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Aaaaaaaah!

by Martin | March 20, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Two men (Steve Oram and Tom Meeten) who only communicate in ape-like grunts, are in the woods mourning the passing of a loved one (we assume) by pissing on a framed photo of her. That done, they set off into the city, to bring (so we might imagine) their primitive...

Frightfest 2016 Day One

by Martin | September 24, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

This year Frightfest disconcerted me by moving temporarily to the Vue in Shepherd's Bush. I don't like change. As we sat in the Pizza Express near Soho Square beforehand, which is where we always go on Frightfest Friday, Dave tried to reassure me by showing me the new...

London Film Festival 2019: Vivarium / Scales (and End Of The Century)

by Martin | January 5, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

VIVARIUM Director Lorcan Finnegan and writer Garrett Shanley's second film sadly doesn't manage to fulfil the promise of their previous feature, 2016’s Without Name. The LFF brochure compares it to The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror but while it could pass for one of...

Camille Claudel 1915

by Martin | July 26, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

This meeting of two arthouse legends – Bruno Dumont, a director who has previously always refused to work with professional actors, and Juliette (Chocolat) Binoche – is heralded by posters screaming BINOCHE CLAUDEL DUMONT, in the manner of ads for an action movie...

Foxcatcher/Whiplash

by Martin | March 1, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

I may boast of my aversion to the mainstream but do I ever really escape it, or is it like Christopher Marlowe said: ‘Where we are is the mainstream and the mainstream is where we ever are’? (OK, he was talking about Hell but it’s the same idea.) I have been slightly...

BFI London Film Festival 2022: Lockdown Lingers

by Martin | January 29, 2023 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

COMA I am increasingly belated. Already it is 2023 and I still haven't got around to dealing with the 2022 London Film Festival. However, in many respects the festival itself hadn't yet escaped the preceding lockdown years – obviously nobody was expected to wear a...

The Manster (1959)

by Martin | June 12, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

I got this in a DVD box set called Brains That Wouldn't Die ('6 Midnight Movies on 2 DVDs!'). On the plus side, there are some hard-to-see films here – on the downside, such is the picture quality that they often remain hard to see, even while you're watching them....

The Mad Ghoul (1943)

by Martin | January 2, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Director James Hogan's film begins with an unusually delicate situation for a mad scientist flick – the heroine Isabel (Evelyn Ankers) has fallen out of love with the hero Ted (David Bruce). Isabel confides this melancholy fact to Dr. Alfred Morris, Ted’s chemistry...

Strongroom (1962)

by Martin | August 31, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Vernon Sewell's career in British film started, weirdly enough, with a German film - Morgenrot (1933) a collaboration with Gustav Klimt's illegitimate son (one of them) that premiered in front of Adolf Hitler. Apparently Hitler liked it. His next collaborative...

Enys Men / Skinamarink

by Martin | February 25, 2023 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

ENYS MEN Mark Jenkin's follow-up to the attention-grabbing and fiercely Cornish Bait is being sold as 'folk-horror' but it's a bit more experimental than that might suggest. I don't know if anyone has complained. Certainly I won't, since I enjoy an experimental film,...