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.
Blink Twice and Heretic meet The Phantom of the Monastery (1934)
by Martin | January 2, 2025 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
BLINK TWICE Waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) and her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) accept an invite to the private island of tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), where everybody seems to be having a fantastic time – or are they? Well, maybe not the women, who have...
The Revenant
by Martin | May 29, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Early reports of this film had audiences scandalised by the sight of star Leonardo di Caprio being raped by a bear. Three times. I suspect that this was hype worked up by the studio's marketing department, but I suppose it depends on whether you think people are more...
Kinoteka 2019: Love Express and Fugue
by Martin | May 11, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
LOVE EXPRESS: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF WALERIAN BOROWCZYK Kuba Mikurda's documentary presents a pretty standard view of Borowczyk, which won't be a problem for people who have no idea who Borowczyk is I suppose, and they are the vast majority of the population, and...
Strait Jacket (1964) / Lizzie
by Martin | December 1, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
STRAIT JACKET Winding up the Joan Crawford season at the BFI was this William Castle production from the trashier end of her spectrum, though compared to Trog (1970) it's a masterpiece. The audience have come over-determined to giggle at a camp classic, and to be fair...
Frightfest 2014: R100
by Martin | August 31, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
What's that you say? Are Japanese films still as bonkers as they used to be? Why yes, and here is the proof. In Hitoshi Matsumoto's beguiling oddity a furniture salesman (Nao Ômori) attempts to escape the drudgery of his existence (wife in coma, young son to raise) by...
Kinoteka 2019. Monument
by Martin | May 4, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
'It won't be easy', warned writer-director Jagoda Szelc before her second film began, which was possibly an example of what she later referred to as her as her 'dry humour' – does anyone go to the Polish Film Festival expecting uncomplicated fun and games? Not that...
Frightfest Halloween 2017
by Martin | March 3, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Yes I know instant reaction is very much the thing on the internet but Unworldly Views is making a stand against all that – when you put something on the internet, so I'm told, it's there forever. So what's the hurry? Forget New Year then - we return to Saturday 28th...
Horror Express (1972)
by Martin | February 6, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Ever since I was a child it seems to me that the BBC has been showing Eugenio Martin's Spanish horror film Horror Express in a late night slot at regular intervals. This kind of reassuring continuity is exactly what I pay my licence fee for. If I had it on DVD I...
Frankenstein 1970
by Martin | April 20, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
This begins generically but effectively with a screaming girl being pursued across the (German, it turns out) countryside by a nightmarishly-contorted Frankenstein's monster whose face we never see; this proves, however, to be part of a TV programme being shot in the...
Frightfest 2016 Day Three
by Martin | October 23, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
MAN UNDERGROUND Or do I mean Day Four since I skipped Day Three? Oh what the hell. Nobody's paying me to do this. By this stage (Bank Holiday Monday) 'not really horror' (a term coined by Anton Bitel in a recent article for Sight and Sound online) seemed to be turning...