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

by Martin | April 4, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

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',...

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...

In Fabric / Little Joe

by Martin | March 21, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

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 to be taking place in some kind of...

The Manster (1959)

by Martin | June 12, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

I got this in a DVD box set called Brains That Wouldn't Die ('6 Midnight Movies on 2 DVDs!'). On the plus side, there are some hard-to-see films here – on the downside, such is the picture quality that they often remain hard to see, even while you're watching them....

Foxcatcher/Whiplash

by Martin | March 1, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

I may boast of my aversion to the mainstream but do I ever really escape it, or is it like Christopher Marlowe said: ‘Where we are is the mainstream and the mainstream is where we ever are’? (OK, he was talking about Hell but it’s the same idea.) I have been slightly...

mother!

by Martin | November 12, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

The release of Darren Aronofky's latest film was preceded by a director interview by Trevor Johnston in Sight & Sound urging viewers not to read it until they'd seen the film, since (even more than is usually the case) the more you knew about this film in advance...

THE UNTAMED RAW NOCTURAMA

by Martin | January 15, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

THE UNTAMED This London Film Festival showing represented my first visit to the Picturehouse Central. Entering, you feel like you've walked into a bar, and a busy one – and you have. Retreating in horror from all this socialising, which is not what I come to the...

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

by Martin | March 20, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

This was prefaced by a talk from BFI programmer Michael Blyth around LBGT horror which pleasingly focused on less obvious titles – The Ghost Ship, Homicidal, Alucarda – even if he did seem to be stretching a point sometimes. Passing allusions to Dr. Jekyll And Mister...

Tales That Witness Madness (1973)

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

In 1965 Dr. Terror's House of Horrors kicked off a series of 'anthology' horror films, mostly made by Amicus, of which Tales That Witness Madness (not made by Amicus) is often dismissed as a peculiarly ropey example, although its director Freddie Francis - who also...

Frightfest Halloween 2018

by Martin | February 24, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Yes I know, we are already well into 2019 but let me take you back, BACK to when the self-service checkouts in Poundland were still speaking in the voice of Bela Lugosi ('Have a spooooky day!') In truth I wasn't all that inspired by the films on offer at Frightfest...