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.
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...
Ghost Theatre / Yakuza Apocalypse
by Martin | January 24, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
GHOST THEATRE Hideo Nakata, director of the Ring movies and the excellent Dark Water returns with this theatrical tale that never comes to life – unlike the dummy being used as a prop in the play Ghost Theatre revolves around. The dummy's head, you see, comes from a...
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...
Frightfest 2016 Day Two
by Martin | October 22, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
FURY OF THE DEMON On day two I returned unaccompanied to Shepherd's Bush as Dave had to get up early on Sunday, but another recurring character in this blog - Michael Blyth, BFI cult film programmer - was sitting nearby for the first two screenings, which was oddly...
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...
Burke And Hare (1971)
by Martin | January 26, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
This is director Vernon Sewell’s last film and there’s something fitting about that: after two ventures into the more fantastical side of horror (The Blood Beast Terror and The Curse Of The Crimson Altar from 1966 and 1968 respectively) neither of which went out of...
The Invisible Life
by Martin | May 25, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
It was a lovely day, sunshine sparkling on the Thames, Green Park bustling with life. The freshness in the air seemed almost to be trying to dissuade me against seeing a bleak existential drama about death at the ICA, but I was determined - even if, in the event, it...
L’il Quinquin
by Martin | January 18, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
My jaw dropped when I heard that divisive auteur Bruno Dumont's next film would be a comedy about cops, and remained in that state throughout the three-hour plus length of the film (actually a four-part TV series, served up in a single showing at the London Film...
Frightfest 2014: The Green Inferno
by Martin | August 30, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Movies such as Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox and Ruggero Deodato's powerful Cannibal Holocaust really do seem to belong to a certain time and place – 70 and early 80's Italy – so it was intriguing to see how Eli Roth of Cabin Fever and Hostel fame would fare in...
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
by Martin | March 1, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
An Iranian vampire Western? Is this what the world really needs? On the evidence presented here – yes. Not that this is really Iranian, since it is shot in America and is set in a fictional (Iranian) place called ‘Bad City’. Not that it’s really a Western either,...