Latest Posts
The strange thing about The Body Beneath, also known as Vampire’s Thirst, is how British it is, considering it was made by Andy Milligan, something of a phenomenon on the New York indie-exploitation scene from the mid-1960s onwards. A one man band who generally shot on 16mm, his work is much admired in some quarters. … Read more
Sanatorium under the Sign of the Hourglass is only the third film the Quay brothers have made in nearly 50 years. There have been a lot of shorts but as for features, apart from this there’s only Institute Benjamenta (1995) and 2005’s The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, whose whimsy I remember hating. This film not … Read more
Yeh, no, not that The Bourne Identity, but the other one. The original one from 1988 starring Richard Chamberlain as Jason Bourne, in a TV two-parter (three hours without adverts, four with) that also got a theatrical run – so a hit. This adaptation doesn’t do anything radical with Robert Ludlum’s original story. Man washes … Read more
The last of three political thrillers made by Costa-Gavras, State of Siege, along with Z and The Confession, are the linkers between political thrillers of the early 1960s and the more celebrated clutch of the 1970s. Mixing the geopolitics of the likes of 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate with the paranoia of 1974’s The Parallax View … Read more
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma – title of the year, right? Film of the year maybe not. Jane Schoenbrun – metatextuality on legs – heads again for the horror movie, which has been meta-d so often already that you’ve got to wonder if there’s anything left to exploit. Don’t get me wrong, this film … Read more
A cult classic from 1977, and the only film its star, Randi Allen, ever made, Cathy’s Curse is an infuriating mix of the brilliantly atmospheric and the stupid, borrowing elements from The Omen and The Exorcist and adding a touch of Dario Argento to shore up the defences. It was critically panned, I must quickly … Read more
As if four Spielberg movies had been through a compacter, The End of Oak Street is a lot of entertainment packed, breathlessly, into a tight, tight space. As fancy wrapping – Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor as the suburban couple discovering their neighbourhood has been transported into the realm of dinosaurs. A bit Jurassic Park, … Read more
Ski Troop Attack is a Roger Corman film – he produced, directed and also has a small role – and so comes with certain expectations. It’ll be made on the cheap but it’ll be competently done. Unlike the bigger Hollywood outfits, which worked on the principle that the odd hit would finance the other losses, … Read more
Portuguese director João Canijo’s final two films were made back to back, a couple of years before he died. Mal Viver (Bad Living) is the sister of Viver Mal (Living Bad). Taking this one as evidence, they’re a chilly duo, with passion roiling away beneath and a reminder that there’s nothing quite so unpleasant as … Read more
Not Tonight, Darling is on a list headed “British Smut 1959-1979” on the website of arthouse streamer Mubi. Fair enough: the film is British, it’s from 1971 and the smut quotient is high. Though it does make claims to be more than just a movie for the “dirty mac” brigade, as the furtive masturbators in … Read more
Sci-fi from Russia starts with a certain advantage if you’re not from there. The Cyrillic script adds an alien frisson, and expectations are raised because of its proud heritage. Could Obratimaya Realnost (or Обратимая Реалность, to be precise) aka Reversible Reality be another Stalker or Solaris, a Kin-dza-dza! or Inquest of Pilot Pirx? To bring … Read more
“Cult of witchcraft today… Their secret rituals exposed…” teased the lobby posters for Legend of the Witches when it came out in 1970. Also on the posters – silhouettes of naked young women in full cavort. You get a lot more of the former – the rituals – than the cavorting (though there’s still plenty) in … Read more
