With Friends Like These... (Video 1991) Poster

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4/10
Probably the most un-18 18 rated movie I've seen.
anxietyresister18 May 2004
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.
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4/10
Very pleasant friends.
morrison-dylan-fan5 August 2009
Warning: Spoilers
With a cheap pound shop having just opened,i thought that it was worth looking to see if their were any cheap DVDs that looked good.and while the back of the cover made this sound like a Jeepers Creepers type of film,it is actually an anthology film! and thought one or two of the stories feel very familiar.Its still a fun light horror/comedy. The plots:

Story one:The classic.

A young couple feel the it is time that they should try to in prove their financial life by picking up a $1500 car.But,when the guy goes to pick a car,a car starts to talk to him.The car (called Banns) says that to get everything that he has ever wanted in life,that he must buy Baans for $5000.So while the guys relationship crumbles,Baans does everything he can to show who really is in charge.

Story two:Kitchen culture.

A guy that might get thrown out by his land lord,due to how messy his flat is,discovers that due to keeping a tuna pasta in his fridge for six months,the it has now moulded and evolved into a green mouldy version of himself!.And while they start off as friends,they end up having a big falling out,the leads to a final battle to see if the real guy or his fridge clone will survive.

Story three:Too good to be true.

A girl signs up with a dating agency and she gets matched with a guy the is perfect for her.But she is unsure that the guy is too perfect,and when she thinks that she sees him 'shut down' she starts to get spooked. View on the film:

The first thing that i have to mention is the rating for the film in england,where it has been given an eighteen rating,even thought it has no nudity,swearing or blood at all.And the other odd thing about all the stories is that they all have happy endings,where the goodies win!.And while the first story is too close to the Stephen King classic Christine,the second story is easily the highlight of the film,with director Tom Parkinson making the nuttiness of the story feel like a low-budget Muppets episode!.

Final view on the film

While it does have a bit of a 'remake; feel,their is enough wackiness to make this a good horror 'comedy'.
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3/10
I watched it so you don't have to!
DocEmmettBrown30 December 2004
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.
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1/10
With crap like this...
Golden_Brown16 January 2004
Warning: Spoilers
Its hard to decide where to begin.I bought this for a few quid and its the worst few quid Iv ever wasted. The back of the DVD had no pictures and a few lines plot summary, this should have warned me, but I usually like bad movies for a laugh so decided to give it a go. The movie is made up of three short stories,each revolving around someone who was on a particular bus at one point.(its never made clear what the significance of the bus is, or what city its set in)

POSSIBLE SPOILERS(as if there is anything to be spoiled) The first story is about a man who is persuaded, by a car, to purcahse it, against his wife's wishes.The car is sort of like a demonic Brum and takes over his life.

The second is about a slob of a man who never cleans his fridge and a monster bacteria man grows out of it.

The third about a woman who goes to a dating agency, only to discover her date isnt all that normal.

Inbetween these, we are treated to shots of the bus(or A bus anyway) while a narrator whittles on a load of garbage about relationships(really,its like he is on commission for saying 'relationships')

The movie actually has no redeeming features whatsoever.The acting, the costumes and the little Spfx are all disgusting.There arent even any attractive female cast members to admire.Simply put, this movie is a debacle.
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describing the second story to someone is more interesting than the film
Bezenby12 August 2011
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.
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2/10
A bus full of spasmodic vinegar
scummoth8 August 2009
Warning: Spoilers
This is perhaps the most ridiculous crap I have ever watched. Three unconnected stories about completely stupid and random things are occasionally interrupted by a bus and a boring monologue about relationships by a stupid man. Christ knows why so many people got involved in this. Highlights: Green fridge man reading Jean-Paul Sartre, the slob mans dinner guest and her horse-manure hair products, a RIDICULOUSLY unreasonable woman in the third short, who suspected a man of foul play just for taking an interest in her generic activities, Blowers.

I need to use up a few more lines apparently, so may as well mention some more stupid things about the film. The first film involves a man driving a talking car around and obeying its unreasonable demands for absolutely no apparent reason. The only way you would watch this film is if you were blind and had other debilitating defects in your personality and brain. It is kind of funny in an ironic way, but also extremely wearying, like being forced to chew for a very long time on a stained rug.
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2/10
cheap and mega-sh*t
tyranid_slayer31 May 2007
Warning: Spoilers
My grandad gave me this DVD. With friends like these. The front cover looked quite scary thought i'd watch it. What a bloody mistake.

Basically the film follows three people on a bus and what happens to them involving friends.

The first one is about a guy who buys a car that talks to him. The second is a about a guy who wakes up to find a cassarole clone in his fridge. And the third is about a woman who does online dating but it turns out he has a robotic arm.

The DVD case rated this film 18 but even a 5 year old can watch this and not be scard or entertained. The film should be rated 12 for slight scares and the swear word bloody.

All in all this film is utter shite don't go near it.
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1/10
if a friend recommends this they are not your friend
cheshirevenom9 September 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Spoiler alert although you are only going to be spoilt if you watch the film in the first place. The production quality is terrible and the film is grainy and the colour shoddy. I have to agree with the first review how this film did not get a PG cert i don't know, a person gets hit with a bottle that is all the violence. The first story is about a talking car, a car that has an evil English accent that helps the main character with his love life.Thats it The second story is about a man born from a tuna fish sandwich that had gone off in his fridge, the man seems fine with this and shows no sigh of alarm,they seem to become good friends, nothing much else happens oh no powercut tuna fish man dead. The final film is about a woman going out with the perfect man although we know there is no such thing as a perfect man so obviously he turns out to be a robot. Feels more like 3 episodes of the Twilight Zone put together and called a film. This replaces the Stupids as the worst film I have seen.
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1/10
All Time Low
Fraudzilla16 July 2023
This is one of the most unusual movies I've ever encountered. Atrocious in every aspect, but unusual. For clarity, we must travel back to the halcyon days of the late 1990s. DVD was making its first strides to make VHS obsolete, with DVD players becoming affordable, and the imminent arrival of the PS2 with inbuilt DVD player meant the ability to watch movies on disc was becoming more common in households across the world. In the U. K. a new release cost £20 (insane given that DVDs were much cheaper to make than VHS tapes) so it wasn't long before companies cropped up to try take advantage of this growing market.

The 2 most prominent here were Prism Leisure and Hollywood DVD. Prism discs came in at £5.99 and were unashamed B movies. A lot of Full Moon stuff and mid-range 80s horror or action flicks found their way onto these discs. Then there was Hollywood DVD. At an absolute maximum these cost £4.99, but we're usually in special offers to get cheaper, things like 3 for £10. The problem with Hollywood DVD was you genuinely had no idea what you were getting; if you were lucky it was a Nu Image creature, but there was more chance of you getting a TV Pilot that wasn't picked up. They were notorious for picking up awful movies that had stars before they were famous and editing the sleeve to give them too billing, regardless of their part.

It was one of those aforementioned deals I found myself in possession of With Friends Like These... via alongside Ken Wahl's failed vigilante tv pilot The Gladiator and The Legend of Bogg Creek II. You know the worst thing? I was looking forward to it! It's sleeve had a bit of mystique about it - no pictures, and a 3 line, vague blurb that told me nothing. All I had to go on was a monstrous figure reaching out on the cover and an 18 rating. What was this that they couldn't even show pictures from?

They were probably embarrassed. It's an anthology, and quite impressive in that it has 3 opportunities to present stories and managed to make an utterly awful job out of all of them. There's a bookend 'plot' revolving around a bus and a narrator who chronically over uses the word 'Relationships'. The purpose appears to be our protagonists are all on that bus at some point but don't expect any explanation beyond that.

Our first focus falls on a hapless man who buys a classic car that telepathically communicates with him and starts to dominate his life. Christine it ain't.

The second and probably the most interesting, though that's a low bar, sees a slobbish man discover the tuna casserole in his fridge evolve into a sentient being that tries to help him improve his life.

The third, and mercifully final, tale involves a girl who meets the perfect man on a dating service only for him him to prove more than meets the eye.

Yeah I'm not beating around the bush, this is awful from start to finish. Awful dialogue, bland plots that offer no excitement, acting that I'm being generous even describing as such (very few people involved in this movie appeared in another) this is a complete full house of awful. I genuinely believe someone at Hollywood slipped the BBFC some money to ensure this got an 18 to give it some street cred as there is nothing to earn it.

This film has no redeeming features. It's not so bad it's funny, it's just unrelentingly, mercilessly, awful. Thankfully it's now very hard to come by, and frankly it wouldn't be any great disaster if every copy of it were to be destroyed.
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10/10
With films like these...
Stoate8 October 2004
I found this little beauty in a local game shop selling for the hefty price tag of £2.99 and I have to say it was worth all of the 299 pennies spent.

After all, who wouldn't pay that much to own a classic contradiction of film rating?

This series of films was rated an '18' over here in the United Kingdom. I only watched the first film with Brum and the Matthew Broderick wannabe and still got the impression that something was seriously wrong with the BBFC..

How could a talking car and a man with a bleeding nose deserve an 18? It's not as if it is a film from the 50s where perhaps it would merit some certificate of this nature.

Now I have not yet got around to sitting myself down and watching the next to films, but I have a feeling that things are not going to get a whole lot better. The attempt at putting some thought and meaning into the film with the narrative at the beginning suggests that these people are trying to make something that will leave us pondering our own existence. It is obvious that the directors are not wanting to spoil their thoughtful 'masterpiece' with careless violence.

This is what I am going on when I doubt the caliber of the following two films. That and the fact that someone else that has rated the film has claimed it devoid of any violence, nudity or swearing despite the '18' rating (which I will be inclined to say attracted me to the title).

Don't get me wrong, though. I loved the first short I saw, and hope that the other two (by two other directors) follow the same sort of theme. It is the ridiculous and childish premises that make it fun, (that and the nervous man from the beginning, spinning around to bellow 'NO!' at his girlfriend who appeared to have something growing between her first two teeth.) and will watch it again because it reminds me what it was like to sit down and watch CITV after school. I even showed my nine-year-old little brother. I think he mentioned something about taking it to school to show his class.

I might have to leave a note for his teacher, telling her not to be fooled by the '18' certificate, the film is just child's play..

-Stoate
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Just terrible!
jonsparey8 June 2004
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!
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Pretty Stupid Really
Jonathan_Dance20 March 2004
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.
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I laughed and in a good way.
zmoviefan22 February 2011
Warning: Spoilers
I watch lots of movies, I prefer lowered budgeted ones and when I saw this for sale for a dollar I bought it. I was disappointed it is advertised as horror cause it ain't.

Anyway, the first story was okay and I liked the lead, it just doesn't really go anywhere.

My favorite and best story was the second one in my opinion featuring a talking human/fungus hybrid thing.

The third story was very slow and boring, nothing really happens.

This movie feels like it was a student film or made for TV as there is no violence, gore, nudity or strong language. I don't need those to enjoy a movie, but this might have benefited from them.
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