Year: 1957 Director: Jacques Tourneur Stars: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis With Halloween fast approaching I, like many others, have upped the horror quota in my viewing habits, revisiting prominent titles as well as exploring far-flung classics. It's taken too long for me to reach back to Jacques Tourneur's Night Of The Demon (aka Curse Of … Continue reading The Improbable Opening of Night Of The Demon
Year: 1974 Director: Tobe Hooper Stars: Marilyn Burns, Gunnar Hansen, Paul A. Partian A boy walks into a house. It's not his house. He's intruding. But its an intrusion out of both curiosity and necessity. The house looks wrong. Just plain wrong. Dark, dank and grimly decorated. A set of dark stairs press on the … Continue reading The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Me
Director: Jim Hosking Stars: Aubrey Plaza, Craig Robinson, Jemaine Clement Having been wooed by the exceptionally well assembled trailer, I snapped up a chance to partake in An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn without doing any research. It was only in the ensuing week that a dread chill presented itself. This goofy-looking comedy starring Aubrey Plaza … Continue reading Review: An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn
Director: Panos Cosmatos Stars: Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache Just lately, physical media outlet HMV have started repackaging classic cult titles in VHS boxes. Inside are blu-rays, but the chunky throwback aesthetic is to another period's tech altogether. This marketing choice has seemed strange to me; inauthentic nostalgia without the follow-through (what about putting … Continue reading Review: Mandy
Director: David Gordon Green Stars: Jamie Lee Curtis, Will Patton, Andi Matichak One of the creepiest things about Halloween (2018), right out of the gate, is the appearance of the Miramax logo, which hasn't been seen in many a year, and certainly not since the expulsion of the Weinsteins. Ballsy/deluded of someone to hold on to … Continue reading Review: Halloween (2018)
Director: Drew Goddard Stars: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Jon Hamm And lo, Drew Goddard, director of The Cabin In The Woods, finished watching Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight and thought to himself, "Well, I could do better than that." That's probably not what happened, but it certainly comes close to capturing a little of what Bad Times At The … Continue reading Review: Bad Times At The El Royale
Today I saw Ridley Scott's Alien on the big screen for the first time. I've seen it countless times before, but this was the first as it's supposed to be seen, making the screening a small personal landmark for me. It's one of my all time favourite films. That it was the theatrical cut pleased me … Continue reading Minutiae: The Curled Collars of Alien
Director: Damien Chazelle Stars: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Kyle Chandler If your preconception of First Man is something akin to the puffed-chest pride of Apollo 13 or the adventurous stupidity of Armageddon then you are setting yourself up to be confounded. Damien Chazelle returns from the glitz and gloss of La La Land with a sharp tonal about-turn, retelling … Continue reading Review: First Man
Director: Ruben Fleischer Stars: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed Perhaps its just the personas that they've maintained, but when you think of Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams, you assume they wouldn't be the kind of celebrity names engulfed by the Marvel freight train. That they might somehow be 'above' it. Like Ethan Hawke. But … Continue reading Review: Venom
Year: 1971 Director: Aldo Lado Stars: Jean Sorel, Barbara Bach, Ingrid Thulin There are better giallo films out there. Purer examples of the genre. But Aldo Lado's Short Night Of Glass Dolls is a devilishly entertaining and under-celebrated example. It's giallo seen through a fun house mirror, contorted into something that might've been just as fitting … Continue reading Why I Love… #101: Short Night Of Glass Dolls
Director: Bradley Cooper Stars: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott Bradley Cooper, the tall, charming, good-looking Hollywood A-lister here directs the fourth or fifth iteration of A Star Is Born to appear over the past 80 years (depending on your count) and the song remains the same. Established male star discovers a poor, undervalued female talent. … Continue reading Review: A Star Is Born (2018)
Director: Jeremy Saulnier Stars: Riley Keough, Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgård Hold The Dark is the latest feature from a feted indie name to make an unceremonious debut on Netflix. Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin and Green Room both inspected the violent fallout of masculine bravado, and that same toughness recurs here. The world is full of hardships, blood-letting, rape and … Continue reading Review: Hold The Dark
