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A Cure For Wellness

by Martin | March 25, 2017 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

A slice of Hollywood Eurogothic from Gore Pirates of the Caribbean Verbinski, this begins quite promisingly in a vein of deadpan camp – a mode which serves it well enough until it goes (almost literally) down the toilet. Lockhart (Dane DeHaan), a young, reptilian Wall...

Killer’s Moon (1978)

by Martin | October 18, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

I've always been put off by Redemption DVDs because they seem to be marketed at sadomasochistic lesbian vampire Goths and (moreover) their male admirers - and I am neither. Look beyond the packaging, however, and you will often find a decent transfer of a hard-to-find...

GUILT-FREE CINEMA? The New York Ripper (1982) / Hitch Hike To Hell (1977)

by Martin | January 24, 2021 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

At some point in the run-up towards Christmas I found myself watching a documentary on BBC4 by Catherine Bray that encouraged us not to feel 'guilty' about watching 'bad' films. It seemed to be right up my alley and for a good twenty minutes all seemed to be well....

BFI London Film Festival 2022: Lockdown Lingers

by Martin | January 29, 2023 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

COMA I am increasingly belated. Already it is 2023 and I still haven't got around to dealing with the 2022 London Film Festival. However, in many respects the festival itself hadn't yet escaped the preceding lockdown years – obviously nobody was expected to wear a...

Frightfest 2014: Open Windows, Nekromantik and Der Samurai

by Martin | September 21, 2014 | movies, reviews, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

OPEN WINDOWS In an age when you can watch films on your phone, here's another novelty – going to the cinema to see a film whose action takes place entirely on someone's laptop screen. I think it did, anyway – I was frankly a little befuddled by the end. Bear in mind...

O Lucky Man! (1973) etc….

by Martin | August 25, 2024 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

My introduction to Lindsay Anderson was being shown the 1968 film If.... in (judiciously edited) half hour portions at secondary school in the 70's in a lesson called 'Design for Living', a rather random class which was used to dispense whatever we had in the way of...

Frightfest 2014: Bad Milo!

by Martin | September 7, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

Frightfest has relocated from the Empire Leicester Square to the Vue Leicester Square, which seems to be a good thing. No more cramped Discovery Screens, we now have the run of numerous larger screens over several floors. And it's even nearer Burger King, where I sit...

BFI London Film Festival 2017: The Wound, Most Beautiful Island

by Martin | January 28, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

THE WOUND Up for the Sutherland First Feature Award was this South African tale whose hero Xolani (Nakhane Touré) returns every year to the countryside to become a 'caregiver' to initiates in a tribal ritual wherein boys become men by dint of such activities as...

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...

Amulet /Master

by Martin | May 2, 2022 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments

AMULET Can horror be 'progressive'? Actor and now director Romola Garai talks about 'changing the narrative' of horror with her first film but I'm not sure that she's managed it (what is this 'narrative' anyway?) though she might have thrown a few spokes in its...