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 […]
The mockumentary standard was probably set by Man Bites Dog in the early Nineties, and since then the basic format has changed very little. Surprisingly little, perhaps. There’s the renegade subject (usually a man) who forms a dangerous relationship with the film crew, then the loss of control over the creative project itself and an […]
In rural Texas, grown siblings Louise (Marin Ireland) and Michael (Michael Abbott Jr) have returned to the family farm, knowing that their father is close to death. Their arrival is, however, no cause for celebration and the reunion is strained; their mother tells them that they shouldn’t have come at all. Even so, and through […]
The death of a loved one is undoubtedly a difficult time, but just as undoubtedly, a lot of the difficulties stem not from straightforward grief, but from the suddenly pertinent issue of money. Only weddings kick up as much dirt. Whether settling debts, distributing legacies, or selling property – or more usually, arguing about all […]
Picture the scene. A fatal disease starts to spread across Britain, forcing the government into making difficult decisions that curtail civil liberties and also into relying on a team of scientists whose data crunching and knowledge is wheeled out to placate the public. Fear starts to take hold, which transmutes into anger, which transmutes into […]