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BFI London Film Festival 2017: Casting, 9 Fingers

by Martin | November 18, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

In the toilets next to NFT2 a man was calling out for someone called Antonio – he had been asked to do so by a woman outside. Antonio didn't pipe up, although one of the cubicles was in use I noticed. Conceivably Antonio was inside - asleep, dying, or simply unwilling...

Killer’s Moon (1978)

by Martin | October 18, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

I've always been put off by Redemption DVDs because they seem to be marketed at sadomasochistic lesbian vampire Goths and (moreover) their male admirers - and I am neither. Look beyond the packaging, however, and you will often find a decent transfer of a hard-to-find...

Our Time / Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

by Martin | September 7, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

OUR TIME There was quite a high turnout for this three-hour epic of directorial self-laceration from Mexican director Carlos Reygadas, although admittedly this was at the Minema screen at the Curzon Bloomsbury, which seats about 20 people. I had a guy ahead of me...

The Woods Have Legs – Three Films

by Martin | December 3, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Blair Witch The woods! A simple enough phrase but so ominously evocative – I was quite intrigued on discovering that director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett's film The Woods was due to premiere at Frightfest this year. I found much to enjoy in Barrett/Wingard's...

BFI London Film Festival 2014: Metamorphoses/White God

by Martin | December 7, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

METAMORPHOSES Christophe Honoré's film is based on something I've not read – Ovid's Metamorphoses – but no need to be alarmed: the stories are spelled out very clearly. Indeed, almost too clearly. The set-up is that Europa (Amira Akili) is a schoolgirl learning about...

Terror Firmer (1999) / Screamplay (1985) / Suture (1993)

by Martin | July 10, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

TERROR FIRMER Based on a memoir by Lloyd Kaufman, co-founder of Troma Entertainment, and director of many of its 'hits', such as The Toxic Avenger (also on this Czech DVD under the title Toxicky Mstitel), this film is essentially Kaufman's 8½. He plays a blind...

Burial Ground (1981)

by Martin | August 7, 2016 | movies, reviews, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

In the prologue to this plot-free Italian zombie opus, also known as The Nights of Terror, a professor raises the dead from an Etruscan tomb just in time for the arrival of a group of privileged merry-makers down for a weekend at the adjoining country house. With one...

Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning (2012)

by Martin | August 3, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Normally I unearth the cultural artefacts that interest me by dint of patient digging in obscure corners, but sometimes something comes barrelling out of the internet during an idle hour to catch me off guard rather like MMA fighter Andrei 'The Pitbull' Arlovski keeps...

Koko-Di-Koko-Da / Swallow

by Martin | December 15, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

KOKO-DI-KOKO-DA (LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2019) Johannes Nyholm's film starts with a mother, Erin (Ylva Gallon) suffering a bout of food poisoning which leaves her face swollen so that she looks, as her husband Tobias (Leif Edlund Johansson) jests, like Freddy Kruger. The...

Weapons /Bring Her Back

by Martin | January 18, 2026 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

WEAPONS There was a lot of hype around writer-director Zach Cregger's follow-up to the promising Barbarian – I remember noticing a website ranking the characters in Weapons in order of how 'iconic' they are. No doubt it is old-fashioned of me to expect to wait a few...