Manifesto, currently doing the rounds in selected cinemas, is the final instalment in the Hope Trilogy from Liverpudlian director Daniel Draper. The previous films in this series included the Dennis Skinner documentary Nature of the Beast and The Big Meeting, a documentary about the Durham Miners Gala. Slotted neatly in […]
Movies & Documentaries
Extreme Prejudice (1987) Jack of all Genres, Master of Some? (Blu-ray Review)
The 1980s can be defined by many elements. Big hair and shoulder pads, bright colours, rampant consumerism. Cinematically, the decade saw the development of a particular type of action movie, a sub-genre that reconstituted American masculinity severely wounded by the Vietnam War with Reaganite assertion and nationalism. Indeed, the presidency […]
True Things (2021) Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places (Blu-ray Review)
Director Harry Wootliff’s new film, released to Blu-ray this week by Picturehouse Entertainment is True Things, an adaptation of the acclaimed 2010 novel by Deborah Kay Davies, True Things About Me. It stars Ruth Wilson (who is also on producing duties with fellow thesp Jude Law) and Tom Burke and […]
Tremors 4K (1990) Electric Paced Creature Feature & ‘Modern’ Classic (Blu-ray Review)
Tremors, Ron Underwood’s 1990 creature feature & ode to the classics made in the 50s, is there any movie that is served worse by the franchise it spawned? Based on the fact that it has gone out of control, spanning a further 23 films – at the time of writing […]
Wayfinder (2022): a wilderness that could do with more wildness (Review)
Normally, when reviewing a debut feature, it’s fruitless to look to the director’s back catalogue for comparison points. Either they’re so new that there aren’t any, or you relegate yourself to pointing out the obvious. (Try not to fall off your chair, but I think Emma Seligman’s 2018 short Shiva […]
Ultrasound (2021) The Sci-Fi of Questioning reality in a bold feature Debut (VOD review)
“What is real? How do you define real?” asks Morpheus in the first (and let’s pretend, only) Matrix film. It’s a well-trodden area for dramas, thrillers, and sci-fi films, in particular, to explore. Mental illness, memory loss, dreams, unreliable narrators, mind control, and simulations; all have been used as plot […]
High Crime (1973) The Case of the Classic Poliziotteschi and its Cut Ending (Review)
Throughout the 60s and 70s American cinema underwent a tonal shift; gone were the days of the sweet sentimentalism of directors like Frank Capra and here was the growing cynicism from people like William Friedkin and Don Siegel. The latter two directors released two highly influential films in the world […]
Edge of Sanity (1989) Jekyll, Hyde & Jack the Ripper in thinly-spread Erotic Horror (Review)
Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is one of the more regularly adapted and reimagined texts in science fiction literature, up there with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Whilst based on historical fact, conspiracy and theory, Jack the Ripper has enjoyed just as many takes throughout […]
Théo and the Metamorphosis (2021): uncomfortable for the right reasons (Cinema Review)
Among the many veterans making a comeback at the moment – Kate Bush, the cast of the original Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs from the original Jurassic Park – let’s take a moment to celebrate caves. They’ve been around forever – literally – but they’re hotter than ever now, with Robert […]
The Initiation of Sarah (1978): Psychic Sister Doing It For Herself (Blu-Ray Review)
There’s a discussion to be had about how the age of streaming has either destroyed the concept of a made-for-television movie or revived it. Either way, The Initiation of Sarah shows its age as a nearly forty-five-year-old broadcast for television while being exactly the sort of film you could stumble […]