Patriarchy, masculinity, the royal establishment, British theatre duo Kit Redstone and Arran Shearing take it all on in this bizarre lo-fi period comedy. The story takes place in a desolate castle ruin in France, the time period is left ambiguous though. In this kingdom live the King, his loyal Servant… […]
Pop Culture
Self Revolutionary Cinematic Struggle (London International Fantastic Film Festival 2024)
Gakuryu Ishii’s second movie of the year is half a dozen things at once, with so much going on that it has taken me a week—after its premiere at the inaugural London International Fantastic Film Festival —to begin processing everything it offers. This menagerie exemplifies the ethos I yearn for […]
Classic Film Kid Revisited: Jaws, 8 Years Later (1975)
On November 6th 2016, I started my grand journey aboard The Geek Show with a review of the all-time classic Jaws. The ‘classic’ part was particularly relevant for me as I used to review films as the Classic Film Kid (those words felt nostalgic just to type), judging whether they […]
Doctor Who A-Z #36: The Evil of the Daleks (1967)
Episode one of The Evil of the Daleks sets up an entertaining and unique adventure. For the first time since the Hartnell years – maybe since The Ark? – we pick up directly from a cliffhanger at the end of the previous story as the Doctor and Jamie chase the […]
Doctor Who A-Z #35: The Faceless Ones (1967)
The Patrick Troughton era had no right to start off as well as it did. It’s not just that regenerating the Doctor was an insane gamble to begin with, though it was. It’s that Troughton tumbles into what seemed to be another season of William Hartnell just two stories in […]
Doctor Who A-Z #34: The Macra Terror (1967)
I’ve complained, perhaps a little too much, about the difficulties of experiencing missing stories, so let’s raise our glass to BBC Video’s range of animated reconstructions by looking at perhaps the greatest of their works. By all accounts, the titular monsters in The Macra Terror didn’t look good. They don’t […]
The Gesouidoz (London International Fantastic Film Festival 2024)
From its influence on pop culture to the music scenes popping up in every corner of the world, it’s frustrating as a signed-up fan of punk rock to be forever told that it is dead. For one, no music scene can truly die, and two, where is the rebellious spirit […]
Son of Adam (London International Fantastic Film Fest 2024)
The late film critic Manny Faber had an evocative phrase for the kind of movies he preferred. He called them “termite art”, as opposed to the “white elephant art” that proliferates in awards seasons and major festivals. The termite artist was small and unobtrusive, spurning the flash, technique and classicism […]
Doctor Who A-Z #33: The Moonbase (1967)
The Second Doctor’s natural habitat is the edge of the frame. In stories like Fury from the Deep he scurries around in the background, cheerfully letting this week’s guest cast underestimate him until the time comes to deliver the coup de grace. There’s a bit of that in The Moonbase, […]
Doctor Who A-Z #32: The Underwater Menace (1967)
The Underwater Menace is, by most estimations, rubbish. Patrick Troughton knew it when they were filming, and nobody has contradicted him since. In most of Doctor Who Magazine‘s occasional polls it ranks in the bottom ten stories of all time, which is almost impressive. The script, credited to Geoffrey Orme, is so […]