The transformation of the haunted-house subgenre began in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, where the house, rather than just the ghosts within it, demonstrated paranormal abilities. In his essay ‘Supernatural Horror’ H.P. Lovecraft argued that the point of Poe’s story was to show that the house […]
Movies & Documentaries
Shaft (1971) The icon behind the legendarily cool music (Review)
Few things in pop culture have an associated piece of music that precedes it as widely as Shaft. Isaac Hayes legendary and academy recognised score and song is identifiable from its first few bars and with good reason too, Hayes is one of the kings of soul music in an […]
There’s Always Vanilla (1971) George Romero’s Lo-Fi & Savage Anti-Advertising Satire (Review)
To mangle Shakespeare, there are two types of horror directors: those who are born horror directors, and those who have it thrust upon them. Arrow Films’ Between Night and Dawn box set reveals George A Romero to be the latter. Consisting of the three films Romero made in between his […]
London Film Festival 2017, Part 4: Hanging Up
Maybe I wasn’t adventurous enough. But the way the LFF advertises its slate of films, it’s too tempting not to be. See, there’s an ‘official competition’, but unlike major film festivals like Cannes or Venice, the most hotly anticipated offerings aren’t in it, for the most part— London likes its […]
The Vikings (1958) The closest the Viking genre has to a John Ford movie (Review)
It’s strange, on the face of it, that there aren’t more movies about Vikings. Television has exploited this gap in the market with shows like – well, like Vikings, obviously – but there’s still a puzzling absence of Norsemen on the big screen. Puzzling because this should be obviously cinematic […]
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) A visionary homage to a Sci-Fi Classic
When sci-fi fans learned that Blade Runner was to receive the dreaded reboot treatment, the reaction was all too familiar: a cash-in rehashing of an untouchable classic best left to be ignored. With the recent cascade of failed reboots, the hope that Blade Runner could be given a fair hearing […]
The Party (1968) Peter Sellers as the Elephant in the Room (Review)
There are Elephants in the room that are both literal and metaphorical in the Party, the latest release from Eureka. One appears in the final chaotic throes of the titular party and the other is represented by Peter Sellers in brownface adopting an Indian accent. Positioned somewhere between the horrifically […]
London Film Festival 2017: Part Three – the big apple in the big smog
Listen. I have come unstuck in Good Time. It’s the start of the festival, and there are too many press screenings to count, all going on at the same time. So I have to make hard choices. Inadvertently, I chose 4 films about New York in a row. This would […]
The Yakuza (1974) A seminal product of Hollywood’s disillusioned 1970s output (Review)
Sydney Pollack’s 1974 neo-noir The Yakuza is one of those films that leaves you wondering what the hell was wrong with the cinema-going public and film critics of the day. Performing poorly at the box office and receiving (at best) mixed reviews, this east-meets-west thriller failed to cash in on […]
London Film Festival 2017: Part Two, and the big day approaches
Lean on Pete is Andrew Haigh’s latest, and also the name of an ageing racehorse; Charley the name of the boy who befriends him while working a summer job for a run-down man named Del (Steve Buscemi) who owns run-down horses piloted by run-down jockeys— they didn’t start that way, […]