This is the fourth time Second Run have put out a film by the Czech director and animator Karel Zeman, and just like the others – A Jester’s Tale, The Fabulous Baron Munchausen and Invention for Destruction – this one makes me wish I’d seen it as a child. It’s […]
Movies & Documentaries
Shock Corridor: Sam Fuller at his goofiest and most biting (Review)
Samuel Fuller is a curious character, he constantly straddled the divide between being a director who peddled films with something to say and films that skew more towards the B-Movie space. He had one foot in each world, often at the same time. White Dog is about institutional racism whilst […]
Freaks (2019): a sci-fantasy allegory of two different wholes (Review)
Whether you have been before or not, a highlight for the UK genre fans is Frightfest – “the Woodstock of gore“, a certain Mexican Oscar-winner has described it as. It does have a reputation as being a film festival of nothing more than 5 days of back to back horror, […]
High Noon: A Story That Still Happens Everywhere, Every Day (Review)
Released for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK this week via the Eureka label, 1952’s High Noon is, as the tagline has it, ‘The story of a man who was too proud to run’. That man is Will Kane, the marshal of Hadleyville, a small town in New […]
Critters Attack!: Amblin Adventure with extra headsplosions (Review)
Along with many other of his projects, Joe Dante’s Gremlins was one of my gateways to horror. I wasn’t the only one who was bowled over as its success spawned a generation of cheap rip-offs full of small monster anarchy. There was Ghoulies, Spookies, Munchies, Hobgoblin’s, C.H.U.D. and the rip-off […]
The Third Wife: an unsensational film that’s caused a big fuss (Review)
It’s customary to wait until the end of a review before telling the reader if they should go and see a film or not. In the case of The Third Wife – out now on Blu-Ray from Eureka’s Montage Pictures imprint – the matter may be a little more urgent. […]
Don’t Look Now: Ghosts of the future and of the past (Review)
“VENICE IN PERIL” read the signs nestled in the background of quite a few of Nicolas Roeg and Anthony B. Richmond’s stunning deep-focus images throughout Don’t Look Now. They’re the calling cards of a very real, and still active, British charity bent on restoring and conserving the city’s art and […]
A Blonde in Love: atypically typical Czech brilliance (Review)
While watching Second Run’s latest, A Blonde in Love, the thought entered my head. The internet is littered with clickbait articles such as the best films ever made, “the best films you’ve never seen” and “the best directors ever”. It would be something if these lists furthered people’s understanding of […]
Inseminoid: Dynamic, Provocative, Extravagantly Tasteless (Review)
In his novel The Place of Dead Roads, William S Burroughs suggests that a British space programme never took off for cultural reasons; as soon as we got to the moon and realised there was no-one there to patronise, apparently, we’d give up. Those curious as to what Burroughs might […]
The House That Dripped Blood: All Things to All British Horror Fans (Review)
In the 1950s and 60s British horror was booming. Most of the fame and infamy was enjoyed by Hammer but forever in their shadow was Amicus. Amicus was known for horror anthologies, a production model based on not being able to afford name actors for a whole shoot. Instead, they […]