The Osterman Weekend (1983)

A government agency seeks to use one man to catch a group of others in a game of cat and mouse. Or is it cat and cat? Maybe it’s mouse and mouse?
It’s an adaptation of a Robert Ludlum novel, so there are the usual scenes of important men getting nervous over dodgy dealings and a twisty-turny ending. It makes you aware that not everyone sees friendship in the same way, and may even stir you to question if the people who claim to be your friends really are when they aren't beside you.
There’s an unusual car chase and a few scattered moments where Peckinpah piqued my interest technically, but, despite a strong cast his cinematic swansong isn't as memorable as much of what preceded it.

2½ trophy hunters out of 5

The Amityville Horror (1979)

The first of many not-very-good films in the Amityville series is a haunted house story based on reportedly true events.
Newly-weds Lois Lane and a long-lost Gibb brother occupy 112 Ocean Avenue, a house in which a vicious murder spree took place one year before. Soon afterwards their life takes on a murderous slant.
Acting is good most of the time and there's a violent unease helped along by excellent editing between past and present in the first half hour, but then things go sour. It drags on and on, desperately trying to make the boring crap that married couples engage in seem interesting.
The Lalo Schifrin score and the occasional creepy event were the only things preventing me from making good use of the stop button.

2½ ax games out of 5

Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996)

There’s no Bacon this time, but Fred Ward and Michael Gross return for seconds. Some out-of-towners (from a different arse-hole of nowhere) have a Graboid problem, so they enlist the help of the 'experts' to quell it.
It’s kind of flat until Burt rolls in with his armoury. From that point onward it’s almost as much fun as the first film; almost, but not quite. No matter, because this being a sequel means the previous Precambrian threat gets upstaged by a new, more dangerous one in the form of what the man with a plan calls “a whole new ball game” to keep the team occupied.

3½ big new chances out of 5