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.
Peeping Tom (1960)
by Martin | July 17, 2022 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
I used to say that Michael Powell's Peeping Tom was my favourite film. That I don't say it now has nothing to do with the quality of the film or my changing perception of it; more, it's down to a realisation that there are too many films, and that I have too many...
Hereditary
by Martin | August 5, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
In theory it ought to be possible to respond to a film without taking into account to the critical reaction to it, but once you are aware of that reaction and have seen it pasted on the sides of buses, there's not much you can do about that: it's already in you. But...
Blink Twice and Heretic meet The Phantom of the Monastery (1934)
by Martin | January 2, 2025 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
BLINK TWICE Waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie) and her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) accept an invite to the private island of tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), where everybody seems to be having a fantastic time – or are they? Well, maybe not the women, who have...
Sins Of The Fleshapoids (1965)/Orphans Of The Cosmos (2008)
by Martin | January 18, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
I settled down for this Kuchar Brothers double-bill at the BFI with three cushions (Christmas presents for Mum) in carrier bags, a burden bulky enough to suggest that I should have splashed out on another ticket. With an amused gay man on my left and Brian Sewell...
Privilege (1967) / Duck Soup (1933)
by Martin | May 5, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
PRIVILEGE On this BFI DVD you get a couple of early short films from director Peter Watkins, one of which is 1961's The Forgotten Faces, an urgent, authentic-seeming account of the 1956 people's uprising in Hungary, filmed in Canterbury. Therein lies the moral of much...
Rabid (1977) / Black Magic 2 (1976)
by Martin | June 10, 2020 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
RABID (1977) I watched this (on Arrow Video Blu-Ray) quite early on in lockdown, before the later symptoms of COVID-19 like frothing at the mouth with blue foam and biting people in the neck appeared. Oh no wait, that hasn't happened yet has it? Nevertheless this is...
Doctor Blood’s Coffin (1961)
by Martin | February 15, 2015 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
Possibly for budgetary reasons, Kieron Moore plays both romantic lead and villain in this shocker from director Sidney J. Furie. In the former capacity he courts Hazel Court’s Nurse Linda Parker, who works at his father’s surgery in Cornwall, while in the latter he...
Frightfest 2018 – The Cleaning Lady, Braid and Piercing
by Martin | September 23, 2018 | movies, reviews | 0 Comments
THE CLEANING LADY Frightfest is now 'owned' by Arrow Video, which makes sense. The only difference I could see was that there were a lot of free DVD's lying around, which I certainly wasn't complaining about (I'll save that for when I watch them). The first two films...
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...
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...