Director: Robert Eggers
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattinson .USA/Canada. 1h 49m.
An uncategorizable and slightly experimental frolic through unfinished literature and art. Rober Eggers and his brother Max attempt to finish a short story written by Edgar Allen Poe with a gusty and challenging drama that borders on fantasy.
Two Wickies (Lighthouse Keepers) are stranded on their isolated island for an extended time due to a prolonged storm and they begin to trip down a psycho sexual rabbit hole during some intense alone time that draws in cabin fever.
Director: Tony Sebastian Ukpo Starring: Eke Chukwu. Haruka Abe. Gabby Wong, Anthony Ofoegbu .USA. 1h 30m
This subdued experimental movie seems to tell a pair of harmonious stories, set in a bleak future where space travel is everyday and our social norms are quite alien from what we understand today.
Initially an astronaut has crash lands in a tranquil field and attempts to find help but the social dynamics is unsettling to him, families seem to be “clumped” together any male plays a father, any child adapts to the family they find themselves with that day, language isn’t a barrier, it seems everyone is adapted to all human languages and it just rolls off the tongue.
Director: Jack McHenry Starring: Tom Bailey, Maureen Bennett, Alfred Bradle, Robert Llewellyn, Timothy Renouf, Charlie Robb, Jessica Webber. UK. 1h 20m
Genre bending comedy horror doesn’t get much better than this frightful mini epic. Here Comes Hell, sees a small group of gorgeous 1930’s socialites hooking up to see one of their friends’ new purchases, which just happens to be a charming haunted mansion located deep in the British wilderness. The party includes a seance as getting a psychic grandma in on your party is thought to be terribly fun.
Director: Mark Jenkin Starring: Edward Rowe, Giels King, Chloe Endean, Simon Shepherd .UK. 1h 29m
You’ve probably heard about this being the best film of the decade, of 2019, the most arresting modern movie ever made, a total game changer and a host of other praises, along with a list of wins and nominations in various film festivals but what’s all the craic about? Simply put it’s a movie about the gentrification of a seaside town filmed by a vintage hand-cranked Bolex camera using 16mm monochromatic hand processed film. This labor of love is a total game changer in the aesthetic of this blistering movie. Continue reading Bait (2019)→
(a.k.a. Zombies, Zombie Bloodbath and Voodoo Blood Bath)
Director: Del Tenny Starring: William Joyce, Heather Hewitt, Betty HyattLinton, Dan Stapleton .USA. 1h 25m
There’s a kitchy comic wanderlust feeling about this movie which is what makes it so memorable, no matter how cheesy or racist it ends up, it’s from the mid 60’s it’s going to be questionable by todays standards but it had a great vibe, a goofball story and possibly the first suicide bomber zombie?
Written, Produced and Directed by Del Tenny in the mid 60’s there wasn’t much scope for getting the movie released until 1971 when it was unshelved and became a drive in legend with a similar named production called I Drink Your Blood (1970) and as off key freaky duo they work together however with the addition of savage natives, zombies and evil scientist neither are really all that scary. Tenny’s other swinging flicks include The Horror of Party Beach and The Curse of the Living Corpse both from 1964 and share all the psychobilly themes of any halloween tiki party. Continue reading I Eat Your Skin (1964/1971)→
AKA Alphaville: une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution) Tarzan Vs IBM
Director: Jean-Luc Godard Starring: Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Akim Tamiroff, Howard Vernon..France. 1h 39m
Jean-Luc Godard, the King of the French New Wave lands this cryptic and incredibly iconic, sci fi noir story in the height of the movement, while on a wild run with actress and wife, Anna Kerina, the film was released around the time that the couple divorced but he continued to work with the stunner in Pierrot le Fou (1965) released in the same year.
Godard’s ceaseless innovation lead many into the realm of radical politics and extreme formal experimentation, but few could match his raw invention. Alphaville is one of his more approachable works and offers some inspiration for the dystopian futurescape of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, along with having strong parallels with John Boorman’s classic revenge flick, Point Blank (1967).
Director: Juraj Herz Starring: Rudolf Hrusinsky, Vlasta Chramostova, Jane Stehnova. Czechoslovakia. 1h 47m
Based on : The Cremator by Ladislav Fuks
A darkly comedic gothic misadventure into the psyche of a brilliant deranged lunatic. After being lost for several years, Cremator has been resurrected by the Brothers Quay, who painstakingly sourced the film and worked on its resurrection, this extraordinary intense meditation of the political horrors of 1930’s Europe are fantastically chilling in this early Czech New Wave film.
Director:Various. Starring. A lotta people WORLDWIDE. 1h 25m.
There aren’t many movies series that I fangirl over but the ABCs of Death and VHS are certainly anthologies that I got my teeth firmly into. I had lost hope for a 3rd part to turn the duo into a trilogy, and in my haste I didn’t realise this strange collection has been compiled. It definitely seems to be a marmite movie, but if you enjoyed the previous then you’ll probably see a lot of charm in this selection of movies which seem to be just as creative and diverse as the rest.
During the original submissions, there was an outstanding amount of M’s submitted, and this ABC, is really an MMM as it complies the 26 favourites from the M list, which begs me to ask why the hell isn’t there a box set of 26 movies for each letter in an epic box set, but alas we have the MMM’s of death to enjoy for now.
Director: Ewald André Dupont Starring: Robert Shayne, Joyce Terry, Richard Crane, Doris Merrick, Beverly Garland, Tandra Quinn USA/Germany. 1h 18m
One of my movie weaknesses is vintage sci fi movies, I just adore the heroism and pure wonderment and moral dilemmas they still offer, the 50’s were a golden age for the beginning of big scale science fiction, from mad scientists to space exploration, monsters and space exploration. Things might not really work how they were depicted, the same generation who were sure radioactive insect bites would only enhance a man also encouraged their kids to smoke, but sci fi wouldn’t really be sci fi without a level of taking things too far and being outlandish.
The Neanderthal man is a prime example of a down trodden scientist who pushes the envelope and takes things to the extreme The mockery of a brilliant scientist Prof. Clifford Groves (Shayne) by his peers, pushes him to the dangerous edge of self exploration, after being publicly ridiculed the professor continues his feverish work to prove that our cells remember their prehistoric past and turns himself into a Neanderthal man, his cat into a Sabretooth and his housekeeper into some scary beastly wild woman. The trio have little recollection of their primal actions and terrorise the wildlife and residents of their small town. Continue reading The Neanderthal Man (1953)→
Director: Robert Schwentke Starring: Max Hubacher, Frederick Lau, Bernd Hölscher, Waldemar Kobus, Alexander Fehling, Samuel Finzi. Germany. 1h 50m
Here is another chilling nightmare from the German home front, as the end of the war begins to loom into reality and defeat is imminent, a lone German runs deep into the woods while being chased by some overprivileged soldiers blowing horns and taking pot luck shots at him. The man manages to evade death and recapture and eventually stumbles on an abandoned car and uniform of a high ranking officer.
This crystalline black and white brutal masterpiece, possible shot in this style inspired by Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993) shows that the talented director Schwentke has gone back to basic and delivered something beautifully stark and somewhat monstrous. Continue reading Der Hauptmann / The Captain (2017)→
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