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.
The Entity (1982) / Night Watch (1973)
by Martin | June 29, 2025 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
THE ENTITY It has always struck me that the general tone of life in America is one of hysteria. When I said this once to my cousin, who lives in Texas, she maintained that, rather than hysterics, Americans are 'survivors'. If someone claims to be a survivor merely on...
Mothra (1961)
by Martin | July 12, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
After a self-imposed double-bill of Camille Claudel 1915 and Miss Violence at the Curzon Soho, what better way to cool off than with a showing of Mothra, at the Prince Charles off Leicester Square? So I reasoned. And it only cost a pound, if you were a member. I was....
BFI London Film Festival 2014: Hard To Be A God
by Martin | October 25, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
What better way to ease yourself gently into a film festival than with a nearly-three-hour black and white Russian film based on an sf novel I've never read? Aleksei German's film (based on a novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky) is set on a planet which has been...
BFI London Film Festival 2014: The Duke Of Burgundy
by Martin | November 16, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
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...
Goodnight Mommy
by Martin | April 9, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
TV presenter Mommy (Suzanne Wuest) returns from plastic surgery with a bandaged face and a bad temper, so that her twin boys Elias and Lukas start to wonder if she's really Mommy at all, the question mark over her identity deftly conveyed in a scene where she plays a...
In Pictures
by Martin | May 30, 2021 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964) Mario Bava's The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) is said to be the first giallo, but of Bava's films it is this that feels like the ur-giallo, a template for everything that came after – not just 70's gialli, but 80's slasher films as well....
Horrors Of The London Film Festival 2019
by Martin | February 22, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
DEERSKIN Horror films have fielded some unlikely 'monsters' over the years and director Quentin Dupieux has already supplied a notable one with 2010's Rubber, whose 'villain' was a spare tyre. His new film explores the malign potential of a jacket. Filling it out, and...
Frankenstein 1970
by Martin | April 20, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
This begins generically but effectively with a screaming girl being pursued across the (German, it turns out) countryside by a nightmarishly-contorted Frankenstein's monster whose face we never see; this proves, however, to be part of a TV programme being shot in the...
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006)
by Martin | June 18, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Who the hell's Diane Arbus? If this is your reaction to the above title, then you probably won't get much out of this film. I knew little about Diane Arbus, and having seen the film, now feel that I know less. Which is not the film's fault. It begins with a disclaimer...
FrightFest 2023
by Martin | October 21, 2023 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
FrightFest has a new sponsor and is now the Pigeon Shrine FrightFest. It has to be said that Pigeon Shrine isn't the most inspiring name – 'the Pigeon Shrine FrightFest' sounded suspiciously like a bargain basement version of the original, and my fears seemed to be...