In thinking about how to begin this review, it feels impossible not to come at it from a British perspective. In so many ways, Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break is the archetypal British dark comedy – sad, sometimes bitter, bittersweet but very funny. And, as it takes us through all of this, it’s more than […]
There’s been some great cinema coming out of Argentina in recent years, now joined by On The 3rd Day (2021), a clever and carefully-structured horror film which successfully incorporates several horror tropes without settling into a rut. Taking first one route and then another, the film makes you doubt your allegiances and presents several narrative […]
Because the world has altered so rapidly over the past twenty years, with new ways of analysing, modifying and recording human behaviour, it’s already quite usual to see this reflected in cinema. The thing is, it’s more often than not treated as a grave concern, coming to us via technological horrors which plump for a […]
Balancing a dark sense of humour against several other themes and elements of genre, King Car offers an adventurous look at the relationship between man and machine. Sure, we’ve seen sentient vehicles before, but not quite like this. It’s a smart, if zany piece of work, busy, but (just about) giving us something which brings […]
A couple of years ago, my parents came to stay for a few days. One evening we had dinner, and I suggested we watch a film. After a bit of discussion, the choice was Robocop – the 1987 Director’s Cut. So we settled down to watch it. At the end, my father made this comment: […]
The first and most important character in The Green Sea is, fittingly enough, the landscape: this is made clear by the slow deliberation it is given on screen, as opposed to the interior spaces, which are uniformly chaotic and confining – at least, at first. A drama with some unsettling, uncomfortable content, it makes its […]
Motivated by the popularity of 1986’s Strike Commando, the first of a number of films they shot in the Philippines, Bruno Mattei, Claudio Fragasso and producer Franco Gaudenzi sought to emulate its success by making a sequel, Strike Commando 2 (Trappola diabolica), released in 1988. Along with the first film, Strike Commando 2 has been […]
Writing and directing team Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury are another couple of filmmakers who, after the initial rise of ‘new French extremity’ in the Noughties, didn’t maintain the same prolific trajectory. Hey, it happens – as I’ve mentioned elsewhere in a feature on Martyrs, once you’ve gone that far, where is left to go? […]
It’s possible that Baphomet benefits from the power of reduced expectations. This is a low budget horror movie of the sort you might find propping up the arse-end of Amazon Prime listings, complete with gimmicky casting or ageing and perhaps not all that fussy genre icons, and so you might understandably expect it to be […]
Starring former Captain America Reb Brown[i], the 1986 ‘macaroni combat’ picture Strike Commando, now available on an exemplary Blu-ray release from Severin Films, is one of a number of pictures that Italian film director Bruno Mattei – that auteur of so many awful-but-oh-so-watchable Italian exploitation films of the 1980s and 1990s – made in the […]
Can we really go anywhere new with the whole guy meets girl, guy kidnaps girl, guy tortures girl horribly thing? Apparently, yes we can. Miranda Veil (2020) has a savvy idea which puts an original spin on some oh-so recognisable elements, shifting its emphasis and focus as it goes. It’s not without a few lesser […]