With Friends Like These...

I've always said that I can watch any horror film and enjoy it, no matter how bad. This film changed that fact! It's hard to believe that a film that involves Christine-like talking cars, fridge monsters made of bacteria and spooky robot boyfriends could be so tedious! I thought the last story, although very, very obvious, was the best of a bad bunch. The car story was just terrible. Also, what the hell has the bus journey go to do with the price of fish??? It seems just like a meaningless link between the stories that could have easily been elaborated and bettered. The acting wasn't the worst I've seen but the stories were simply not believable. Who, after being kissed by a gruesome fridge-bacteria monster, slaps their boyfriend and walks out calmly?! Anyway, not worth the £1.25 i spent on it from the Works stationary shop!

This is a very strange film, with a no-name cast and virtually nothing known about it on the web. It uses an approach familiar to those who have watched the likes of Creepshow in that it introduces a trilogy of so-called "horror" shorts and blends them together into a connecting narrative of the people who are involved in the segments getting off a bus. There is a narrator who prattles on about relationships, but his talking adds absolutely nothing to the mix at all and just adds to the confusion. As for the stories themselves, well.. I swear I have not got a clue why this movie got an 18 certificate in the UK, which would bring it into line with the likes of Nightmare On Elm Street and The Exorcist. Nothing here is even remotely scary.. there is no gore, sex, nudity or even a swear word to liven things up, this is the kind of thing you could put out on Children's TV and no-one would bat an eyelid. I can only think if it had got the rating it truly deserved (a PG) no serious horror fan would be seen dead with it, so the distributor probably buffeted the BBFC until they relented. Anyway, here are the 3 tales in summary: 1. A man becomes dangerously obsessed with his telekinetic car to the point of alienating his fiancee. 2. A man who lives in a filthy apartment is understandably freaked out when a living organism evolved from his six-month old tuna casserole. 3. A woman thinks she has found the perfect man through a computer dating service.. that is until he starts to act weird.. And there you have it. Some of them are pretty amusing due to their outlandish premises (my favourite being number 2) but you get the feeling they were meant to be a) frightening and b) morality plays, unfortunately they fail miserably on both counts. To sum up then, this flick is an obscure curiosity.. for very good reasons.

Ok I brought this for £1.49 from a discount bookshop, I was drunk at the time and decided the blurb on the back sounded funny. on a crowded bus, three people sit patiently waiting for their stops, unaware that they are about to have extraordinary experiences. Thats all the info the box had with a pretty lame monster on the front.

The film is classed as a 18, yes a 18 why??? Its not scary its not good but its very funny when one bloke opens his fridge to find his rotten food has turned into a person, who is aroused by porn, another bloke has a car talk to him just cause the car wants a owner who wants a understanding driver, chucks him out on the highway and then picks up a woman driver. Also a woman who has a date from hell. Ok it may be a crap film but don't worry about the plot, story and just enjoy is pretty dum acting, some parts are pretty funny, so if you see it on budget just give it a go.

One of two anthology films on my list for reviewing, With Friends like These was donated by a man who said 'It looked too rubbish to even watch'. It's also the 'b-side' of one those two-for-one double disc thingys which also does not bode well.

But I've got the flu and was too weak after re-watching House of Lost Souls last night to put too much thought into films that I'll have to make an effort reviewing (Bronx Warriors, Entity Force), so I put this one on instead.

It's kind of like the other anthology film I've got, Freaky Fairy tales, in that it's quirky and funny and filmed in that dodgy late-eighties/early nineties way, but it ain't got any nudity or gore, which Freaky Fairy tales has (I'll review it soon once I've studied the err Goldielocks shower bit a few more times) So this one starts off showing modern life and people getting on a bus while some chugnut spews out all kinds of cod-philosophy about relationships when we finally get to our first story - the one with the talking car.

Alex's missus is one of them types who reckons that the old house/kids/dowhatyou'refeckintold routine is the way to go in life, but after Alex finds himself using their savings to buy a wisecracking MG, things take a turn for the worst. This MG promises a lot, but...ah you know the drill with talking cars. This segment was OK in that the lead actor was pretty into acting like the henpecked boyfriend, but there was no real conclusion.

The next part is the highlight of the film (read: the only good bit). Frank is a dirty slob who lives in a minging apartment and is harassed by his landlord. After leaving a tuna casserole in the fridge for six months, he finds some sort of weird substance at the bottom of the fridge and touches it. Next thing you know there a mutated tuna/human in the fridge who is kind of neurotic and is always nagging Frank. This segment is as stupid as you'd think but plays out pretty well. Still, no gore, no paps, nothing.

The last segment is a let down on the other two. It's got no redeeming features whatsoever. A chick who works for a designer firm gets set up with her perfect date who is not quite what he seems. You know the drill with this stuff as well. What got me about this was that about five minutes after hooking up with this guy, she constantly started nagging him for just about everything he did! Don't you know you gorra get him in the sack first missus before you try that crap out? Anyways this is all cheaply done, and I suppose is trying for the old Twilight Zone feel, but stories one and three don't have much imagination at all, and it's only the middle piece that's worth a look. Get Freaky Fairytailes instead.

I acquired this film a couple of years ago and on trying to find some info about it I found that even the mighty IMDb didn't have it listed. That should have been all I needed to know.

With Friends Like These is an anthology that plays like a collection of second rate Twilight Zone / Outer Limits episodes all linked together by a bus journey that never really seems to tie in with the rest of the film. Of the three stories, the only one that I gleaned any entertainment value from was the second episode in which a man (of sorts) grows out of the bacteria in a guys fridge. This episode wins points for a few spots of humour and it's bizarre premise. Other than that there is an episode with a talking car (bland and directionless) and an episode where a girl visits a very unique dating agency (my dog guessed the ending of this one).

As has been mentioned in other comments, the 18 rating is entirely unwarranted. There is nothing to offend here. If you're after a good horror anthology check out Asylum or the Creepshow films instead.