Low-fi indie sci-fi is a surprisingly fertile sub-genre, something that can be traced back to classics like The Twilight Zone that lacked the budget for epic effects but used their limitations to explore big concepts. It’s a great place to showcase great film-makers who go on to bigger budgets, such […]
Movies & Documentaries
Watership Down (1978) The Crown Prince of Kindertrauma
Since its original release in 1978, several generations, especially in the United Kingdom, Watership Down has been synonymous with trauma. Following subsequent television broadcasts, Martin Rosen’s adaptation of Richard Adams’ novel has secured its place in animated film history, not least because of the controversy provoked by its brutal violence […]
Days & Afternoon (2015 & 2020) Two Films by Tsai Ming-Liang
I only watched Goodbye Dragon Inn for the first time in 2022. I hadn’t seen anything like it before. I wasn’t new to slower cinema, but I was new to Tsai Ming-liang, who seemed to have cast a spell on me — I was transfixed by his images and blown […]
Tank Girl (1995) Misunderstood 90s disaster plays brilliantly thirty years later
The 4D experience of Rachel Talalay’s Tank Girl isn’t exactly something to recommend. Imagine waking up in the morning, attempting to perform one’s first evacuation (a Number One, thankfully) and ablution of the day, only to discover the water supply of your entire local area is off. Then find yourself […]
Super Spies and Secret Lies: Three Undercover Classics from Shaw Brothers (1966-9) (Review)
Have you ever seen a spy movie from Hong Kong? My guess is, if you have any interest in Far Eastern cinema at all, you probably have. Enter the Dragon, no less, sees Bruce Lee going undercover at the behest of British intelligence; Jackie Chan and Stephen Chow have also […]
Liverpool Story (2024) The Pool of Life
This is a documentary portrait of the year in the life of a city, Liverpool. Directed by Daniel Draper – the man behind a string of documentaries including Nature of the Best, a profile of veteran socialist Labour MP Dennis Skinner, and The Big Meeting about the annual Durham Miners […]
The Sword (1980) A King Hu-like Martial Arts Rarity
Sound, particularly music, is such a key component of movies. It is pivotal in creating an era, atmosphere, tension, and emotions to the extent that a great deal of the work in a horror movie comes from effective scoring and sound design. Key word there: effective. See, anachronistic music and […]
Japan Organised Crime Boss (1969) The Yakuza Movie Before Yakuza Movies
It’s curious the idea that there was a time when the modern yakuza movie wasn’t a thing, but as yakuza film historian Akihiko Ito says, in the extras of Radiance Films lush new release of Kinji Fukasaku’s Japan Organised Crime Boss, that was once the case. They used to be […]
Haxan (1922) One of the Single Most Important Texts for Folk Horror
Sometimes it can be hard to know where to begin with a review, especially when it’s a title like Haxan – Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 hybrid horror documentary-esque essay that, it could be argued, created this type of film. It walks a strange tightrope between over-familiarity and freshness, shock and nostalgia […]
Tomie (1998) She may keep coming back, but the audience won’t be
One of the most common tropes of all time in media is that of a missing or murdered teenage girl — a horror story that is tragically a reality for far too many. Typically, the narrative opens with the detective protagonist studying the life of the subject of their case; […]