There are many mysteries to unpick in the new Second Run release, but the one that had me the most perplexed is this: what were people watching before this restoration? Because, as Stanley Schtinter’s booklet and several of the interviews on this disc attest, György Fehér’s debut theatrical release was […]
Movies & Documentaries
The Lighthouse (2019): a 4K illumination for a modern cult classic (Review)
Aptly for a director so invested in orally told tales – superstitions, fisherman’s stories, Icelandic sagas – Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse is already accruing its own legend. It’s one of the few modern films to have a legendarily tough shoot, all of which is unpacked in the three-part making-of documentary […]
Medusa Deluxe (2022) Social Realist Murder Mystery with all the Pizzazz (Review)
Medusa Deluxe (2022) is a murder mystery thriller set in the backbiting world of competitive hairdressing. Big hair and even bigger egos collide in a tense and taut mystery that keeps the viewer guessing until the very end. Medusa Deluxe is like Showgirls with more hair extensions. Fabulous, extravagant and […]
Hollywood Dreams and Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story (2022) This is the prime time for Icon Documentaries (Review)
Chronicling the life of a living legend, the new documentary from Dead Mouse Productions goes behind the mask (and glove) of one of horror’s greatest icons When approaching a documentary that profiles the life and times of the man portraying possibly the most recognisable horror villains of the 80s, it […]
The Changeling 4K (1980) One of the 80s Definitive Haunted House Movies, wrinkles and All (Review)
You could argue that Don’t Look Now and The Changeling are treatments of the same story. The protagonists are both men (George C. Scott in The Changeling) who suffer tragic deaths in their families and in their struggle to find a coping mechanism – they find spooky architectural pursuits. Here, Scott plays a composer who rents […]
Burning Paradise (1994) Classic Wire-Fu that suffers due to the legendary status of its peers (Review)
By the time 1994 came around, Hong Kong cinema had mastered the art of Wire Fu. Ching Siu Tung changed how this genre of wuxia had been portrayed on film with the classic A Chinese Ghost Story (ably assisted by producer Tsui Hark), Jet Li with his stints as both […]
Little Bone Lodge (2023) When Little, this Lodge offers plenty to Chill the Bones (Review)
The home invasion sub-genre is characterised by claustrophobia, intensity and genuine scares. Unsurprisingly, it often works as a chamber piece, with a small cast, limited locations and threatening mise-en-scene. One of the key themes is the tension between inner and outer, a theme made all the more apparent in Little […]
Influencer (2023) The bones of a taut and conceptual thriller, just one missing some meat (Review)
Jumping on the recent social media influencer horror train, Influencer is a thriller that centers itself on the phenomena of the celebrity of influencers, and the manner in which followers consume their unique brand of media. When Instagram influencer Madison is abandoned last minute by her boyfriend and is left […]
Repulsion (1965) Jeanne Dielman for the beat ‘60s with a supremely knotty director in tow (Review)
Before we begin, I feel as though my review must be prefaced with a trigger warning; Repulsion is not exactly light viewing. As you may know, Repulsion was directed by the Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski, a man whose directorial back-catalogue contains some of the most celebrated examples of the […]
Hopping Mad: The Mr Vampire Sequels (1986-1989) (Blu-Ray review)
Anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear or fangs to bite knows that Ricky Lau’s 1985 film Mr. Vampire is one of the most joyous comedies in cinema history, a perfect mix of spooky hijinks, balletic martial arts action and broad, goofy slapstick. It was inevitable that sequels would […]