Clik here to view.
Lovecraft on Film: Die, Monster, Die! (Daniel Haller, 1965)
“Upon everything was a haze of restlessness and oppression; a touch of the unreal and the grotesque, as if some vital element of perspective or chiaroscuro were awry. I did not wonder that the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lovecraft on Film Appendum: The Credits Out of Space
One of the only aspects of Daniel Haller’s Die Monster Die! that really stays true to the spirit of H.P. Lovecraft’s source text is the extraordinary credits sequence, which seemingly uses lurid gel...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thoughts on… Revisiting Twin Peaks.
Although it dominated my thoughts on cinema through my late teens and early twenties, my David Lynch obsession has (mercifully for the readers of this blog) lain largely dormant since shortly after the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Deathblog: Andrzej Zulawski (1940 - 2016)
For those who haven’t heard elsewhere, I’m sorry to have to pass on the news that the death was announced yesterday of Andrzej Zulawski, a director who could I think be justifiably described as one of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cinema Trips: Bone Tomahawk (S. Craig Zahler, 2015)
Ok, listen up folks: S. Craig Zahler’s ‘Bone Tomahawk’ is a 2015 production, theatrically released in the UK in 2016, and it is a really good movie.Given the attitude of curmudgeonly disdain that I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pan-demonium.
Following this 2014 post on the work of paperback cover artist Sam “Peff” Peffer, I’ve become quite interested in expanding my collection (and appreciation) of Pan paperbacks. With their preference...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nippon Horrors: The Lady Vampire (Nobuo Nakagawa, 1959)
Whilst we’ve already seen some pretty curious mash-ups of Eastern and Western horror tropes in this ‘Nippon horrors’ review thread, you’d be hard-pressed I think to find a more determinedly oddball...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Nature of the Catastrophe: A British Apocalypse Cover Art Gallery.
Watching Hammer’s version of ‘Quatermass & The Pit’ recently, I was struck by a brief exchange between Andrew Keir’s Professor Quatermass and James Donald’s Dr. Roney as they brain-storm the likely...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Franco Files: The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus (1962)
OBLIGATORY VIEWING NOTE: Screengrabs are by necessity taken from the old DVD rather than shiny new Blu-Ray, etc etc.AKA: La Mano de un Hombre Muerto (Spain), Sinfonia per un Sadico (Italy), La Bestia...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Random Paperbacks: All Night Stand by Thom Keyes (Mayflower/Dell, 1967)
Ah, we haven’t had any beatniks on this blog for a while, have we? Yeah, THE BEAT SCENE! Mercurial, untamed, straight from the fridge, da… hang on a minute, a pop group? That doesn’t sound like the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Franco Files: Los Noche de los Sexos Abiertos / ‘Night of Open Sex’ (1983)
AKAs: As with many of Jess Franco’s early ‘80s productions under the ‘Golden Films’ banner, I believe this film only ever enjoyed a brief domestic release in Spain, and thus acquired no alternative /...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Random Paperbacks: The Mabinogion (Everyman Library, 1975 / originally...
Providing commentary on The Mabinogion– jewel in the crown of surviving Celtic culture and foggy well-spring of Arthurian myth – is somewhat beyond the remit of this weblog, but I can at least draw...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brit Apocalypse Redux.
(Manor Books [U.S.], 1974 / cover artist unknown.)CATASTROPHE: Mass immigration / civil war.(Hodder, 1968 / cover artist unknown.)CATASTROPHE: Earthquakes.Always the way isn’t it? Just a few weeks...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arrow Video Round-Up.
Whilst I would never wish to post anything on this blog that could be seen as shilling for or uncritically cheerleading for a particular brand or commercial enterprise, it nonetheless behests me to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arrow Round up: Day of Anger (Tonino Valerii, 1967)
Lacking in either the stylistic grandeur of Leone, the sweaty political heft of Sollima or the transgressive pulp grit of Corbucci, Tonino Valerii’s first Spaghetti Western initially seems a pretty...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arrow Round up: Hired To Kill (Nico Mastorakis, 1990)
Hitting shelves soon as part of Arrow’s inexplicable campaign to revive the work of VHS-era Greek exploitation kingpin Nico Mastorakis (whose 1986 film ‘The Edge of Terror’ aka ‘The Wind’ we covered...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arrow Round up: The Rambling Guitarist (Buichi Saitô, 1959)
When I first began reading up on Japanese cinema a few years back, I’ll confess I found Nikkatsu studio’s oft-referenced “borderless action” style a difficult concept to grasp. From my clueless Western...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arrow Round up: Thieves’ Highway (Jules Dassin, 1949)
Though the precise boundaries of “film noir” within modern movie-chat are nebulous at best (and seem to become more so each year, as the genre’s key era sinks further into history), I’m afraid I’ve got...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arrow Round up: Eaten Alive (Tobe Hooper, 1976)
Independent producer Mardi Rustam must have thought he’d hit the grindhouse horror jackpot when he signed up the director of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ (then still knocking people’s socks off on its...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Random Paperbacks: A Woman in Spaceby Sara Cavanaugh(Ace/Stoneshire books, 1983)
When I added this early ‘80s romance paperback to my library, certain parties questioned my decision.All I can do in response was to draw their attention to the cover photograph and back cover blurb,...
View Article