few nerve jangling moments hidden among the cheap jumpy scares but the acting and script are so humdrum that it all slumps rapidly into mediocrity. Not terrible but hardly terrifying.

High school kids are getting killed off by a movie inspired psychopath in the frenetic, po-mo Detention. After the first couple of corpses turn up a disparate group of students take it on themselves to unravel the mystery and find themselves neck deep in a genre/mind bending escapade. Though the acting is so-so this comedy/horror has a quite exhilarating hing pace, driven relentlessly forward by a flashbang, music video editing and a script rammed tight with gags and a plethora of pop culture references a la “Community”. Shallow, fast paced fun but with a style that’s bound to be divisive.

Horror Throng

Brit horror/comedy Cockneys vs Zombies is as basic as the title suggest and it’s best bits are crammed into it’s trailer sbut it sill managed to raise a chuckle or two. Builders pop a sealed tomb and inadvertently unleash a zombie outbreak on the East End sending a bunch of bungling bank robbers battling across town to rescue their Grandad who's holed up in a scheduled-for-demolition old folks home. There’s a few nice chompy bits but the stronger, better acted and funnier OAP's segments are secondary to a predictable and cliched main story that has little imagination or charm. Half decent.

British 80's cult horror, Xtro, is just as flawed but at least has the decency to be quite, quite bonkers. When a UFO buzzes a remote cottage and abducts a middle class dad his traumatised son grows up with his mum and her yank boyfriend. When hubby strolls back into their lives a few years later, seemingly sans memories but with extra odd, his presence seems to unlock strange abilities in the kid and a merry, icky rampage is excreted. This is low budget stuff that's badly shot and poorly scripted/acted but it does mine a thick vein of gooey, quite repugnant body horror that's interspersed with some genuinely barmy deaths.

Comic Contests

Bruce Dern smirks and slimes his way through the beauty pageant comedy Smile released back in 1975. As the ladies arrive in town for the judging, Dern, playing a local business man, revels in his role as organiser/judge and finds himself drawn to one of the pretty younglings, ignorant of the venom and heartbreak that’s happening backstage. Wonderfully acted and with a script that disguises it’s considerable with a light and breezy atmosphere. A brilliant yet neglected slice of seventies satire.

Butter doesn’t have the same bite as Smile but it’s a fairly reasonable swipe at another Amurican pageant tradition, butter carving. A  wholesome, vacuous couple dominate the local competition but when a little black girl and stripper enter the fray things get personal and new heights/lows are breached. Jennifer Garner takes the lead and is joined by Jackman and the gorgeous  Olivia Wilde but their efforts are mostly wasted on the thin script and a cheesey side story.

Auditory Aces

Electoral Dysfunction

Robert Redford is approached to run against a long standing Senator in the political drama soft satire The Candidate from 1972. As the reluctant nominee hits the campaign trail the idealism and values he started with are slowly eroded as his chances improve and real power comes close to hand. Nicely acted by Redford and Peter Boyle this bitter, sharp swipe at the Amurican electoral system has a nuance that could be mistaken for understatement these days but it's a fine, depressingly prescient film that deserves a lot more attention.
40 years later and there's little if any understatement in The Campaign, a starry, comedy nutpunch towards Amurica"s current political idiocy. Zach Galifianakas, playing a campy tour guide, gets recruited by a pair of billionaires to unseat the incumbent oaf Will Ferrell and the race to Congress pushes both men to the brink, redefining classic political pandering and dirty, dirty tricks. Though it crumples into a typically cheesy finale there’s a surprising amount of bite to the comedy, hidden as it is beneath an avalanche of puerile and slapstick nonsense. Considerably better than expected.