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BEST FIRST TIME VIEWINGS: 2021 (part # 2 of 3)
Yes, I know this has taken a while. Apologies again for the delays in posting. 20. The Criminal (Joseph Losey, 1960) Hard-boiled Brit-crime thuggery goes toe-to-toe with Joseph Losey’s self-conscious...
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BEST FIRST TIME VIEWINGS: 2021 (part # 3 of 3)
Yes, I know - this took forever. I’m sorry. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back onto a regular(ish) posting schedule soon, fingers crossed, but in the meantime, please enjoy the superlative gushing...
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Horror Express: Censor (Prano Bailey-Bond, 2021)
When I initially read about writer-director Prano Bailey-Bond’s debut feature ‘Censor’ last summer, I was pretty intrigued. I mean, a phantasmagorical trip into the murky underbelly of the infamous...
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Noir Diary # 17: Framed (Richard Wallace, 1947)
The very definition of an efficient, tightly plotted b-noir, 1947’s ‘Framed’ begins with a perfect visual metaphor for what’s to follow, as protagonist Mike Lambert (Glenn Ford) literally crashes into...
View ArticleUpdate / Apologies.
Basically I thought I’d better just pop my head ‘round the door to offer my apologies to regular readers for letting this blog go to seed over the past few months.With tedious predictability, the...
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Revisiting ‘The Damned’ (1962) - literally.
Black leather, black leather, crash crash crash… When I began this blog way back in 2009, one of the first films I felt compelled to review was Joseph Losey’s ‘The Damned’ (aka ‘These Are The Damned’,...
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Breakfast in the Ruins: Resurrection.
* click *Hello? Hello…?Is there anybody out there..? So, I just thought I’d give a quick heads-up to any long-time readers, old friends or other foolhardy individuals who have seen fit to keep this...
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Horror Express: Draguse ou Le Manoir Infernal (Patrice Rhomm, 1974)
“Just my luck. Some people meet with Ursula Andress or Brigitte Bardot in their dreams. I always meet with some crazy woman who thinks she’s Nostradamus…” Also unleashed upon the Parisian public as...
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Horror Express: The Climax (George Waggner, 1944)
Mild horror elements and the presence of Boris Karloff provide intermittent points of interest in this otherwise justifiably forgotten Universal Technicolor spectacular, which seems to have been...
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Hammer House of Horror: Witching Time (Don Leaver, 1980)
For reasons of pure cinephile snobbishness, I have never previously bothered to watch the thirteen episodes of the ‘Hammer House of Horror’ TV series first broadcast on ITV in 1980.My feeling, I...
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Horror Express: The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes (David Kramarsky / Roger...
Over the past few years, I’ve got into the habit of tuning in to ‘50s American sci-fi/monster movies for a dose of comforting, mid-week escapism. Perhaps it’s just me, but somehow, that distinctive...
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Hammer House of Horror: The Thirteenth Reunion (Peter Sasdy, 1980)
When reviewing the first episode of ‘Hammer House of Horror’ earlier this week, I likened its tone to Peter Sasdy’s I Don’t Want to be Born/The Devil Within Her…. and what do you know, here we are with...
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Horror Express / Gothic Originals: Love Brides of the Blood Mummy (Ken Ruder,...
Yes, folks - ‘Love Brides of the Blood Mummy’. If you thought I was going to turn down the opportunity to add this one to my shelves when Mondo Macabro put it up for pre-order earlier this year… well,...
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Hammer House of Horror: Rude Awakening (Peter Sasdy, 1980)
Episode #3 of ‘Hammer House of Horror’, turns out to be another Peter Sasdy joint, and, if The Thirteenth Reunion proved a bit sub-par, this one is just, well… weird. Which is probably an improvement....
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Horror Express: Glorious (Rebekah McKendry, 2022)
This was my first time venturing into the blighted realm of ‘a Shudder original’, but Rebekah McKendry’s third feature as director got a rave from Denis at The Horror!? weblog, which was all it took to...
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Hammer House of Horror: Growing Pains (Francis Megahy, 1980)
Fourth episode in the series, and I’ll bang through it quickly, as I think this was the weakest to date. Gary Bond (the lead from ‘Wake in Fright’ (1971)) is a borderline mad scientist, busy creating...
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Gothic Originals / Exploito All’Italiana: Murder Obsession (Riccardo Freda,...
An odd duck within the canon of Italian genre/exploitation directors by any measure, Riccardo Freda can often be a difficult character to really get an angle on. On the one hand, he turned in two of...
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Hammer House of Horror: The House That Bled To Death (Tom Clegg, 1980)
Episode # 5. Pretty cool title, eh? Could have made a good sequel to ‘The House That Dripped Blood’ in an alternate world. But anyway, yes - this is ‘the haunted house one’, much as you’d expect....
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Horror Express: In The Earth (Ben Wheatley, 2021)
Shot in a remarkable fourteen days during the summer of 2020, when such concerns must have still felt quite scary and new, Ben Wheatley’s most recent horror film begins by using the conventions of old...
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Hammer House of Horror: Charlie Boy (Robert Young, 1980)
Episode # 6! This one was very enjoyable. After all the down at heel suburban atmos of the preceding episodes, we’ve finally got a big ol’ manor house on-screen right from the outset here (Hampden...
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