HCF Review - Into the Wild

CHARISMA (1999)

Since certain ventures into the realm of Japanese cinema have been an assault on the senses recently, it’s time to take a look at something on the other end of the spectrum. While there are moments of both dark comedy and creeping dread, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Charisma is more of a mood movie than a thriller; a strange and contemplative affair, often picturesque and often slow moving. Still, in terms of a narrative there’s still plenty of bizarre and enigmatic events to consider. It’s an intriguing experience to say the least but is it a crime story, an ecological drama, or just a mushroom fuelled trip into the wilderness?

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HCF Review - PIN...

964 PINOCCHIO (1991)

The realm of extreme cinema can pose of lot of unusual questions, but in the case of 964 Pinocchio it’s mainly ‘how much is too much?’ How much convulsing and puking does it take to compete with Zulawski’s Possession? How many weird metaphors will it take to top the work of Shinya Tsukamoto? The director, Shozin Fukui, worked on the latter in the late 1980s and clearly had these references in mind when putting together this gruelling mixture of guerilla film-making and cyberpunk nightmare fuel. Clearly his instinct was that more is more, so let’s take a look at how much of the final product works as a story.

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Monster Bites - Shellshock

GAMERA THE BRAVE (2006) 

The 1990s trilogy concluded with the idea that Gamera would continue to fight on against his usual enemies. However, after distribution of part three went to Toho, the Godzilla owners, Daiei dissolved and became part of Kadokawa Studios. Seven years passed and they oversaw a series reboot much like the Godzilla films. Which could have been fruitful; the series might have benefited from looser continuity a new ideas. Unfortunately, this is Gamera's last big screen appearance and the only movie from this new era thanks to its commercial failure. Is it a disaster or is this just because it wasn't the anticipated part four? 

Monster Bites - Fireball XL

GAMERA 2: ATTACK OF LEGION (1996)

Hold on, wasn't it called Advent of Legion? Assault of 'The Legion'? Or was it Invasion? It's been a while since this 1990s monster trilogy was mentioned here, so the details are sketchy and the release titles are varied. In fact it must have been nearly a decade ago in blogging time. Ten years of writing utter rubbish that nobody reads as a substitute for any semblance of mental wellbeing, where does the time go? In those days the old DVDs you could get in the mail were a source of all kinds of world cinema gems, but that was before the dark times, before the age of streaming. Now thankfully there are new Blu-ray sets, so let's take a look to see if this is still the best part of the series.

Review Roundup - Treading Water

AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH (2025)

Ah James Cameron, once master of the low budget thrill ride, the big budget tech demo, and the director of the ultimate sequel. In some ways he never recovered from the generic nature of True Lies and the mushy slog of Titanic but that's a story for another time. Of course most recently, in a relative sense, the sanctuary moon of 'Pandora' took his focus for fifteen years, not counting all that visual effects development. Which isn't to say this world doesn't have its share of Saturday morning cartoon level thrill power. So when this instalment, perhaps the last but probably not, threatens to be something deeper it's a shame it doesn't stick the landing.