While up for debate, one of the most famous scenes in any of Wes Craven’s work is in Scream. Drew Barrymore deals with a man calling her again and again, ending with the question of “what is your favourite scary movie?” subsequently she is chased and offed by Ghost-face. Turns […]
Reviews
A Case for a Rookie Hangman: as thoroughly bananas as the title suggests (Review)
There aren’t many literary adaptations which begin with an apology to the source author – although there are plenty that should. But Pavel Juráček’s A Case for a Rookie Hangman, reissued on Blu-Ray by Second Run, is not like most films. It begins by promising “If Swift should turn in his […]
The Night Sitter (2019) Evil Dead in the Suburbs (Review)
For any aspiring screenwriter, a tried and tested method for both selling and creating a new project is to take a film and move it somewhere else. How about Jaws in Space? or Die Hard in the white house? maybe, Evil Dead in the upper-middle-class American suburbs? That last one […]
Giant Killer Ants/Dead Ant: Creature Feature vs Tom Arnold’s bad jokes (Review)
With this new Frightfest Presents title, Dead Ant, the plight of the creature feature came to mind. They were responsible for an entire generation getting interested in things that plant their roots in the genre spectrum, I count myself among them. Being such a slave to trends as it is, […]
John Woo: Last Hurrah for Chivalry & Hand of Death (Review)
Near the end of Hand of Death, a band of brothers come together and hatch a plan to finally defeat their adversary, a traitor to our hero’s Shaolin brotherhood. Playing the least substantial parts in this four-person crew are a young Jackie Chan and John Woo, self-inserted as a scholar […]
The Captor: True Crime a la Blumhouse (Review)
The last time Ethan Hawke played a role as flamboyantly as he does in Robert Budreau’s new film, he was playing a character named “Jolly the Pimp” in a Luc Besson space opera. Hawke’s Kaj Hansson is a stetsoned, Bob Dylan-obsessed ball of energy from the moment he walks into […]
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne: Rediscovering a Hidden Handmade Gem (Review)
Belfast-born Brian Moore’s novel The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne was published in 1955 after his relocation to Canada. The sympathetic, yet deeply unflinching study of a lonely middle-aged spinster succumbing to alcoholism, a loss of faith and a mental breakdown was not an easy sell; it was rejected by […]
In Fabric – horror-comedy in a stunning red dress (Review)
It’s the 1993 January sales, and Sheila, a bank clerk living in a Thames Valley town, needs a new dress for a date. She visits the local department store, where the persuasive shop assistant Miss Luckmoore sells her a red dress. It’s the only one of its kind ever made, […]
Cold Pursuit: A film that’s hard to warm to (Review)
When Cold Pursuit was released earlier this year you could hear the critics snickering up their sleeves (well, you could if you drowned out the furore that surrounded certain comments made by its leading man, Liam Neeson, during an interview promoting the film) at what they perceived to be the […]
Under Fire (1983) the exception to the white saviour row? (Review)
It’s perhaps interesting to watch Under Fire in the week that British charity Comic Relief has announced its plan to cut back on celebrity appeals in the wake of what has become known as the ‘white saviour’ row, promising (rightfully in my view) to “give voices to people” who actually […]