I enjoyed Fantômas quite a bit. It's a 1964 French spy comedy about super villain Fantômas. It's the first of a trilogy of films that are all packed in a nice 2 disc Blu-ray set from Kino Lorber. Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Alain wrote the original Fantômas novels. I read one or two of them ages back. Jean Halain and Pierre Foucard wrote the screenplay, André Hunebelle is the director.
That's Jean Marais and Louis De Funès as reporter Fandor and Le commissaire Juve. Marais also plays Fantômas but they are definitely two different characters in the story. Fandor writes a fake interview with Fantômas and the super villain get peeved enough to screw with Fandor's life. Fantômas is a master of disguise and he commits his next crime with a Fandor mask on his face. Le commissaire Juve thinks Fandor is the villain but that notion is soon unseated when new evidence points to Juve being Fantômas. It's another trick.
We all know that Fantômas has set this all up but the police don't, so there's all sorts of running about and mayhem as they chase after the face changing villain. There's plenty of fist fights and stunts. The chases take our characters on foot over a roof, into a car, onto a train and in a boat. There's a bit of everything in the movie. Early on the action takes place in Paris but the story soon moves into the countryside. No matter, there's stuff to break there too.
It's a nice looking movie, good sets and props, great scenery and an entertaining story and characters. I look forward to the 2 sequels.
Our second feature is the 2015 horror film The Hallow. It's made in Ireland with Irish demons. A couple with a young baby come to the area so the husband can look at a tract of land for a company that's going to cut down all the trees. The locals don't like that, they believe the hallow has something evil in it and it should stay there. The wife of the couple takes down the iron bars on the windows of her house against the advice of the locals. It's always good to follow the advice of the locals but the couple stay and the demons attack. It's all yelling and crying from then on. The demon critters were all creepy and very murderous. They infect humans with their poisonous spiky fingers and turn them into demons. It's a nice looking movie but very pokey, it seems to drag itself to a standstill way too often. Other than that it was about average. I didn't think I need a copy.
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