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| Paul and I congratulate Rachel on the Pimms-themed lunch |
It was a great success, in that we all had fun, but when it came to watching the Harry Potter movies in sequence not so much.
Of course matters weren't helped by the fact that we had a couple (then three) horror films we wanted to watch first. Saturday started with Camp Blood (2000) - which is possibly the worst film either of us have ever seen.
Made with a budget of about $1, the script is bad, the acting is bad, the camera work (and film stock) is bad.
The colour is washed out for most of the movie's duration so the characters have yellowy, Simpson-like skin and sound quality fades in and out (depending on how bored the boom mike operator was, I guess).
Camp Blood is a sad attempt at a low-budget slasher that, thankfully, sinks in to that precious reality of "so bad it's bad". This is a film that deserves a fan-commentary track, MT3K-style.
There's an attempt at a backstory - a man wearing a clown mask in the woods who likes to kill people - but it doesn't really make any difference to the plot.
From the gratuitous nudity in the first five minutes (tricking you into thinking the film will be full of T&A... it isn't), through several mind-blowing moments of what-the-frakkery to the supposedly clever "twist" ending which is just risible, Camp Blood can only be enjoyed by those who truly revel in crap cinema - or are totally wasted.
I cannot stress how bad this film is. It's bad. Really. Bad.
After that was lunch in the garden, where Rachel was serving Pimms, sandwiches and cakes. The weekend's gorgeous weather was also a handicap to our aim of watching six Potter movies over the two days - as it seemed a shame to stay indoors and just watch TV (well, that was Paul and Rachel's argument anyway).
After lunch we strolled up through Tonbridge High Street to the castle (where the council offices are located) to pay for our annual parking permit, then sauntered back for House.House (1977) is - quite literally - unlike any haunted house I've ever seen. It's totally, brilliantly, bonkers, with its bizarre soundtrack, inventive camera shots and Monty Pythonesque animation sequences.
Seven Japanese schoolgirls - each named for their primary trait, e.g. musical Melody, greedy Mac (for 'stomach', not 'Big Mac' as we thought), scrappy Kung-Fu, brainy Prof, cute Sweetie etc - go to stay with fashion-conscious Angel's slightly batty aunt in the country, for their school holidays.
Only the aunt turns out to not be quite 'right' and gradually madness escalates as people start to die (or are eaten by the furniture).
However, through all the insanity and fast cuts, there's a strong, creepy story set in a world that creates its own verisimilitude by undermining everyday expectations in totally unexpected ways.
After that we squeezed in derivative French horror, The Pack (2010).For the most part - and it barely lasts an hour and a quarter anyway - this is a solid riff on Texas Chainsaw Massacre (lots of nods to TCM along the way), Wrong Turn etc with tough goth girl Charlotte (Émilie Dequenne) running afoul of isolated locals, who want to fatten her up to feed to their nest of resident ghouls.
There's moments of dark humour as well as a brief torture-porn moment for those who require that sort of thing in their entertainment.
The horror was slightly undermined for me by having the main human baddie, La Spack (Yolande Moreau), bear more than a passing resemblance to Myra McQueen, the matriarchal head of the McQueen family in the only soap I watch: Hollyoaks!
The Pack's beasties are a combination of the flesh-eaters from The Descent and Torchwood's weevils, and all is going well until a rather ham-fisted, fumbling stab at a twist ending that is confusing and nonsensical.
Up until these final scenes, The Pack had been a decent, if not inspired, piece of gritty, French horror, but it all falls apart at the end as though they couldn't decide whether or not to leave it open for a sequel.
With that out the way, Paul and I felt it was finally time (8pm!) for the first of our Harry Potter films, but we were only 45 minutes into Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone when we broke for curry.
Rachel had whipped up a fantastic curry, with all the trimmings (allowing us to make use of our hot plates), followed by an ice cream and toffee fudge float for me and Eton Mess for the others.
By the time we actually reached the end of The Philosopher's Stone it was nearly midnight, so we delcared it time to hit the hay. The vast quantities of Pimms for lunch and beer with our curry had made everyone quite sleepy anyway.
The weather turned out to be even nicer today - a gentle breeze and not quite so hot - so we breakfasted on fruit and pastries in the garden, then decided to drive to Tunbridge Wells to take Paul for a walk around Dunorlan Park to burn off some calories.
Then home again to start Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, which (again) we'd only gotten about an hour through before it was time for our BBQ lunch back out in the garden.
Sadly, the gas BBQ wouldn't actually light, so the food was prepared in the oven - but it tasted great and filled us up.
This contributed to Paul and I alternately nodding off during the concluding chapters of The Chamber Of Secrets. I pretty much snoozed through the climactic fight, but woke up in time for the cheerful denouement.
And then it was time for Paul to say his farewells and head back towards London.
So, what have we learned? Mainly that we're going to stick to horror film marathons rather than any other genre and that the Harry Potter films are each so long (they appear to average about two-and-a-half-hours each) that it simply isn't possible to watch them all back-to-back over a weekend, if you plan to survive on more than junk food and desire a modicum of exercise.
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