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.
Post-Horror: Men / Bergman Island
by Martin | July 30, 2022 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
MEN I see that the Barbican are putting on a summer season of 'post-horror' films. Is that a film you see after a horror film, for light relief perhaps? Well no, apparently – it's just another iteration of our old friend 'elevated horror'. So the films in question...
Evolution (BFI London Film Festival 2015)
by Martin | November 15, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Not to be confused with a 2001 David Duchovny film I've never seen, Lucile Hadžihalilović's second feature cranks the eeriness of 2004's Innocence up a notch, coming on like an anxiety dream H P Lovecraft might have had as a child. On a remote volcanic island, a group...
A Brexit Trilogy
by Martin | March 24, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
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...
Mirror Mirror (1990) / Happy Deathday (2017) / Thelma (2017)
by Martin | September 9, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
MIRROR MIRROR 'Long may it continue', I said earlier in the year about the BFI's 'Cult' strand. Well now it has ended (though replaced by something very similar called Terror Vision) but at least its last showing, curated by feminist film collective the Final Girls,...
The Bat (1959)
by Martin | March 4, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
This comes from a cheap and pretty random box set of 'horror' DVD's I got as a Secret Santa present – thanks, Lorraine! - so there's no frills here, no trailer or 'Making Of': they barely manage to give you the film itself. Which is bad anyway, so creaky you can...
Bad Luck Banging, Or Loony Porn
by Martin | February 13, 2022 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Ah, masks! Still de rigeur at the ICA at this point (this was before Plan B kicked in). During the London Film Festival I dared to go in there unmasked, which felt like a transgressive act, but hey, it was a festival and anyway isn't the ICA supposed to welcome...
Frightfest 2017: Evil Twins
by Martin | October 1, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
FASHIONISTA As regular readers would know (if they existed), Frightfest usually marks the one time in the calendar year where I don't go to the cinema alone: Dave comes along. Or at least he does for part of the time before he has to duck out due to work commitments...
Crazy About Love: Fingernails, Vincent Must Die, and Tchaikovsky’s Wife
by Martin | March 3, 2024 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
FINGERNAILS Love is lighter than air, sings Stephen Merritt of The Magnetic Fields. It floats away when you let go. Love therefore needs to be grounded: in Greek director Christos Nikou's follow-up to his debut film Apples it is grounded in having your fingernails...
White Bird In A Blizzard
by Martin | April 12, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
This adaptation of Laura Kasischke's young adult novel finds director Gregg Araki in less than full-on mode, and my first impression, such is the uncertainty of tone here, is that when he isn't in full-on mode (eg: Nowhere, Kaboom) he doesn't know what he's doing. But...
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...