The Call Of Cthulhu (An All New Silent Movie!)

Score: 8 Out Of 10

     
          I have always had a fondness for silent films. They have a certain charm that seems to have been lost when the "talkies" started to get released. I can not quite put my finger on it. Maybe it is the way the actors always seem to be over acting, or how the horror and science fiction films of that era all seem to share in a very surreal style (ex: "The Cabinet Of Doctor Caligari" and "A Trip To The Moon"). So you can imagine how I was immediately attracted to a film advertised as a "new silent film." Released in 2005, "The Call Of Cthulhu" was directed by Andrew Leman and stars Matt Foyer, John Bolen and Ralph Lucas. The plot of the film is as follows: A man comes across the research carried out by his late grandfather regarding the "Cult Of Cthulhu (when the next census comes around I am going to list that as my religion)" and he himself becomes drawn into the mystery.

            "Call" is a short but sweet movie. It only runs for about forty five minutes and all the acting is particularly good... well, when I say good, I mean they a good job of completely over acting. As previously stated, that fits right into the film's overall style. There is no real violence in the film. The only blood I remember seeing is sitting to the left of this paragraph and because of the "silent" style there is also no nudity. But who cares? This was still a pretty entertaining film! There were however a couple things that bothered me. If you watch carefully you can see little bits of modern technology slip into frame. On top of that, The visual effects and camera work felt more akin to the "talkies" that came in the two decades after silent films. Despite this, though, I still thoroughly enjoyed the full forty five minutes of this film. That in and of itself makes it worthy of an eight out of ten rating.

Love,

      The B-Movie Guy.

Twitter: @BMovieguy #Bmovieblog #Thecallofcthulhu

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Non Si Sevizia Un Paperino (Don't Torture A Duckling)

Score: 9 Out Of 10

                Every so often I get a movie that hits me in a very emotional way. Maybe it is because I recently became a father for the first time, or because there seems to be so many stories in the news lately that this film reminds me of. I think what is most surprising is that it was directed (and co-written) by lucio fulci. I am not used to fulci films soliciting this kind of response from me. Normally I just get a cheep thrill out of all the over the top violence and the over abundance of nudity. The plot of "Non Si Sevizia Un Paperino" ( or "Don't Torture A Duckling" as it was released in America) focuses on a series of child murders and the people investigating and suspected of these murders. The story is emotional, disturbing, angering and at times almost a tear jerker (once again this could just be the parent in me talking). The film stars Florinda Bolkan, Barbara Bouchet and Tomas Milian. All of the actors gave pretty good performances. There were a couple of moments where the acting seemed to go down in quality a bit, but over all these moments were quickly forgotten.

          I think what surprised me the most was the social commentary found in this film. fulci and crew are not just taking shots at law enforcement but also the public and the media for their knee jerk style reactions to violent crimes. In addition they also manage to make some statements about the catholic church (if you are heavy into Catholicism you might want to avoid this one). I can honestly say I do not think I have encountered another fulci film with this much to say about society. If I have, I probably did not notice because of his usual level of violence (he was once quoted as saying "Violence is Italian art!"). Speaking of violence, I will not try to tell you that this film was devoid of violence, but I did notice far less than the average fulci film (ex: he has two films on England's notorious "Video Nasties" list). In closing, I am absolutely in love with this film. It just might replace "Zombie" (or "Zombie 2" for you purists out there) as my favorite fulci film.

Love,
   The B-Movie Guy.

Twitter: @BMovieguy   #bomvieblog   #donttorturetheduckling