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.
A Cat In The Brain (1990) and Slugs (1988)
by Martin | July 8, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
A CAT IN THE BRAIN It may seem an odd thing to say of a film called A Cat In The Brain but - inured as I am to disappointment in such matters (almost counting on it, you might say) - the last thing I expected to see in it was a cat clawing at someone's (living) brain....
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...
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...
LOCKDOWN! The Giant Claw (1957)
by Martin | April 24, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
How often have I fantasized about the government forbidding me to leave the house so that I am finally compelled to watch all the DVDs I have accumulated over the years? Well never, since that would have been absurd, even for a fantasy. Nevertheless here we are. Or at...
The Body Stealers (1969)
by Martin | June 11, 2016 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
I seem to remember this showing late at night on ITV back in the 70's, but I never bothered to stay up watching it, and quite rightly as I was surely too young to appreciate how bad it is. Now it's showing on a Saturday morning on Movies4men, at a time when, back in...
Frightfest 2021
by Martin | December 14, 2021 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
NIGHT DRIVE A mysterious fugue enveloped Frightfest last year – it's like it didn't really happen. But suddenly here I am again in the Empire Leicester Square, and – after a few 'missing' years - Dave is even back, and sitting next to me. It all feels suspiciously...
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....
Frightfest 2022
by Martin | December 18, 2022 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
'Keep On Rollin', says a T-shirt on a little girl outside the Prince Charles Cinema, which I at first imagined was a reference to Jean Rollin, French director of sex vampire films and subject of the documentary Orchestrator of Storms, showing at Frightfest. The image...
A Nightmare On Elm Street Part II: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
by Martin | May 4, 2014 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
The London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival has renamed itself Flare. I'm not sure what I think about this – immediate associations that spring to mind (trousers, nostrils, distress signals) are not exactly encouraging. Also, if someone told me: 'I'm going to Flare', my...
Frightfest 2019 Part One – Home Discomforts
by Martin | September 21, 2019 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Set in my ways as I am I prefer to buy my Frightfest tickets in person, at whatever passes for a 'box office' nowadays. Over the years this has become more and more difficult and now entails leaving it to the very last moment. This time around I thought my resistance...