For a young horror director to the protege of a more seasoned hand, few could have better fortune than Michele Soavi, who sat under the learning tree of Dario Argento. Not only that, he had his directorial debut produced by another substantial Italian genre legend, Joe D’Amato. Soavi exploded out […]
Reviews
Original Cast Album: Company (1970) have I got a film for you! (Review)
Before the end of the year, we at The Geek Show plan to take a little look back through some of the home releases we missed when they were released. All of them have their merits, but none have gained retrospective interest like Criterion UK’s release of D.A. Pennebaker’s 1970 […]
Agnus Dei (1971) Godard & Larping Via a Hungarian Master Director (Review)
Rounding out our coverage of Second Run’s acclaimed Hungarian Masters boxset, following Current and Merry-go-round is Miklós Jancsó’s Agnus Dei. The prior have something of a social realist streak to them, whether they were steadfast in their subscription to the stylistic tics or used it as a cinematic tradition to subvert. We’ve featured Jancso’s […]
Merry-Go-Round (1956) Romeo and Juliet in Communist Hungary (Review)
Released this week as part of Second Run’s Hungarian Masters limited edition three disc Blu-ray (see m’colleagues reviews on this site for the other two films in the set), Merry-Go-Round, or to give it its original Hungarian title Körhinta, is rightly held up as one of the finest achievements in […]
Current (1964): a calm surface with a darker undertow (Review)
The new Hungarian Masters set is the second time Second Run have released a box set themed around Hungary’s cinema. The previous one was released in 2010 and showcased the work of Miklós Janscó, Károly Makk and Márta Mészáros, three of the most prominent Hungarian directors of the 1950s-1970s era. […]
The Wraith (1986) Casting confusion, Hyper 80s Camp and Car Crashes (Review)
Contains Spoilers On the extras of Vestron Video’s new release, The Wraith, director Mike Marvin is open about liberally borrowing ideas from across cinema – something you won’t catch many directors admitting. And, in putting together all these ideas and threads, including a surprising nod to Clint Eastwood’s High Plains […]
Free Hand for a Tough Cop (1976): an outrageous buddy-cop film from a Video Nasties legend (Review)
Umberto Lenzi is one of those directors whose reputation in the UK has been bent out of shape by the video nasties scandal. Since the Director of Public Prosecutions’ list of potentially obscene films has spent decades doubling as a watchlist for horror fans, Lenzi is best-known in this country […]
Le Samourai (1967) Alain in the Underworld (Review)
Criterion delivers Alain Delon’s most iconic performance to Blu-ray this week with the release of Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic, Gallic ode to ’40s US gangster movies, Le Samourai. In what is arguably his greatest role, the impossibly handsome Delon stars as as assassin-for-hire Jef Costello. Dressed in trenchcoat and a deeply […]
Swallow (2019) the Horror of Control (Review)
A theme of David Cronenberg’s work with horror was the tenet that the human body is far more terrifying than any monster or external violence. His work revolved around the corruption of the human form with all manner of disturbing aberrations. Post-Cronenberg, the concept of body horror has become inanely […]
Two New Criterions: Devi (1960) and The Thin Red Line (1998)(Review)
After early November’s Blu-Ray of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox, Criterion UK release a pair of movies unconnected save for their very different approaches to making a film about faith. And that’s “a film about faith” rather than a “faith-based film”. The latter is generally used as a synonym for […]