Carl lives alone on a London council estate, and has done ever since he got out of prison a short time ago. Tonight promises to be special, as for the first time since his release, he’s going on a date with a young woman he’s met on the internet. But […]
Reviews
Don’t Look Now: Ghosts of the future and of the past (Review)
“VENICE IN PERIL” read the signs nestled in the background of quite a few of Nicolas Roeg and Anthony B. Richmond’s stunning deep-focus images throughout Don’t Look Now. They’re the calling cards of a very real, and still active, British charity bent on restoring and conserving the city’s art and […]
Inseminoid: Dynamic, Provocative, Extravagantly Tasteless (Review)
In his novel The Place of Dead Roads, William S Burroughs suggests that a British space programme never took off for cultural reasons; as soon as we got to the moon and realised there was no-one there to patronise, apparently, we’d give up. Those curious as to what Burroughs might […]
The House That Dripped Blood: All Things to All British Horror Fans (Review)
In the 1950s and 60s British horror was booming. Most of the fame and infamy was enjoyed by Hammer but forever in their shadow was Amicus. Amicus was known for horror anthologies, a production model based on not being able to afford name actors for a whole shoot. Instead, they […]
The Legacy: A Dated Horror Heirloom for the Late ’70s (Review)
Released to Blu-ray by the excellent Indicator label this week, The Legacy is a 1978 British-American horror mystery starring real-life couple Katherine Ross, Sam Elliott and The Who’s frontman Roger Daltrey. Ross and Elliott star as Maggie Walsh and Pete Danner, lured from their home in California to England on […]
Coming Home: New Hollywood’s Other Vietnam War Movie (Review)
Hal Ashby’s 1978 movie Coming Home is one of the most compelling to explore the aftermath of the Vietnam war for its veterans and their loved ones. It stars Jane Fonda as Sally Hyde, a military wife who decides to volunteer at a local military hospital when her Marine husband […]
Double Face: A Crime Drama in Giallo Clothing (Review)
I haven’t come across any Gialli films that have bored or frustrated me. Whether it is The Red Queen Kills Seven Times or Blood and Black Lace, they have strong qualities that make each film absorbing. Whether that’s eye-popping colour cinematography, a strong mixture of pulp crime and a central […]
When a Stranger Calls: the scariest phone call in horror (Review)
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 […]
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 […]