Martin P. Lumbridge (not his real name) persists in writing about film even though he has no professional qualifications or compelling reason to be believed. Expect spoilers.
Horrors Of The London Film Festival 2019
by Martin | February 22, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
DEERSKIN Horror films have fielded some unlikely 'monsters' over the years and director Quentin Dupieux has already supplied a notable one with 2010's Rubber, whose 'villain' was a spare tyre. His new film explores the malign potential of a jacket. Filling it out, and...
Mandy / Knife + Heart / Suspiria
by Martin | February 16, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
MANDY Mandy sold out very quickly at the London Film Festival, so I was pleased, having failed to secure a ticket, to see that it was showing in that very same week at the Prince Charles Cinema, which meant that I could see it for a fiver rather that sixteen quid. It...
Who Killed Teddy Bear (1965)
by Martin | May 29, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
At one point in this the man who I suppose we'll have to call the hero for want of any other more suitable candidate – Lt. Dave Madden ( Jan Murray) - is told that he has 'crossed a line'. Well this film has crossed a line before it's even started, as the credits roll...
Nosferatu / Babygirl / Companion
by Martin | April 27, 2025 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
NOSFERATU 'Yes we have Nosferatu, we have Nosferatu today.' Not much chance of this (the best joke in Mel Brooks' 1995 spoof Dracula: Dead and Loving It) making it into Robert Eggers' latest spin on F. W. Murnau's 1922 film, an unauthorised version of Dracula also...
The Brand New Testament (BFI London Film Festival 2015)
by Martin | November 14, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Jaco Van Dormael's film might end up being remembered as the one where Catherine Deneuve sleeps with a gorilla, but that's the least of it. Benoît Poolvoorde is God, a middle-aged slob who never leaves his apartment and spends most of his time on his computer,...
Death Car On The Freeway (1979)
by Martin | July 18, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
The critical appeal of the recent Mad Max sequel was so across-the-board that it even screened at arthouse venues like the Curzon Soho - while I was in there waiting for Christian Petzold’s (excellent) German drama Phoenix to start, a trailer for it played. The woman...
Enlightened Horror, The Backlash – The Cabinet of Caligari (1962)
by Martin | December 15, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Ever since I coined the term 'enlightened horror' three seconds ago there has been, I expect, a massive reaction on the internet, most of it negative ('Enlightened horror? – enfeebled horror more like!') and I can quite understand. The idea of a form of horror that...
Gentrified Horror: The Nightcomers (1971) and Us
by Martin | July 21, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
THE NIGHTCOMERS In Nick Pinkerton's positive Sight and Sound review of Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (which I thought was shit by the way) I first encountered the phrase 'gentrified horror', a pejorative term for the kind of upmarket horror that plays to...
The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972) / Effie Gray (2014)
by Martin | July 28, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Before he (apparently) disappeared into thin air, Emilio P. Miraglia made a couple of films blending the giallo with the Gothic, 1971's The Night Evelyn Game Out of the Grave, and this, his last film. The giallo and the Gothic are simultaneously very different (the...
Evolution (BFI London Film Festival 2015)
by Martin | November 15, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Not to be confused with a 2001 David Duchovny film I've never seen, Lucile Hadžihalilović's second feature cranks the eeriness of 2004's Innocence up a notch, coming on like an anxiety dream H P Lovecraft might have had as a child. On a remote volcanic island, a group...