**_The paranoia of “Rosemary’s Baby” mixed with the gross-out bits of “The Thing”_**
Shot in early 1989, this reminded of “Rosemary’s Baby” during the first two acts and so was unsurprised to learn that the director cited it as one of his biggest influences, along with “The Spiral Staircase.” The milieu of the story is just switched from an old Gotham apartment building to sunny SoCal. Billy Warlock makes for a great protagonist and it’s unfortunate he didn’t have a more successful career in acting.
So, the first hour works pretty well, but the shocking elements of the last act g…
Read full review →
**_Dean Cain as a sheriff in rural SoCal where victims are getting torn apart_**
Shot in August, 2008, this is a ‘B’ monster movie, but it’s unclear what kind of creature is attacking people until the last act. It could be a werewolf, a man-eating bear, a sasquatch, a wendigo, a masked psycho or something else. I’ll leave it to you to discover.
The flick has more in common with “Sweet Sixteen” from the early 80s, as well as the contemporaneous “Dire Wolf” (aka “Dino Wolf”) and the later “Alpha Wolf,” than it does something like the artistic “Wendigo” from 2001. Yet it’s not ind…
Read full review →
The arrival of a duck hunter at their lagoon unsettles a family of capybara who swim to the far side of the water towards the yard where the farmer keeps his chickens. Perhaps because these birds are nervous about what will happen to them if they don’t lay enough eggs, they don’t welcome their neighbours with open wings! Except, that is, for their young chick who befriends the youngest capybara. Might their youthful curiosity and affection spread to the their elders? They are some lovely facial expressions on some of the chickens here and the gentle pacing of this charming story works well del…
Read full review →
Kathleen Quinlan delivers powerfully here as the disturbed “Deborah” who has been institutionalised by her therapist “Dr. Fried” (Bibi Andersson). She’s delusional and walks a fairly fine line between a reality in which she doesn’t feel pain and a fantasy land with it’s own language that she must, at all costs, keep secret. Once ensconced, she finds herself staring at a stark world where her humanity is very much subsumed into a violent, noisy and drug-induced environment run by an eclectic combination of mostly men, who have varying degrees of sympathy for their patients/inmates. Fortunately …
Read full review →
Talk about a slow burn! “Jax” (Nadine Marshall) lives happily enough with “Mark” (Idris Elba) and their young son “JJ” (Kai Francis Lewis) in their well-appointed London home. When she starts to feel a bit poorly, she heads to the doctor where she is given some news that doesn’t stack up. Just how is she going to reconcile this news with “Mark”, her son and just as importantly herself? “JJ” is quite excited about the imminent prospect but his dad knows full well that something is amiss - and so becomes understandably suspicious that she’s been playing away from home. She knows that she hasn’t …
Read full review →
I don’t think I’ve seen a documentary that has attempted to follow the period immediately after the liberation of the death camps at the end of WWII through to the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, and this makes good use of a wide array of archive material to illustrate just how torturous this process was for many. With most of Europe in ruins and even the victors on their economic knees, the problem of what to do with tens of thousands of displaced persons was one that nobody had a straightforward solution for. Tired of being shunted from pillar to post, the Jewish people increasin…
Read full review →
A young lad (Sam Zeitlin) is down at heart, neglecting his sausage and chips and worrying his mum (Julia Fossi) as he wants to remain indoors whilst a typically British summertime is making it’s presence felt against the windows of their home. Desperate to cheer him up, she presents him with his very own golden ticket. A trip to Majorca. Off he goes and is quickly enlivened simply by the power of the sun. The thing is, as well as invigorating this young man, it also appears to affect him mentally as we build to a denouement that contrasts what he has at home with what he has found for this bri…
Read full review →
Separated from the woman he loves, a man sits with his friends by a roaring fire on the coast of Senegal dreaming of a reconciliation far away. As their entirely natural and spontaneously presented conversation evolves, their thoughts turn to escaping their daily drudge and taking to the open sea. “The ocean has no borders” says one… “it has nothing to hold on to” replies another as they begin to asses the emotional and physical risks that any journey might involve and weigh them up against losing what little they have at home - even if that includes their own lives. It packs quite a bit of ph…
Read full review →
**_“It’s a madhouse, a madhouse!”_**
This was shot at the end of summer, 1964, but not released until over three years later due to the producers going bankrupt. Its full title is “Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told,” which is reminiscent of other oddball, overlong titles in the ’60s, such as "The Incredibly Strange Creatures ...Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?"
This isn’t as entertaining and it’s strapped by B&W photography but, like that one, it’s really quirky, hammy horror, rather than a comedy. Both came in the 'B' tradition of "The Brain That Would…
Read full review →
Partially sighted blues musician Paul Peña has become fascinated with the ancient musical traditions of the central Asian province of Tuva. Sandwiched between Mongolia and Russia, this previously independent nation joined the USSR and is now a largely autonomous part of the Federation run from it’s only city Kyzyl. Peña and his friends have been invited to their unique “throat-singing” competition and so make their way, via Moscow, from San Francisco to learn more. What they find upon arrival is an ancient society that welcomes them and their curiosity with open arms and compared with the cons…
Read full review →
