Current wisdom in the literary world of the thriller genre is that you must immediately hook your reader in with some violence right from the first page. After that, you can focus on character, setting etc, but the bloody stuff has to be placed right up front. Released to Blu-ray […]
Movies & Documentaries
Rhino (2022) A sombre if well-travelled Ukrainian crime drama (Review)
Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov intended to make his second feature film, following his 2011 debut Gamer, in 2014. However, due to the Maidan uprising protests that swept across Ukraine the filming was put on hold. This was further impacted by Russia’s annexation of Crimea (Sentsov’s birthplace) which actually resulted in […]
Dobermann (1997) 25th Anniversary Re-Release (Review)
The 90s was a wild decade. Outside of the mainstream, pop culture was going through an era where more meant more, an MO at its most frenzied with 1997’s Dobermann, directed by Jan Kounen and written by Joël Houssin. Both at the time and now, many equated this to the […]
Vampyr (1932) Pivotal Player in Vampire Horror History (Review)
Vampyr has been retrospectively hailed as a pinnacle moment in horror cinema history and with Eureka Entertainment’s new 2K release celebrating the film’s 90th anniversary, it is easy to see why. Vampyr, released in the same year as Universal’s Dracula, was Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer’s first sound film. After […]
Girls Nite Out (1982) Less Psycho Killer, More Psycho Filler (Review)
The late ’70s brought us a slew of teen slashers along with some of horror’s most iconic knife-wielding psychos – but by the time we get to this 1982 offering, it’s “less psycho killer, more psycho filler”. ‘Girls Nite Out’ (it hurts to spell ‘night’ like that) has now been […]
Wild Men (2021) Absurd Danish Comedy Drama with one plot too many (Cinema Review)
In cinemas tomorrow through Blue Finch Films is 2021’s Wild Men, the sophomore film from Thomas Daneskov – following his 2015 debut, the Elite. Rasmus Bjerg is Martin, and he’s had enough of modern life, so he decides to vanish from his native Denmark and live off the land as […]
Twisting the Knife: Nightcap (2000) & The Flower of Evil (2003)(Review)
We are back on the Chabrol wagon for the 4th time (1, 2, & 3) in a few short months, following Arrow Video’s release of two boxsets, Lies & Deceit, and the recent Twisting the Knife. On Nightcap’s disc, there’s a visual essay by film critic, Scout Tafoya, called “When […]
Twisting the Knife: The Swindle (1997) and The Colour of Lies (1999)(Review)
Following on from February’s Lies and Deceit, Arrow have returned to the films of Claude Chabrol for their new box set Twisting the Knife. Twisting the Knife has a slightly different remit to Lies and Deceit; the former box set selected various films Chabrol directed between 1985 and 1994 but […]
Knockabout (1979) Lame Comedy pathing the way to Action Greatness (Review)
The first time I tried to watch Sammo Hung’s 1979 film, Knockabout, it was through a ratty, almost unwatchable print I loaned from Lovefilm. Remember them? I bring that up as it’s an almost poetic change of fate for martial arts cinema fans, post-Hong Kong Legends. To think that after […]
The Big Racket (1976) & Heroin Busters (1977): two films by Enzo G Castellari (Review)
Enzo G Castellari is now best-known not for a film he directed but for a film he inspired: Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, which lifts its title from his 1978 war film The Inglorious Bastards. A more direct impact he had on movie history would be Keoma, the 1976 film he […]