reviews | Unworldly Views

Eyeball (1975) / Short Night Of Glass Dolls (1971) / Spasmo (1974)

Martin Plumbridge movies, reviews August 5, 2020

EYEBALL The original Italian title of Umberto Lenzi’s Eyeball translates as Red Cats In A Glass Labyrinth, which makes very little sense and is all the more impressive for it. However, there is no doubt that Eyeball is more to the point. This giallo ...Read More

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The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972) / Effie Gray (2014)

Martin Plumbridge movies, reviews July 28, 2020

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 ...Read More

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

Martin Plumbridge movies, reviews July 10, 2020

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 ...Read More

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Rabid (1977) / Black Magic 2 (1976)

Martin Plumbridge movies, reviews June 10, 2020

RABID (1977) I watched this (on Arrow Video Blu-Ray) quite early on in lockdown, before the later symptoms of COVID-19 like frothing at the mouth with blue foam and biting people in the neck appeared. Oh no wait, that hasn’t happened yet has it? ...Read More

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The Colossus Of New York (1958) / The Alligator People (1959)

Martin Plumbridge movies, reviews May 27, 2020

In American monster movies of the early 50’s the monstrous generally had a scientific explanation – of course the science didn’t always stand up to close examination, but then it rarely got any. It was only required to generate panic – for the length ...Read More

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Privilege (1967) / Duck Soup (1933)

Martin Plumbridge movies, reviews May 5, 2020

PRIVILEGE On this BFI DVD you get a couple of early short films from director Peter Watkins, one of which is 1961’s The Forgotten Faces, an urgent, authentic-seeming account of the 1956 people’s uprising in Hungary, filmed in Canterbury. Therein lies the moral of ...Read More

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LOCKDOWN! The Giant Claw (1957)

Martin Plumbridge movies, reviews April 24, 2020

How often have I fantasized about the government forbidding me to leave the house so that I am finally compelled to watch all the DVDs I have accumulated over the years? Well never, since that would have been absurd, even for a fantasy. Nevertheless ...Read More

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The Burning (1981)

Martin Plumbridge movies, reviews April 24, 2020

CAUTION: Contains unlicensed film theory Carol Clover’s Men Women and Chainsaws is most famous for drawing our attention to the figure of the Final Girl. Clover had been struck by the way that slasher films, aimed (as she saw it) at an audience of ...Read More

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Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quay De Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

Martin Plumbridge movies, reviews April 14, 2020

CAUTION: Pre-lockdown content. May include allusions to leaving the house. Are there awards for audiences? Sometimes I feel that I deserve recognition for the efforts I make to catch one-off showings of alienating arthouse films – or at least, that they should pay me ...Read More

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In Fabric / Little Joe

Martin Plumbridge movies, reviews March 21, 2020

IN FABRIC Peter Strickland’s follow-up to the excellent Duke Of Burgundy is a bumpier ride, but you get to enjoy that after a while. Apparently it’s set in 1993 – I read this on the Sight and Sound letters page – but it seems ...Read More

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