Troy Howarth in his visual essay, Carpenter’s Craft, talks about how John Carpenter shopped around spec scripts he had written in order to start one of the most beloved of all late 20th century runs. One of those was Arrow Video’s Black Moon Rising. That opening says everything that needs […]
Movies & Documentaries
A Face in the Crowd: The American nightmare, years ahead of its time (Review)
An American television institution from the days before American sitcoms was the backbone of Channel Four, most Britons will be familiar with The Andy Griffith Show through its cultural after-effects, rather than the show itself. This writer first heard of it via the distorting mirror of ‘Floyd the Barber’, the […]
Breaking the Limits: Punkish Polish biopic (Review)
Those paying attention to the British box office top ten will have noticed something unexpected creeping in over the last few years, a hardy microflora springing up in between the usual mix of franchises by Disney and franchises by studios bought out by Disney. For the first time since the […]
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot: 21st-century tall tales (Review)
Normally when a film’s auteur identity is ascribed to a producer it’s because said producer is a major Hollywood player. We know what a Jerry Bruckheimer film looks like, as surely as previous generations knew what a David O Selznick film looks like. In the independent realm, the director is […]
Shakespeare Wallah: Merchant Ivory Opulence missing a certain something (Review)
Made in 1965, Shakespeare Wallah was the second collaboration from Merchant Ivory and the first to really garner some international attention. Written by regular Merchant Ivory scribe Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, the film was one of the earliest English-language speaking roles for acclaimed Bollywood actor Shashi Kapoor and marked the screen […]
Dragged Across Concrete: a tense thriller, a hard pill to swallow (Review)
S. Craig Zahler has been a director who I have been banging the drum for since adoring his hybrid horror-western, Bone Tomahawk. Zahler’s hard-knuckled follow-up, Brawl in Cell Block 99, also landed in my Best of the Year list for 2017. As for Zahler’s third outing as director and writer, […]
Everybody in Our Family: Atmospheric, touching and defiantly small-scale (Review)
Previously, the only film by the Romanian director Radu Jude to receive a general release in the UK is Aferim!, an eccentric, stylized take on Western genre tropes that slowly reveals itself to be a commentary on a historical atrocity little-known outside Eastern Europe. Now, Second Run have released his […]
Prospect (2019): The sci-fi wannabe that coulda been (Review)
The press release that accompanied this indie sci-fi film heralds it as the best since Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009). That film, a decade ago, reminded us exactly what sci-fi is all about. Taking a human circumstance, and imagining what toll the future takes upon it. Prospect (directed by Christopher Caldwell […]
Anna and the Apocalypse: equal parts toe-tapping and head-smashing (Review)
For many unsuspecting viewers, the first shock in Anna and the Apocalypse will come before a single zombie has turned up: five minutes in, the characters start singing. Despite horror arguably having a stronger relationship with original music than any other genre – go ahead, imagine Halloween or Suspiria without […]
Cujo: Supernatural Canine you probably misremembered (Review)
Stephen King, I think it is fair to say, is one of the undisputed masters of the Horror and Supernatural genres. Sales of his 70 books top the 300 million mark, and if something odd is happening in the state of Maine, then Stephen King is probably the author. Cinematically, […]