Deathgasm 2: Goremageddon (2 Stars)

This is the ninth film in the Stuttgart White Nights Festival.

The film is a sequel to "Deathgasm", which I watched in 2021. From what I remember, it was quite a good film. I can't say the same about the sequel. The film relies on over-the-top gore from beginning to end. I respect the film makers for refusing to use CGI, but they overdo it. I would have preferred a better story and less gore.

Shelby Oaks (3 Stars)

This is the eighth film in the Stuttgart White Nights Festival.

A team of paranormal investigators has a successful YouTube channel. One day they disappear without a trace while investigating an abandoned town called Shelby Oaks. Three of the bodies are found. Only Riley Brennan's body is missing. There are no clues. The police eventually give up the investigation.

12 years later Mia Brennan, Riley's older sister, is given a film tape by a stranger. On it she finds footage of the Shelby Oaks investigation. Convinced that her sister is still alive, she goes to Shelby Oaks to continue the investigation.

I enjoyed the first hour of the film, when it was a chilling mystery. The crazy supernatural occurrences in the last half hour spoilt the film.

My Daughter is a Zombie (4 Stars)

This is the seventh film in the Stuttgart White Nights Festival.

Unfortunately, I missed the first day of the festival. My grandson Oliver was participating in his first football tournament. It was a tough choice, but I decided that family takes priority over films.

The film is about the aftermath of a zombie virus in Korea. All the zombies have been killed, so life can return to normal. Almost all the zombies. Soo-a is a zombie, probably the last zombie in Korea, and she's being protected by her father. He's convinces that he can train her to return to normal, without any medication.

The film's title makes the film sound like a comedy. There are a few humorous situations, but overall it's a serious film. It's emotional to see a father's love for his daughter under the most difficult of situations.

Three Into Two Won't Go (4 Stars)

This is the third of three films I'm watching that belonged to my mother's favourite films. Unlike "Date with a Lonely Girl", it doesn't have a Rotten Tomatoes rating at all. Is it too old (1969) and too obscure to have been noticed?

Steve Howard is a salesman whose office is in London, but he frequently has to travel to Manchester. He picks up a teenage hitchhiker called Ella Patterson while returning home. She seduces him, it's not the other way round. He arranges for her to get a job at a guest house that belongs to Jack, an old army acquaintance. A week later he stops at the guest house again, longing to see her. When he visits a third time, she's gone.

Ella has gone to Steve's house. She makes friends with his wife, claiming that she's left the guest house because Jack was molesting her. This isn't true. She just wants to be with Steve again. She wants to wreck Steve's marriage at all costs.

The film is deliberately austere. Long silences, static compositions and the isolated rural setting emphasise the emotional claustrophobia of the situation. The countryside, often romanticised in British cinema, becomes a place of entrapment rather than escape. The film's pacing is slow, even uncomfortable at times, but this is essential to its effect; it forces the viewer to sit with the characters' unease rather than providing narrative relief.

The film's message is not an attack on non-traditional relationships as such, but a critique of emotional dishonesty and power imbalance. "Three Into Two Won't Go" argues that relationships framed as progressive or liberated can still replicate old forms of control if they're rooted in ego rather than mutual care. Steve believes he's rejecting conventional morality, yet he reproduces its worst elements by positioning himself at the centre of everything.

Crucially, the film refuses to offer a clear moral victory. There's no dramatic punishment, no neat reversal, no comforting lesson about love conquering all. Instead, it leaves the audience with a sense of quiet damage; people leave the arrangement not enlightened but diminished. This ambiguity is precisely what makes the film enduring. It trusts the viewer to recognise that emotional harm does not always announce itself loudly.

In retrospect, "Three Into Two Won't Go" feels like a sceptical response to the sexual revolution rather than a celebration of it. Released at a time when cinema was increasingly embracing permissiveness, it asks whether emotional maturity has kept pace with social experimentation. Its answer is cautious, even pessimistic, but never reactionary.

While the film lacks the stylistic flash that often defines late-1960's cinema, its intellectual seriousness and psychological honesty give it lasting weight. It's a film less interested in romance than in responsibility, and less concerned with desire than with the consequences of indulging it without empathy.

"Three Into Two Won't Go" remains a quietly unsettling study of modern relationships, suggesting that progress is meaningless if it merely repackages selfishness in fashionable language.

Date with a Lonely Girl (4 Stars)

"Date with a lonely girl", also known as "T.R. Baskin", was one of my mother's favourite films. I remember watching it on television a few times. Like all families in the pre-Internet age, we bought a TV guide every week, and my mother closely examined what films would be shown. She was always excited when "Date with a lonely girl" would be shown. Imagine my surprise when I read up on it and found that it has a whopping 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I couldn't remember it being that bad. Nevertheless, it's been released on Blu-ray, so I ordered a copy before Christmas, which finally arrived this week.

The film is about a young woman who moves from Findlay, Ohio to Chicago. The reasons for her move aren't stated, but it was obviously a spontaneous decision. When she arrives she has no job and nowhere to live. She hadn't even told her parents she was leaving. She sends them a telegram to tell them not to worry about her.

A few weeks later two former fraternity brothers, Larry and Jack, bump into one another on the street. Larry works in Chicago as a children's book author. Jack is a salesman from New York, visiting on business. Despite being married, Jack asks Larry if he can recommend female company for his weekend in Chicago. Larry recommends T.R.

In case you're wondering what T.R. stands for, we're never told. She claims that it stands for nothing, it's her complete name.

T.R. visits Jack in his hotel room. While they're talking, we see in flashbacks how she arrived, how she found a job, and most importantly, how she met Larry.

While watching the film, I tried to figure out why the critics hate it. Maybe it's the characters. Everyone we see is screwed up, in one way or another. Everyone is socially awkward. Even T.R. herself has a warped sense of humour that alienates everyone around her. Ironically, Jack, despite being a man who cheats on his wife, is the only normal, well-balanced person in the film.

And yet, from what I've read, many viewers enjoy the film, not just my mother. What makes the film interesting is its refusal to resolve neatly or deliver conventional meaning. On the surface it’s an unglamorous character study about a woman who, time and again, misreads her life and relationships, and pays a quiet price for it. Beneath the surface it’s really about the psychological cost of independence when the world isn’t set up to support it; it’s about the frustration of being clever yet misunderstood, resilient yet repeatedly disappointed, and the corrosive effect of living in a big city where everyone is anonymous.

I don't consider it a bad film. If my mother were still alive we'd sit and watch it together, like in the old days.

Spellbound (4 Stars)

Last month was the 15th anniversary of my mother's death, so I was feeling sentimental. I decided to buy Arthur Hitchcock's "Spellbound", because I remember her saying that it was her favourite film. I also ordered two other films that I remember her liking a lot.

I remember my mother being a film fan, even though it was more inconvenient in her era. There were no videotapes, DVDs or Blu-Ray discs. Apart from the official cinema releases, the only way to watch films was television. We had our regular film evening every Friday. Every Friday there were two horror films on ITV, either the Universal horror films from the 1930's and 1940's, or the more recent Hammer Horror films from the 1960's. The schedule was that one film ended at midnight, and the second film began at midnight. My father went to bed and let the two of us watch television together. We usually drank a glass of sherry together, even though I was very young, 11 to 16 years old. Those were happy days.

Even though she watched horror films with me, those weren't her favourite films. She loved the film "Spellbound", calling it her favourite, and we watched it several times together. There's a story to it. She went to see it in the cinema when it was first shown in 1946. She was 14 at the time. After the film she bought the soundtrack album in the cinema foyer. It was the only soundtrack album that she ever bought. In the good old days it was common to sell LPs in cinemas. There were no DVDs, so the most people could do was buy the film music. When she got home she played it for her father, and he said that it was bad. He played the William Tell Overture as an example of good music. She said that it sounded just the same. But if she'd thought logically she would have known it wasn't the same. She liked "Spellbound" and she didn't like the William Tell Overture, so something must have been different. I remember the LP lying around for years. I have no idea what happened to it. It was probably thrown in the rubbish when she died.

The other two films she liked a lot were "Date with a Lonely Girl" and "Three into two won't go". I remember them, because whenever they were listed in the TV guide she'd get excited and tell me I had to watch them with her. I'm still waiting for Amazon to deliver them, and I'll watch them as soon as they arrive.

---

The film is about Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman), a psychoanalyst in a mental hospital in America. The hospital's director retires and is replaced by Dr. Anthony Edwards, a renowned author of books on the guilt complex. It's love at first sight. Within the first day Constance and Anthony fall into one another's arms. Maybe more happened, but in 1940's films nothing is shown or even hinted at. But it's soon discovered that he's a fake. He's a man suffering from amnesia who wrongly thinks that he might be Dr. Edwards. The police suspect that he murdered the real Dr. Edwards, so he flees. Constance loves him, so she follows him. She's not just his lover, she acts as his psychoanalyst trying to help him remember his past.

"Spellbound" is revered as a classic, even though it's now one of Alfred Hitchcock's lesser known films. It was nominated for six Oscars at the 1946 Academy Awards, winning the Oscar for the Best Soundtrack.

P.S. I would have posted a screenshot of Alfred Hitchcock's cameo, but he's smoking a cigar. My blog is strictly smoke-free.

Success Rate:  + 2.3

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Mean Girls [2024] (3 Stars)

Netflix Thursday #45

Mean Girls (2024) is not a simple remake of the 2004 classic but a film adaptation of the Broadway musical, itself based on Tina Fey's original screenplay. Co-written by Fey and directed by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr, the film attempts to translate the story of Cady Heron and the Plastics into a contemporary, social media saturated high school landscape while embracing the conventions of a modern screen musical.

The most immediate and divisive change is the musical format. Characters now express ambition, jealousy and insecurity through song, often in heightened, stylised sequences that lean heavily into TikTok aesthetics and pop choreography. When the numbers work, particularly those centred on Janis and Damian, they add emotional clarity and a sense of theatrical fun. When they do not, they can feel like interruptions rather than narrative propulsion, breaking the sharp pacing that defined the 2004 film.

The cast is uniformly likeable, with Auli'i Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey emerging as highlights. Their expanded roles benefit from the musical structure, giving them space to develop beyond comic sidekicks. Angourie Rice's Cady is more subdued than Lindsay Lohan's original incarnation, and while this fits the ensemble driven approach of the film, it also blunts the impact of Cady's moral decline and eventual self realisation. Renee Rapp's Regina George is more openly vulnerable, shaped less as a pure antagonist and more as a product of image culture and constant online scrutiny.

Social media is central to the film's worldview. Reputation, popularity and humiliation are no longer confined to the school cafeteria but are instantly broadcast and archived online. This is one of the remake's smarter updates, even if it occasionally feels too eager to signal its relevance rather than letting the satire speak for itself.

Where the film struggles is in its humour. Many of the original's most caustic lines and risky jokes have been softened or removed entirely. The result is a film that is kinder and more inclusive but also less quotable and less sharp. The bite that made Mean Girls a cultural phenomenon has been replaced with a smoother, more agreeable tone.

Ultimately, Mean Girls (2024) works best when viewed on its own terms. It is a glossy, energetic musical that reflects contemporary teen culture with sincerity, even if it lacks the ferocity and precision of its predecessor. It does not replace the 2004 film and does not try to. Instead, it offers a reinterpretation shaped by different priorities, audiences and cultural norms.

Key Differences from Mean Girls (2004)

Musical format

The 2024 film is a full musical, adapted from the Broadway stage version, with characters regularly breaking into song to express internal states and advance the plot.

Social media as a narrative engine

Platforms like TikTok and Instagram play a central role in spreading gossip, enforcing hierarchies and accelerating Regina's rise and fall.

Cady's home life

Cady lives with a single mother rather than two parents, and their relationship is given more narrative emphasis.

Softer dialogue and humour

Several iconic lines and insults from the original have been removed or rewritten to align with contemporary sensibilities.

Revised clique presentation

The cafeteria tour of high school stereotypes is streamlined, with fewer caricatured or racially coded groups.

Regina and Janis backstory

The history between Regina and Janis is reframed to avoid implications present in the original film and to give Janis greater emotional legitimacy.

Talent show sequence

The "Jingle Bell Rock" performance is replaced by a different musical number, and Regina's public humiliation is amplified through social media reaction.

Ending structure

The 2004 film includes brief epilogues showing where characters end up. The 2024 version ends more abruptly at the Spring Fling.

Greater diversity and representation

The cast is more racially diverse, with queer characters written more affirmatively and less as punchlines.

Removal of certain iconic scenes

Moments such as the four way phone call are absent, replaced by texting and online communication.

Success Rate:  + 0.9

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Shaolin Martial Arts (4 Stars)

Historical background

Shaolin Martial Arts is set during the early Qing dynasty, after the Manchu conquest of China in the seventeenth century. In kung fu cinema, this period is commonly portrayed as an era of repression, with the Manchu authorities attempting to suppress Han Chinese martial traditions. Shaolin schools are depicted not only as places of physical training but as centres of cultural resistance. While the historical reality is more complex, the film draws on popular folklore in which Shaolin boxing represents discipline, moral integrity and opposition to unjust rule.

Unlike films that focus on the destruction of the Shaolin Temple itself, Shaolin Martial Arts is primarily concerned with regional Shaolin schools and the spread of Shaolin techniques among the civilian population.

Plot summary

The story opens with the Qing authorities attempting to assert control over southern China by targeting Shaolin-affiliated martial arts schools. Two formidable Manchu fighters are employed to eliminate a Shaolin school led by Master Lin. Their victory demonstrates the limitations of orthodox Shaolin techniques when faced with specialised and ruthless opponents.

Recognising the danger, Master Lin sends two senior students to seek advanced instruction from an ageing kung fu master known for his unorthodox methods. They hope to acquire techniques powerful enough to defeat the Manchu champions. Although the training is severe and the students gain new skills, they rush into confrontation prematurely and are killed. Their deaths underline one of the film's central themes: skill without patience leads to destruction.

With his strongest fighters gone, Master Lin turns to his remaining students, Li Yao and Chen Bao-rong. Li Yao, played by Alexander Fu Sheng, is talented but impulsive, confident in his abilities yet lacking emotional control. Chen is more restrained and methodical, providing a clear contrast between raw aggression and disciplined focus.

Both men are sent for further training, each under different masters. The film devotes considerable time to these sequences, emphasising repetitive drills, physical conditioning and endurance. Li Yao's training highlights hand techniques, power generation and sensitivity, including exercises that require precise control rather than brute force. These scenes reinforce the idea that true Shaolin mastery is earned through suffering and restraint.

Alongside the training narrative runs a restrained romantic subplot between Li Yao and Master Lin's daughter. This relationship softens Li Yao's character and gives him a personal reason to survive beyond revenge, reinforcing his gradual emotional maturity.

Once their training is complete, Li Yao and Chen return to challenge the Manchu fighters. The final section of the film consists of a series of extended duels that test the specific techniques each character has learned. Victory is achieved not through superior strength alone but through correct application, timing and mental discipline.

The Manchu fighters are eventually defeated, restoring honour to the Shaolin school. The ending avoids triumphalism. Instead, it suggests that Shaolin martial arts must continually adapt and be preserved through teaching rather than open rebellion.

Themes and significance

Shaolin Martial Arts is less a political rebellion film than a study of martial development. It presents kung fu as a disciplined craft rooted in tradition, patience and moral responsibility. Alexander Fu Sheng's performance captures the transition from youthful arrogance to controlled mastery, making the film an important example of the Shaw Brothers training narrative.

Within the broader Shaolin cycle of the 1970's, the film stands out for its emphasis on learning and refinement rather than temple destruction or large-scale revolt. It portrays Shaolin not as a single sacred location but as a living system passed from teacher to student, surviving through adaptation rather than force.

Men from the Monastery (4 Stars)

Plot Summary

Men from the Monastery is a 1974 Hong Kong kung-fu epic set in the world of Shaolin martial arts heroes and Qing dynasty oppression. It isn’t a single straightforward narrative; instead the film is structured in four interlinked chapters, each focusing on the origins and exploits of three legendary Shaolin fighters before bringing them together for a dramatic final confrontation against overwhelming odds.

1. Fong Sai-Yu’s Trial and Return

The film opens inside the Shaolin Temple, showing Fong Sai-Yu (played by Alexander Fu Sheng) completing his intense training and passing through the notorious “Wooden Men Alley”, a traditional Shaolin initiation test of martial skill and endurance. Soon after leaving the temple he returns to his home region and confronts a powerful Wu Tang-affiliated master, leading to a brutal duel that establishes his skill and reputation.

2. Hu Hui-Chien’s Path to Vengeance

The second segment focuses on Hu Hui-Chien (Chi Kuan-chun), a hot-headed youth whose father is murdered by corrupt officials and martial artists aligned with the Manchu-backed factions. Despite trying repeatedly to retaliate, Hu is defeated until he meets Fong and is told to train at Shaolin. After three hard years of kung-fu training, he returns as a skilled warrior ready to avenge his father.

3. Hung Hsi-Kwan’s Guerrilla Fight

The third chapter introduces Hung Hsi-Kwan (Chen Kuan-tai), a fierce Shaolin disciple fighting as a guerrilla leader against Qing soldiers. Declaring his goal in blunt terms, Hung unleashes his wrath on occupying forces, and his resistance efforts become legendary.

4. Final Stand After Shaolin’s Fall

The climax follows the three heroes as they reunite amid the burning ruins of the Shaolin monastery (footage from the related film Heroes Two is used to show this event). With the temple destroyed by Qing forces, Fong, Hu, Hung and a small group of compatriots make a desperate stand against waves of imperial troops. Blood spills, alliances are tested, and the fight becomes a bitter struggle to the death with only one of them surviving, underscoring the sacrifices made in their resistance.

Historical Background

Although Men from the Monastery is a work of fiction, it plays on real-world legends and common narratives in Chinese martial arts folklore about the Shaolin Temple’s role in resistance against the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). In many martial arts stories the temple is portrayed as a centre of patriotic resistance; Shaolin fighters train and organise uprisings against the Manchus, who ruled China after overthrowing the Ming dynasty.

• Shaolin in Myth and Martial Arts Traditions

In Chinese popular culture, the Shaolin Temple has long been mythologised as a cradle of martial arts and of patriotic fighters who opposed foreign rule. Characters like Fong Sai-Yu (Feng Shih-yu) and Hung Hsi-Kwan (Hung Hei-kwan) are famous figures in Chinese folklore and martial arts literature. They are often depicted as masters of kung-fu and defenders of the oppressed, with their stories adapted and embellished across films, novels, operas and TV series.

• The Qing Dynasty Context

The Qing dynasty was established by the Manchus, an ethnic group from northeast China who conquered the Ming dynasty. Many historical dramas and martial arts films depict this era as one of turmoil and resistance, with rogue fighters and secret societies rising against corrupt officials and imperial control. While real historical details vary widely, the cinematic tradition uses this backdrop as a powerful setting for tales of honour, brotherhood and sacrifice.

• Shaolin Cycle Films

Men from the Monastery is part of director Chang Cheh’s so-called Shaolin Cycle of films made in the 1970s, inspired by these folk narratives. It links to other movies like Heroes Two (1974), which depicts the burning of the Shaolin temple by Qing forces, a recurring motif in martial arts cinema that symbolises the destruction of tradition and the unjust persecution of righteous fighters.

Place in Kung Fu Film History

Men from the Monastery belongs to the golden age of Hong Kong martial arts cinema, roughly the late 1960's through the late 1970's. By 1974, the genre had already moved away from wire-heavy wuxia fantasy towards grounded, physical kung fu, emphasising training, endurance and bodily sacrifice. This film sits firmly in that transition.

What makes it historically significant is how it codifies Shaolin mythology into a cinematic template. Earlier films referenced Shaolin loosely; Chang Cheh’s Shaolin cycle turns it into a shared narrative universe. Characters such as Fong Sai-Yu and Hung Hsi-Kwan appear across multiple films, sometimes played by different actors, sometimes in altered timelines. Continuity is less important than legend. This approach strongly influenced later franchises and television series that treated Chinese folk heroes as recurring archetypes rather than fixed historical figures.

The film also reflects a broader shift in kung fu cinema towards collective heroism. Unlike Bruce Lee’s star-centric vehicles, Men from the Monastery spreads attention across multiple protagonists. Brotherhood, loyalty and shared martyrdom matter more than individual victory. This ensemble focus became a hallmark of many Shaw Brothers productions and helped distinguish studio kung fu films from independently produced star vehicles.

Chang Cheh’s Influence as a Filmmaker

Chang Cheh was arguably the most influential director of Hong Kong action cinema before and during the Bruce Lee era. His impact goes far beyond choreography.

1. Masculinity and Tragedy

Chang Cheh introduced a distinctly tragic form of heroic masculinity. His heroes are rarely rewarded with peace or survival. Instead, honour is achieved through suffering, endurance and often death. In Men from the Monastery, survival is almost beside the point. The destruction of Shaolin and the deaths of its defenders are framed as morally necessary sacrifices.

This fatalistic tone became one of Chang Cheh’s signatures and influenced later directors who explored violence as a test of identity rather than simple spectacle.

2. Violence as Meaning, Not Decoration

Chang Cheh’s films are often criticised for their bloodshed, but the violence in Men from the Monastery is ritualistic rather than gratuitous. Training sequences, duels and mass battles all reinforce the idea that kung fu is earned through pain. This emphasis helped redefine audience expectations. Martial arts were no longer just exotic skills; they were expressions of moral resolve.

Later filmmakers such as Lau Kar-leung would refine this idea further by grounding violence in authentic martial arts lineages, but Chang Cheh laid the philosophical groundwork.

3. Myth Over History

Chang Cheh was not interested in strict historical realism. Instead, he treated Chinese history as mythic raw material. Qing oppression, Shaolin destruction and patriotic resistance are simplified and stylised to serve emotional clarity. This approach shaped decades of kung fu storytelling, where historical eras function more like moral landscapes than documented realities.

Because of this, Men from the Monastery feels less like a historical drama and more like a cinematic folk tale, passed down through repetition and variation.

Legacy

While Men from the Monastery is not as famous as some Shaolin films that followed, its influence is quietly substantial. It helped establish:

• The Shaolin Temple as a cinematic symbol of moral authority

• The Qing dynasty as the default antagonist of kung fu legend

• The idea of kung fu heroes as disposable martyrs for a greater cause

Later films and television series, from Shaw Brothers productions to modern mainland Chinese epics, continue to draw from the narrative structure and emotional logic Chang Cheh refined here.

In short, Men from the Monastery matters not because it tells a single definitive story, but because it helped define how kung fu cinema tells stories at all.