Showing posts with label John Landis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Landis. Show all posts

18.9.11

burke and hare (2010)


"I did it for love."
A film based loosely on the true story of Burke and Hare (Simon Pegg & Andy Serkis), who found a lucrative business supplying bodies to Dr Knox (Tom Wilkinson) for his disection classes in 19th Century Edinburgh. Unfortunately they soon find their supplies running low, and have to rectify the situation as best they can.
A gem of an idea, that unfortunately is only partially successful in its attempt to find comedy in the horror of body snatching and murder. Packed full of British comedy talent and featuring cameo's from the likes of Christopher Lee.

12.2.11

kentucky fried movie (1977)


aka Hamburger film sandwich.
'Moscow in flames, missiles headed toward New York. Film at eleven.'
Before Airplane and the Naked Gun, there was Kentucky Fried Movie, where the Zucker and Abraham's team cut their teeth, in shorter highly irreverent sketches, spoofing the movie (martial arts, blacksploitation, disaster and sexploitation films), and TV (adverts, and news programming) industry. At the centre is the mighty A Fistful of Yen, a spoof on Enter The Dragon.
As these are skits, it's a bit hit and miss, but mostly they hit their target. Rude, crude, but also funny.

20.4.10

an american werewolf in london (1981)

AKA The American Werewolf.
"The wolfs bloodline must be severed."
Two American students, David and Jack (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne) get stranded on the Yorkshire moors, whilst touring Europe. There they are attacked by a werewolf with Jack being killed. David is taken to and recovers in London, but is plagued by nightmares based on the attack and being a wolf hunting through London. He moves in with his nurse, Alex (Jenny Agutter) as she tries to help him overcome the trauma, but then Jack starts appearing demanding he kill himself, explaining that he has become a werewolf and all that David kills are cursed to walk the earth until he dies!
A supurb makeover of the werewolf story, This has it all, as long as you are looking for a wolfman with added gore and black comedy. This helped reinvent the horror genre at the time and still looks as fresh today as it did at the time.