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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.

Horromford 2: Unspeakable: Beyond The Wall Of Sleep

Not content with having a horror film festival, Romford now has a film festival – which also features a lot of horror. I turned up for just the one offering, Chad Ferrin's Unspeakable: Beyond The Wall of Sleep. Ferrin is a prolific director, and no doubt too busy to...

Don’t Step On It, It Might Be Jake Gyllenhaal: Nightcrawler/Enemy

Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), the central figure of Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler, resembles nothing so much as a cockroach that has unaccountably taken on human form – emerging out of the LA night as a petty thief with aspirations, he soon graduates into a 'nightcrawler',...

A Brexit Trilogy

GOD'S OWN COUNTRY (2017) Brexit – is it humanity asserting its freedom to be perverse in the face of global capitalism, or is it just a backward-leaning movement composed of people whose preciousness about their 'British identity' makes you wonder who the real...

The Curious Dr. Humpp / Vengeanza Del Sexo (1967 or thereabouts)

I had reservations about going to see Brainwashed: Sex – Camera – Power, Nina Menkes' take on 'the male gaze' at the BFI, partly because it seemed like the kind of thing that would turn up on BBC4 or Sky Arts in a month or two, but there is a certain advantage to...

Frightfest 2014: Cheerleaders, Show Pieces, and the Babadook

ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE As is well-known, the only way in which girls can achieve any kind of power in that hellish jock-dominated microcosm of American society known as high school is either by means of their bodies or through witchcraft. And witchcraft doesn't work. Or...

Koko-Di-Koko-Da / Swallow

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...

BFI London Film Festival 2014: The Duke Of Burgundy

When nervous maid Cynthia (Sidhe Babett Knudson) turns up at the mansion of entomologist Evelyn (Chiara D'Anna) our first impression – as she harshly calls into question Cynthia's ability to wash knickers - is that Evelyn is an exacting, even cruel, mistress. But...

Burke And Hare (1971)

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...

Three Against Nature

THE SAILOR WHO FELL FROM GRACE WITH THE SEA (1976) 'An insult to any audience' concludes the review of Lewis John Carlino's film The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea (hereafter referred to as Sailor) in my damaged-in-transit Waterstones-freebie edition of the...

Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark

I've wanted to see the 1973 made-for-TV movie Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark ever since I read about it in Halliwell's Film Guide in the early 80's. I never have, but no doubt it would be just as disappointing as Troy Nixey's 2010 remake, which I watched – in order to...