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.
Longlegs / Only The River Flows
by Martin | October 16, 2024 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
LONGLEGS Longlegs has been subject to a lot of hype claiming that it is the scariest film of the year or decade or maybe even century, and it certainly maintains a tense and creepy atmosphere throughout, but the scariest moment comes before the credits, where the...
Nosferatu / Babygirl / Companion
by Martin | April 27, 2025 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
NOSFERATU 'Yes we have Nosferatu, we have Nosferatu today.' Not much chance of this (the best joke in Mel Brooks' 1995 spoof Dracula: Dead and Loving It) making it into Robert Eggers' latest spin on F. W. Murnau's 1922 film, an unauthorised version of Dracula also...
Final Destination: Bloodlines / Bogancloch / The Shrouds
by Martin | September 27, 2025 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES Horror franchises are noted for their unkillable villains, constantly being resurrected, but the Final Destination films cut to the chase in that the villain is death itself, and who is going to kill him? Or her. Or them. The films settle...
The Million Eyes Of Sumuru (1967)
by Martin | February 28, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
'I have a million eyes, for I am Sumuru', says Shirley Eaton in voiceover at the beginning of this particular disaster. She doesn't really have a million eyes - that's the first disappointment. The notional 'million eyes' belong to her followers. Sumuru leads an...
Salvo
by Martin | April 26, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Mafia hitman Salvo (Saleh Bakri) kills a guy but instead of despatching his sister Rita (Sara Serraiocco) - a witness to the crime - he chooses to hide her in an abandoned factory and keep her fed and watered. Why? Love? Pity? Or is he caught on the horns of a...
Kinoteka 2019: Love Express and Fugue
by Martin | May 11, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
LOVE EXPRESS: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF WALERIAN BOROWCZYK Kuba Mikurda's documentary presents a pretty standard view of Borowczyk, which won't be a problem for people who have no idea who Borowczyk is I suppose, and they are the vast majority of the population, and...
More Madness: Madeline’s Madeline and Thunder Road (LFF 2018)
by Martin | December 24, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
MADELINE'S MADELINE The new film from director Josephine Decker (Thou Wast Mild And Lovely) is a gripping and vivid account of some days in the life of the eponymous schizophrenic teenager (an impressive Helena Howard), who has joined a theatrical troupe which seems...
Hail Caesar! / High Rise
by Martin | May 1, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
One of the funnier scenes in the Coen Brothers' 50's Hollywood-set latest has Ralph Fiennes as a fussy English director struggling to incorporate studio-imposed Western star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) into his drawing room comedy Merrily We Dance. Before his utter...
BFI London Film Festival 2014: Metamorphoses/White God
by Martin | December 7, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
METAMORPHOSES Christophe Honoré's film is based on something I've not read – Ovid's Metamorphoses – but no need to be alarmed: the stories are spelled out very clearly. Indeed, almost too clearly. The set-up is that Europa (Amira Akili) is a schoolgirl learning about...
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...