The Driller Killer

Year:  1979

Director:  Abel Ferrara

Screenplay:  Nicholas St. John

Starring: Abel Ferrara, Carolyn Marz, Baybi Day, Harry Schultz, Allan Wynroth

Running Time:  101 minutes (96 minutes theatrical release)

Genre:  Drama, comedy, horror

New York City, the late 1970s:  Reno Miller (Ferrara) is a struggling artist who lives with his girlfriend Carol (Mark) and her lover Pamela (Day), in a cramped, cluttered apartment.  Reno is working on a painting that will make him a lot of money, providing that Dalton (Schultz), the gallery owner who commissioned the piece, likes it.  Unable to pay his rent or bills, Reno knows full well that this is really his one chance, but is overcome with anxiety that he is reluctant to actually finish the piece.  To make matters worse a punk band have moved into the flat next door and practice loudly day and night.  Desperate for some peace and time to think, Reno takes to wandering the New York streets, where he becomes disgusted by the large numbers of people living on the streets, and terrified that he may very soon be joining them.  Eventually Reno snaps, and takes to the streets armed with a power drill, embarking on a killing spree targeting the unhoused population of New York.

After spending the 1970s making short, experimental films and a pornographic film, this marked the (relatively) mainstream debut of controversial auteur Abel Ferrara who becomes something of a cult figure in the '80s and '90s with exploitation films such as Ms .45 (1981), more mainstream crime dramas such as King of New York (1990) and The Funeral (1996), the hugely controversial Bad Lieutenant (1992), as well as science-fiction horror film Body Snatchers (1993), and bizarre vampire film The Addiction (1995).  More recently he has turned to making more experimental films in Italy and documentary features.  Those coming to The Driller Killer expecting grisly thrills may be disappointed because, while it is violent and gruesome, it isn't really as gory as the title and advertising promise, with the exception of a couple of very gruesome scenes, including a notorious scene where one unfortunate gets drilled in the head.   It's also a long time before any murders are committed.  Before then there are long rambling arguments and discussions, and a lot of punk music, as well as a gratuitous lesbian shower scene.  There are a lot of scenes of the band playing, and you could take out all the murders and have, basically, a punk comedy-drama.  This is an obviously very low-budget film filmed in an almost documentary style on the streets of New York, with much of the dialogue being so badly delivered and recorded that it is difficult to make out what the characters are saying.  Ferrera is a very good visual director and there are some scenes of unexpected beauty, and his talent does shine through at several points.  However, acting is not one of his skills.  Ferrara plays the lead role (under the pseudonym of Jimmy Laine) and seems to be spending the film doing a Robert De Niro impression.  The rest of the performances can be politely described as enthusiastic, with Carolyn Marz delivering by far the best performance.  The film does work as something of a time capsule of the underground scene in late 1970s New York.  Unusually for a horror film, Reno Miller's main trigger for his rampage is his financial woes rather than sexual frustration, also unusually almost all of his victims are men.  When it comes to the female characters it is left unclear whether he attacks them or not.  The Driller Killer does have it's unexpected place in film history due to it being almost singlehandedly responsible for the notorious "video nasty" scare in Britain in the 1980s.  Not the film itself but the gruesome VHS cover which depicted a close-up of the head drilling scene and the charming tagline "The Blood Flows in Rivers... And Still the Drill Keeps Tearing Through Flesh and Bone."  When this appeared in video trade magazines in the early 1980s, Conservative politicians clutched their pearls in horror and, by the mid '80s even such relatively innocuous films as The Exorcist (1973), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Evil Dead (1983) were legally unavailable in Britain.  The recent film Censor (2021) is a good look at the video nasty period.  

Abel Ferrara is The Driller Killer

 

Lamb

Year:  2021

Director:  Vladimar Jóhansson

Screenplay:  Sjón and Vladimar Jóhansson

Starring:  Noomi Rapace, Hilmer Snær Guðnason, Björn Hlyner Haaraldsson

Running Time:  107 minutes

Genre:  Fantasy, horror

María (Rapace) and Ingvald (Guðnason) live alone on an isolated sheep farm in Iceland.  One day they discover that one of their sheep has given birth to a strange, part-sheep part-human creature.  They name the creature Ada and raise her as if she was a human child.  However, it isn't long before their little family idyll is shattered.

This is a deeply strange slice of folk-horror, which plays like a strange fairytale.  The film has a contemporary setting, but it barely pays lip service to our modern age.  The characters wear modern clothes, they watch television, listen to the radio and have a tractor, but it really could be set at any time, with barely any change in plot.  It moves at a sedate pace, without much dialogue.  There is a lot that is suggested without being explained.  It appears that María had a child called Ada who died, whether with Ingvald or not is never revealed, and also that María had an affair with Ingvald's ne'er-do-well brother Pétur (Haraldson), although it is only hinted at when Pétur, who turns up to crash at the farm, tries to seduce her.  Ingvald never mentions it and it is never clear whether he ever knew about it.  Ada is a comic-horrible creation, a young girl with the head and right arm of a sheep, but there is also real sweetness there, and there is a genuine love and connection in the family, which makes the inevitable tragedy really heartbreaking.  The cast are impressive, particularly Noomi Rapace, and the rural settings are truly beautiful.  However, it is very slow, and it's suspense really comes from the knowledge that there is going to be something bad happening, but not knowing what.  It will probably be seen as a cult film in years to come. 

Hilmer Snær Guðnason and Noomi Rapace in Lamb
   

Vertigo

Year:  1958

Director:  Alfred Hitchcock

Screenplay:  Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor, based on the novel D'entre les morts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac

Starring:  James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Henry Jones

Running Time:  128 minutes

Genre:  Thriller

San Francisco police detective John "Scotty" Ferguson (Stewart) resigns from the force after a rooftop chase results in the death of a fellow police officer and leaves him with crippling acrophobia (fear of heights) and vertigo.  Some time later Scotty is approached by an old schoolfriend, Gavin Elster (Helmore), who wants to hire him to follow his wife, Madeline (Novak), who Ester fears is suicidal.  Scotty accepts the assignment, however in the course of the investigation he falls in love with Madeline.  However his vertigo prevents him form saving her when she plummets from a church bell tower.  A year later, still dealing with his trauma, Scotty becomes obsessed by Judy (Novak), a woman who bears a remarkable resemblance to Madeline.

This is one of the Master of Suspense's strangest and darkest films.  While it still made money on it's original release, it was not as big a hit as Alfred Hitchcock's previous few films, and was widely criticised by fans (including fellow director Orson Welles) and critics.  However it's reputation has grown considerably in recent years, and it is frequently named as one of the greatest films ever made.  James Stewart, who is probably best known for playing All-American nice guys in such films as It's a Wonderful Life (1946), plays against type as an ambiguous antihero.  While the term "toxic masculinity" was probably not coined in 1958, John "Scotty" Ferguson is a perfect example of it.  The most disturbing passage in the film is where Scotty tries to make Judy into the image of the dead Madeline, changing her clothes, hair colour, hair style, makeup, everything - whether she likes it or not.  The act of looking is a major element in Vertigo:  Scotty's vertigo is triggered when he looks down (the sense of vertigo is depicted by the film's signature "reverse zoom" technique, where the camera is moved backwards which zooming in creating a kind of telescoping effect); spying on the blonde, statuesque Madeline, Scotty falls in love with her without ever speaking to her (of course Alfred Hitchcock had a penchant for blondes in his films); Scotty is doomed to watch helplessly as she plunges to her fate, mirroring the fate of his police colleague at the beginning of the film; and when he meets Judy he becomes obsessed with her purely because of her resemblance to Madeline, completely dismissing Judy as a person in her own right.  Madeline herself is obsessed with a portrait of a long dead relative which she spends hours staring at and prompts Elster to comment that she might be possessed by the ghost of the woman in the portrait.  In the opening half an hour or so of the film, it almost seems to be shaping up to be ghost story, and in a way it is, only not in a supernatural sense.  Scotty and Judy are both haunted by Madeline, and Scotty's attempts to turn Judy into Madeline could be seen almost like a possession.  The plot reveals it's mystery about a third of the way into the film, in an almost throwaway scene, indicating that the plot isn't really important, and in fact the reveal is kind of disappointing, but the mysterious atmosphere of the film lingers.  It's very well made, with a beautiful sense of colour.  James Stewart is fantastic, both pitiable and disturbing in the lead role, and Novak is great in the dual role of Madeline and Judy, although the 49 year old James Stewart and the 24 year old Kim Novak make for a very unlikely romantic pairing.  Barbara Bel Geddes provides some humour and some much needed warmth to the film as Scotty's friend Midge, who of course is madly in love with him.  Vertigo is one of Alfred Hitchcock's best films, and while it might not be the greatest film ever made, which of course is a debate which will never end as long as film exists, it is a truly great film.

James Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo

Kes

Year:  1969

Director:  Ken Loach

Screenplay:  Barry Hines, Ken Loach and Tony Garnett, based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines

Starring:  David Bradley, Freddie Fletcher, Lynne Perrie, Colin Welland, Brian Glover

Running Time:  112 minutes

Genre: Drama

Fifteen year old Billy Caspar (Bradley) lives with his mother (Perrie), and older half-brother Jud (Fletcher), in a rough, working-class coal mining town in South Yorkshire.  At home Billy is frequently bullied, both physically and verbally, by Jud who works as a miner, and is more or less ignored by his mother.  At school things are no better, as Billy has been more or less written off by his teachers, and is often bullied by classmates and teachers.  Billy is due to leave school soon, and faces the grim prospect of working down the mine with Jud, the one thing that he has sworn that he will never do.  However, a chink of light shines into Billy's bleak existence when he finds a baby kestrel, which he calls Kes.  As he raises and trains Kes, Billy forms an increasingly strong bond with the wild bird.

Based on the 1968 novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines, which is well worth seeking out if you haven't read it, this is an early film from acclaimed British director Ken Loach (credited here as Kenneth Loach).  Loach had already made something of an impact with gritty, socially conscious work such as the controversial TV play Cathy Come Home (1966) about a homeless teenage girl, and his feature film debut Poor Cow (1967).  Filmed on location, in and around the Yorkshire town of Barnsley, with a cast of mostly non-professional actors, and dialogue delivered in strongly accented Yorkshire dialect.  Everything in the film looks and feels grim and bleak, but there are moments of real beauty when Kes soars over the hills and valleys.  It also happens to be a very funny film.  One stand out scene is Brain Glover's hilarious performance as the monstrous Manchester United supporting PE teacher who takes Billy's class for a football lesson.  David Bradley, who now goes by Dai Bradley to avoid confusion with the Harry Potter and After Life actor of the same name, gives a fantastic, naturalistic performance as the tough, yet vulnerable Billy.  The actors often weren't told what would happen in some scenes, in order to get a more natural reaction from them.  The film is a portrayal of British working class life in the late 1960s, and also a howl of protest on behalf of the children who were written off by the education system.  Billy is not a bad kid, although he is no angel, he occasionally steals eggs, bottles of milk from a milk float, a chocolate bar and a comic, as well as a book on falconry after he is unable to join the library, and it is mentioned that he has been in trouble with the law.  However he is intelligent  and compassionate, and has a deep yearning for freedom, which finds expression in his bond with Kes.  

David Bradley in Kes

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Year:  2022

Director:  David Blue Garcia

Screenplay:  Chris Thomas Devlin, story by Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, based on characters created by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper

Starring:  Sarah Yarkin, Elise Fisher, Mark Burnham, Moe Dunford, Nell Hudson, Jessica Allain, Olwen Fouéré, Jacob Latimore, Alice Krige

Running Time:  81 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Young entrepreneurs Melody (Yarkin) and Dante (Latimore), along with Melody's sister Lila (Fisher) and Dante's girlfriend Ruth (Hudson) travel to the remote Texas town of Harlow, which they plan to auction off piece by piece to create an exclusive, gentrified new development.  However, the town still has some remaining occupants - local mechanic Richter (Dunford), who is reluctantly working for the group, elderly orphanage proprietor Mrs. Mc (Krige) who refuses to leave her home, and, most of all, a masked, chainsaw-wielding murderer known as Leatherface (Burnham).  The group's only chance of survival rests with Sally Hardesty (Fouéré), the only survivor of Leatherface's killing spree some fifty years earlier, and is now obsessed with revenge.

As incredible as it may sound, this is the ninth film in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise.  It follows on from the 1974 original, ignoring the sequels as is they had never happened.  The character of Sally Hardesty, the only survivor of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, reappears, this time played by Irish actor Olwen Fouéré, Marilyn Burns, who played the part in the original film, having died in 2014, and John Larroquette reprises his role as narrator.  Despite being short, the film drags towards the beginning, even though we never know much about the characters, except that Lila is traumatised after a school shooting, during which she was injured, and Dante has an internet cookery show.  Despite the provocative title and being banned in Britain for 25 years, the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was scary, but not gory, hence it's trouble with the British censors, they thought the film was too intense, but they didn't know what to cut.  This Texas Chainsaw Massacre, however, is almost drenched in blood, when it does kick into gear, the slaughter barely stops, including a scene where Leatherface carves his way through a tour bus full of people.  There aren't many surprises here.  You'll quickly guess what is going to happen, and you'll probably be able to quickly work out who will survive and who won't.  The cast are good, and do the best they can with limited material, and the action is pretty well staged, and well photographed, with Bulgaria standing in for Texas.  Probably the best scene in the film is when Leatherface starts to attack people on the bus, while everyone is live-streaming him at first and we see one of the phones with with viewers "hearting" the carnage and comments such as "OMG THATS SO FAKE".  The problem is that there is some lazy storytelling, characters suffer fatal injuries but survive long enough to provide help or information when our heroes happen to pass by, before immediately expiring; Leatherface, who must be at least approaching 70, given the timescale of the films, and has a bad leg, at times lumbers around like the elderly, injured man he would be, but at other times seems as sprightly as an Olympic gymnast; and there are plot holes, and, most crucially, there isn't enough backstory to the characters for us to really care about them.  It's not the worst film, or even the worst Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, but it really isn't good.  If you are in the right frame of mind for it, then it might be fun.  I'm sure it will find it's rightful place at parties come Halloween, and it would probably be good during the early hours at an all night horror movie marathon, because it's loud, lightweight and gory.  

Elise Fisher, Sarah Yarkin, Nell Hudson and Jacob Latimore in Texas Chainsaw Massacre  

Annie Hall

Year:  1977

Director:  Woody Allen

Screenplay:  Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman

Starring:  Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Paul Simon, Carol Kane, Janet Margolin, Shelley Duvall, Christopher Walken, Colleen Dewhurst

Running Time:  93 minutes

Genre:  Comedy

In New York City, neurotic comedian Alvy Singer (Allen) and Annie Hall (Keaton), an aspiring singer form the Midwest embark on an on-again, off-again romance.

Woody Allen has made approximately 50 films in his career, many of which he not only writes and directs but also stars in.  His early films were pure comedies, where everything was about the jokes, and the plot was basically just a string to hang a series of gags on.  Most of them revolved around the neurotic, intellectual, weedy, uptown New Yorker Woody Allen character, that he had honed in his standup act, being thrust into unlikely situations.  By the end of the 1970s, however, Allen became interested in working with more substantial, dramatic plots, and indulging in some of his more philosophical interests.  Annie Hall is kind of a crossover film, while it is a comedy, it also has some more dramatic elements.  These days Woody Allen is something of a controversial figure, due to his private life, but his influence on American cinema is undeniable, and Annie Hall is probably the quintessential Woody Allen film.  If you have never seen any of his films, and are curious to give them a try, then this is probably the one to go for.  It is a very simple story, told in a very inventive way.  There are flashbacks, Woody Allen frequently breaks the forth wall and addresses the camera directly, in one scene Allen and Keaton are having a conversation and their thoughts appear as subtitles, there is even an animated sequence where Allen imagines himself dating the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).  Allen essentially plays the typical Woody Allen character.  Diane Keaton shines as Annie Hall, who is kind of an early example of the "manic pixie dream girl" stereotype, but the part is elevated by Keaton's performance.  Also in the cast is singer Paul Simon and early appearances from Christopher Walken as Annie's creepy brother, Dwayne,  Jeff Goldblum as an LA party guest on the phone to his guru, complaining that he has "lost his mantra", and a very early non-speaking appearance from Sigourney Weaver as one of Alvy's dates.  It is a very funny, well-constructed, clever film, and while it has inevitably dated, it is certainly one of Allen's finer, if not finest, works.

Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in Annie Hall

Death on the Nile

Year:  2022

Director:  Kenneth Branagh

Screenplay:  Michael Green, based on the novel by Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

Starring:  Kenneth Branagh, Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, Letitia Wright, 

Running Time:  127 minutes

Genre:  Mystery

1937:  Wealthy heiress Linnet Ridgeway (Gadot) and her new husband Simon Doyle (Hammer) are celebrating their honeymoon in Egypt, during which they invite a large number of family and friends to join them on a luxury cruise down the Nile.  When one of the passengers turns up dead, famed detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh) finds that he has no shortage of suspects.

I have never read the Agatha Christie novel, Death on the Nile, nor have I read any of her many other books, however I have seen a lot of the film and television adaptations, and this enjoyable, old-fashioned murder mystery, a sequel to the 2017 film Murder on the Orient Express, fits in with them comfortably.  The film opens with a prologue set in 1914, which explains Hercule Poirot's impressive moustache, by suggesting that he grew the moustache to cover facial scars he suffered during his time in the First World War.  As with most Agatha Christie adaptations, there is a large number of familiar faces to provide victims and/or suspects.  The films starts leisurely, building up it's cast of characters and providing motivation as to why any of them could be the murderer.  The cast is eclectic and everyone seems to relish their roles, and it is fun to see popular British comedy duo Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French as a wealthy American Communist and her devoted nurse.  It is quite odd however to see famously outrageous and flamboyant comedian Russell Brand as a quiet, strait-laced doctor.  The film was made in 2019 and was due to be released in 2020, but it was delayed several times, and in that time some of the cast have fallen out of favour, notably Armie Hammer.  Kenneth Branagh is good as the Belgian detective, and directs with impressive visual style.  While the film does drag at times, it is an enjoyably star-studded, old fashioned and largely bloodless mystery.  It may not be unmissable, and is unlikely to feature on many "Best of the Year" lists come December, but it is a fun, glitzy entertainment.

 Gal Gadot, Emma Mackey and Armie Hammer in Death on the Nile

Peeping Tom

Year:  1960

Director:  Michael Powell

Screenplay:  Leo Marks

Starring:  Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley

Running Time:  101 minutes

Genre:  Horror, thriller

London:  Mark Lewis (Boehm) is a quiet, polite, soft-spoken young man who works in a film studio, and supplements his income by taking nude photographs of models which are sold in a seedy newsagents.  However Mark also has an obsession with filming fear, to which end he films himself murdering women with a spike concealed in the leg of his camera's tripod, he also uses a mirror so that his victims can see themselves as they die, which Mark believes heightens their terror.  

"The only really satisfactory way to dispose of Peeping Tom would be to shovel it up and flush it down the nearest sewer, and even then the stench would remain" howled the thoroughly outraged review in London's Tribune magazine at the time of the film's release.  This was pretty much the standard reaction in the British press to the film at the time, with the Monthly Film Bulletin comparing Michael Powell to the Marquis de Sade.  The hysterical response to the film now seems almost comically quaint, but it did pretty much destroy Michael Powell's career.  Alongside producer Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell was one of the most successful and acclaimed British filmmakers of the 1940s and 50s with such classics as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948), and possibly part off the reason for the film's overwhelmingly negative response is that it seemed so off-brand for Powell.  More recently, the film has been recognised as the classic that it is, praised by critics and directors such as Martin Scorsese.  The fact is that the film is one of the greatest horror films ever made.  The film is visually striking, creating an authentically cluttered and seedy looking London, it also uses a fluid, mobile camera reflecting the killer's point of view, and what he sees through the end of his own small camera, which he constantly has with him.  The film allows us to spend time with the victims.  They are not just disposable but people with hopes and dreams, and their deaths have some real weight.  Austrian-German actor Karlheinz Böhm (billed as Carl Boehm) plays the killer, Mark Lewis, who has been warped by his scientist father's attempts to film his son's terror.  Incidentally Michael Powell played Mark's father in the grainy home movies that Mark watches, and Powell's own son Columba played the young Mark.  Böhm gives a powerful, and genuinely moving performance as the killer, who tries but is unable to control his murderous impulses.  Anna Massey gives a very good performance as Helen, an aspiring author who lives with her blind mother in the flat below Mark and strikes up a friendship with him.  Modern horror fans may be disappointed by the lack of blood 'n' guts, but it was certainly strong stuff for the time, particularly in regards to the sexual content, which is also mild by modern standards.  This is a beautiful, powerful film, which is still disturbing today.  One of the best horror films ever made, it is also one of the darkest films made about the nature of film and filmmaking.  Who exactly is the Peeping Tom?  Is it Mark himself? Mark's camera? Or us, the audience?  As Helen's mother (played by Maxine Audley) tells Mark: "All this filming isn't... healthy."

Karlheinz Böhm (Carl Boehm) and Anna Massey in Peeping Tom
  

"Luckenbooth" by Jenni Fagan

 Year of Publication:  2021

Length:  338 pages

Genre:  Horror

In 1910, Jessie MacRae, the devil's daughter, arrives at 10 Luckenbooth Court, an imposing tenement building in the heart of Edinburgh.  She is there to bear a child for the wealthy couple who own the building.  When things go horribly wrong, Jessie places a curse on the building.  As her supernatural revenge echoes through the decades it draws in the various lonely, lost souls that inhabit the building.  

This novel moves from 1910 to 1999, and is made up of a number of different narrators and stories, impacted to a greater or lesser extent by Jessie's curse.  We hear from, among others, Flora, a lovelorn trans woman, Levi, an African-American from Louisiana adrift in 1940s Scotland, Ivy, an ambitious would-be spy fuelled by revenge, famous Beat author William Burroughs, and Bee, a woman on a murderous quest for revenge.   It's a complex book, at times almost impressionistic and told in an almost stream of consciousness style.  There is a vivid, almost incantatory rhythm to the prose.  Crucially there is a lot of anger here, about long forgotten victims, dreadful crimes that go unpunished, and the depth of human cruelty, particularly male violence towards women.  It's bleak and troubling at times, but there is some light in the dark, love between people which at least provides some solace and hope.  Fagan has a real sense of time and place and it really captures Edinburgh very well.  At times it can be overwhelming and dense, and some of the stories certainly are more interesting than others.  Also it is more disturbing than actually scary, but it is worth your time.  It's a powerful and deeply resonant work.

Fright

Year:  1971

Director:  Peter Collinson

Screenplay:  Tudor Gates

Starring:  Susan George, Ian Bannen, Honor Blackman, John Gregson, George Cole, Tara Collinson, Dennis Waterman

Running Time:  87 minutes

Genre:  Horror

College student Amanda (George) is hired by wealthy couple Jim (Cole) and Helen Lloyd (Blackman) to look after their young son (Collinson) while they go for a night out.  However Amanda soon finds herself terrorised by Helen's psychotic ex-husband, Brian (Bannen).

Directed by Peter Collinson, best known for The Italian Job (1969), this is a pretty unassuming little British horror film that is pretty typical of the early 1970s.  It's deeply problematic in it's depiction of mental illness and women.  Susan George does the best she can with what she is given, although she isn't really called upon to do much except look pretty and scream, and be leered over by men.  She would, of course, suffer an even worse ordeal in what would be her best known film, Straw Dogs, the following year.  Ian Bannen is effective as the disturbed ex-husband Brian, who is threatening, but also strangely sympathetic and pitiable at other times.  Honor Blackman is good as the haunted woman, whose fears turn out to be all too justified.  John Gregson is convincing as the condescending doctor who is convinced that Helen's fears are all in her head.  George Cole is engaging as possibly the only likeable man in the film, and Dennis Waterman is convincingly loathsome as Amanda's obnoxious boyfriend, who almost sexually assaults her.  Although they don't share any scenes in the film, George Cole and Dennis Waterman would both co-star again in the popular British comedy-drama TV series Minder (1979-1994).  Incidentally, the child that Amanda is babysitting is played by director Peter Collinson's own son Tara.  The film starts off satisfactorily creepy, with Amanda alone in the vast, gloomy mansion, full of strange tappings and drippings, however the atmosphere isn't really sustained, and the build up is spoiled somewhat by frequent cutaways to the Lloyd's night out at the most 1970s restaurant imaginable, and some comic relief business with the police slow the pace down even more, which feel like they were added in order to pad out the film's run-time.  In some ways it could be seen as a forerunner to the "slasher" film and bears some similarities with the far more celebrated Halloween (1978).  It is worth watching for horror fans, and it really does work for the most part, even if the sleazier aspects leave something of a bad taste in the mouth.

I could be so good for you:  Susan George and Dennis Waterman in Fright

I Bury the Living

Year:  1958

Director:  Albert Band

Screenplay:  Louis A. Garfinkle

Starring:  Richard Boone, Theodore Bikel, Peggy Maurer

Running Time:  76 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Businessman Robert Kraft (Boone) finds himself appointed as head of a commission that oversees a large cemetery.  The cemetery caretaker, Andy MacKee (Bikel), uses a huge wall map of the cemetery, the plots which have been bought, but are unoccupied, are marked with a white pin, and the plots that are occupied are marked with a black pin.  When Kraft absent-mindedly places black pins instead of white to mark a newly purchased plot, the owners die suddenly and mysteriously.  Soon Kraft becomes convinced that he can kill people by sticking black pins in their cemetery plots.

I Bury the Living is very much a low budget B-movie, filmed on an obviously minuscule budget, with few sets and less special effects.  Richard Boone looks convincingly fraught as the film goes on, and Theodore Bikel almost manages to get past one of the worst attempts at a Scottish accent in film as the amiable old caretaker.  The film does have some stylish noir photography, and effective music by Gerald Fried, who had already done the music for Stanley Kubrick's early films and would go on to compose the scores for numerous TV shows, including the famous "fight music" from the Star Trek episode "Amok Time".  Director Albert Band also does well with making a large plan with pins stuck in it look threatening and sinister.  In fact this is a really neat little psychological thriller, for about the first hour, and then it all falls apart with a dreadful climax, that feels like something out of Scooby-Doo.  It almost ruins the film, but the preceding hour is good enough to still make it worth watching.  

    Theodore Bikel and Richard Boone in I Bury the Living

Dogs Don't Wear Pants

Year:  2019

Director:  J-P Valkeapää

Screenplay:  J-P Valkeapää and Juhana Lumme

Starring:  Pekka Strang, Krista Kosonen, Ilona Huhta, Jani Volanen, Oona Airola, Iiris Anttila, Ester Geislerová

Running Time:  105 minutes

Genre:  Drama, comedy

Surgeon Juha (Strang) lives alone with his teenage daughter Elli (Huhta), following the accidental drowning death of his wife and Elli's mother some years before.  While Elli has managed to more or less recover, Juha is still mired in grief and unable to connect with the world.  One night Juha stumbles into an S&M club and encounters dominatrix Mona (Kosonen), who strangles him, causing him to hallucinate his wife.  Juha becomes a regular client of Mona's, finding a new lease of life.  However, his constant desire to push things further disturb Mona, and begin to threaten his daily life.

This pitch-black comedy-drama from Finland is on one level an icy portrayal of grief, and an intriguing portrayal of the world of BDSM.  Pekka Strang is good as the cold surgeon Juha, whose grief is convincing, even if he is not a particularly likeable character, as he constantly pushes away his lonely teenage daughter.  Krista Kosonen is memorable as the dominatrix Mona, who works as a physical therapist in her day job, and develops something of a complex relationship with Juha.  Ilona Huhta is the standout as Juha's increasingly estranged daughter, Elli, who despite her best attempts to connect and reach out to him, loses her father to his new obsession.  The film is stylishly made, with each frame carefully composed, contrasting the sterile hospital where Juha works, the equally sterile interiors of Juha and Elli's home, and the interiors of the S&M club, dimly lit in red, with bright strobe lighting.  This is a film about BDSM and, while it is not as graphic as it could have been, may still be too explicit for some audiences, and there are some brief scenes, such as Juha pulling off his own fingernail and an amateur tooth extraction, which made me look away from the screen.  It certainly won't be to everyone's tastes, nut it is worth checking out.

Krista Kosonen in Dogs Don't Wear Pants

Fort Apache

Year:  1948

Director:  John Ford

Screenplay:  Frank S. Nugent, based on the short story "Massacre" by James Warner Bellah

Starring:  John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple

Running Time:  125 minutes

Genre:  Western

Arrogant, embittered Lieutenant Colonel Owen Thursday (Fonda) and his teenage daughter, Philadelphia (Temple), arrive at Fort Apache, an isolated U. S. Cavalry outpost, where Thursday is to assume command.  While Philadelphia adapts well to life at the Fort, Thursday's high-handed manner and strict adherence to military rule and discipline, alienate him from his troops, particularly his second in command Captain Kirby Yorke (Wayne).  To make matters worse, Thursday's ignorance and bigotry towards the indigenous Apache tribes threatens to lead to war.

This was the first of director John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy", which also included She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950), both of which also starred John Wayne.  For the first hour or so, the film feels almost like a comedy, as the strict, strait-laced Lieutenant Colonel finds himself at odds with the ragtag bunch of soldiers he finds himself commanding, while his daughter falls for a dashing young officer (played by John Agar), much to her father's displeasure.  However, it becomes more somber and surprisingly dark as it goes along.   Despite having star billing, John Wayne really has more of a supporting role here, with Henry Fonda's Owen Thursday being the main character.  Thursday was a General in the Civil War and is bitter at being busted down to the ranks and posted to some isolated fort in the middle of nowhere.  From his appearance here, it seems that Thursday was at best an armchair general, who might be able to recite chapter and verse of Genghis Khan's campaigns, but is terrible at the business of real leadership.  His attitude towards the local Native American tribes, in whom he is completely uninterested, veers from hostility to contempt.  In fact it's his daughter Philadelphia who is far better able to adapt to life at the Fort and, while he immediately dismisses the Fort and it's surroundings, Philadelphia is interested and curious about the country and the people who live there.  Fort Apache is notable for Westerns of it's time in taking a sympathetic view of the Native Americans.  While it is still very much from the view of the white settlers, the Native Americans are willing to come to a peaceful solution and their demands are perfectly reasonable, it's Thursday's racism that escalates the conflict.  The film was shot in Ford's favourite location, Monument Valley.  The film takes it's time to get into it's stride and the story doesn't really get into it's stride until it's second hour.  The climax is well staged and exciting and there is a moving epilogue which shows how the myth of the West was being written even while it was happening.  Henry Fonda is good as Thursday, managing to humanise a pretty unlikeable character.  John Wayne does well as Yorke, trying his best to counter Thursday's bigotry and avoid disaster for all concerned.  Shirley Temple is good as Philadelphia, and it is a pity that she isn't even more to do.   

The Matrix Resurrections

Year:  2021

Director:  Lana Wachowski

Screenplay:  Lana Wachowski, David Mitchell, Aleksander Hemon, based on characters created by The Wachowskis

Starring:  Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jones, Jada Pinkett Smith

Running Time:  148 minutes

Genre:  Science-fiction

San Francisco: Thomas Anderson (Reeves) is a successful video game developer who became famous for the hugely successful Matrix trilogy of games.  However he is experiencing strange hallucinations, memories from his previous life as Neo, which he puts down to stress from developing the games and the resulting fame.  In a coffee shop, Anderson happens upon Trinity (Moss), who is living a quiet life as mother of three Tiffany.  When he is approached by a new group of rebels, lead by hacker Bugs (Henwick)  and Morpheus (Abdul-Mateen II), Anderson discovers that the hallucinations are real memories of his past, and he needs to embrace his identity as Neo to save himself and Trinity from the Matrix and help the human rebels fight the machines that have enslaved humanity.  The problem is that he is not the man he was.

The concept behind The Matrix series of films is that what we see and experience as reality is in fact a vast, complex computer simulation known as The Matrix, and that the real world is a ravaged, bleak place controlled by malevolent machines, and humans are trapped in pods, brains plugged into The Matrix, bodies being harvested for energy to power the machines.  However, a small group of humans have escaped The Matrix and are fighting to defeat the machines.  The Matrix was released in the summer of 1999 and, despite being released mere weeks before Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, it was a huge hit, with an imaginative plot, lots of style, and groundbreaking visual effects.  Two sequels followed, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, which were both released in 2003.  The Matrix Resurrections is the fourth film in the series and its easy to be cynical about sequels that come out such a long time after their predecessor, but this is a very solid entry in the franchise, and possibly the best of the series since the first one.  Like the other films in the series, it suffers from a confused plot, with a lot of philosophical discussions and technobabble, and the characters often seem more like video game characters, ironically enough, so it's hard to really feel any sense of danger in the action scenes.  Also, it doesn't give any concessions to newcomers to The Matrix franchise, or those who may have forgotten the previous films, in the nearly twenty years since the previous one was released.  However, this is an enjoyable, intelligent science-fiction action film, and there is a lot more humour in this one.  The performances are good, and the new characters are engaging.  In this films, The Matrix film exist as games, and the story is kicked off when Anderson is asked to make a fourth game in the series, which gives the filmmakers an opportunity to poke fun at sequels and franchises.  In the scene where Anderson is in his bosses office being given the pitch for Matrix 4 it's easy to imagine director Lana Wachowski, who co-wrote and co-directed the first three films with her sister Lily Wachowski, sitting in an office being given the same pitch.  Interestingly enough, the boss turns out to be a hostile computer program.  Of course the special effects and action are as spectacular as ever and, while it is far from perfect, at least it feels like a big, special effects driven action film with brains and some heart as well.  

By the way, there is a brief additional scene after the end credits, which is funny, but it's certainly not unmissable and not worth missing the bus for.

  Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss in The Matrix Resurrections

My Life as a Courgette

 Year:  2016

Director:  Claude Barras

Screenplay: Céline Sciamma

Starring:  Gaspar Schlatter, Sixtine Murat, Pauline Jaccound, Nick Offerman, Amy Sedaris, Elliot Page, Will Forte

Running Time:  65 minutes

Genre:  Animated, drama

When nine year old Icare's alcoholic single mother dies, he is sent to a children's home.  At first Icare, who prefers to be called "Courgette", finds it difficult to fit in but, thanks to some new friends, including a kindly police officer, Icare finally begins to find some acceptance.

This animated Swiss/French film is beautifully realised in colourful stop-motion.  However it's bright colours, odd title and flashes of humour hide a surprisingly dark tale.  Essentially it is a gentle, warm-hearted tale about a boy finding love and acceptance, it's also a story about grief, loneliness and loss, which doesn't shy away from the tragic histories of many of the children in the home.  Despite a brief running time the film moves at a sedate pace.  The script by Céline Sciamma (writer and director of acclaimed dramas such as Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011) and A Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)) is funny and moving, and the animation and character design is striking.  A re-dubbed English language version was released as My Life as a Zucchini with a voice cast including Nick Offerman, Amy Seders, Will Forte and Elliot Page.  While it may be too dark for younger children, this is certainly worth checking out for adults as well as children.

My Life as a Courgette

Parallel Mothers

Year:  2021

Director:  Pedro Almodóvar

Screenplay:  Pedro Almodóvar

Starring:  Penélope Cruz, Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Rossy de Palma, Julieta Serrano

Running Time:  123 minutes

Genre:  Drama 

Madrid-based photographer Janis (Cruz) meets renowned forensic archeologist Arturo (Elejade), and asks him to help her excavate a mass grave in her home village, where her great-grandfather and others from the village were killed and buried during the Spanish Civil War.  However, her plans are put on hold when she becomes pregnant after spending the night with Arturo.  In the maternity ward Janis meets teenager Ana (Smit) and the two form a friendship based on their mutual status as single mothers.  Janis and Ana prove to be devoted mothers to their respective daughters, until Janis discovers that due to a mix-up at the hospital, she is not her daughter's biological mother.

This is the 22nd feature film from Spanish writer/director Pedro Almodóvar, and reunites him with frequent collaborator Penélope Cruz.  Here Almodóvar still shows some of his flair for melodrama, it's of a more muted tone.  There are two key plot lines here: the main story is that of 40 year old Janis and teenager Ana,  their experiences of motherhood and their growing connection with each other.  The other story is Janis' attempts to excavate the mass grave outside her village.  Of course, the film is about family, both biological and the family we make for ourselves.  Janis' mother died at the age of 27 and named her after Janis Joplin (who Ana has never heard of).  Ana's parents are separated, her mother cares about her but is more preoccupied with her own acting career, but she still care more than Ana's father who isn't interested in his daughter or his granddaughter, and sent Ana away to avoid scandal.  Janis and Ana form something of a surrogate family, despite their differences.  Ana can't understand Janis' preoccupation with her great-grandfather and the mass grave, and Janis is angered when Ana tells her to move on and leave the past behind.  Janis knows that there are less and less people alive who remember these atrocities, and that people, particularly young people, don't know or care enough about their past.  There are many unidentified mass graves in Spain following the Spanish Civil War and part of the reason for making this film, for Almodóvar, was to bring this to people's attention.  This issue bookends the film, and the final fifteen minutes are almost a very moving drama-documentary.  However, this isn't a somber, bleak issue film, while it is more serious than much of Almodóvar's previous work, it is still a hugely enjoyable movie.  As always with Almodóvar, everything looks great, the colours are vivid and every frame is perfectly composed, there are also some of his traditional campy flourishes, and the performances are fantastic, particularly Penélope Cruz and Milena Smit.  It's worth mentioning that there are barely any men in the film, the only principal male character is Arturo, and even he is not in the film that much, Ana's father never appears on screen we just here him on the film, and, of course Ana and Janis' both have daughters.  This is a powerful and emotional film, but it is also entertaining and there are a few good laughs.  

Milena Smit and Penélope Cruz are Parallel Mothers

The Man Who Fell to Earth

Year:  1976

Director:  Nicolas Roeg

Screenplay:  Paul Mayersberg, based on the novel The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis

Starring:  David Bowie, Rip Torn, Candy Clark, Buck Henry, Bernie Casey

Running Time:  139 minutes

Genre:  Science-fiction

A strange man, Thomas Jerome Newton (Bowie), stumbles into a small New Mexico town.  Within a few years he is the multi-millionaire head of World Enterprises Corporation, a company which sells innovative technological products.  However, Thomas Newton is not what he appears.  In reality he is a humanoid alien sent to Earth from a dying planet to bring back much-needed water supplies for his homeworld.  He has been using his advanced alien technology in his company's products, and plans to use the money that he is making to finance the construction of a spaceship to ship the water to his planet.  However, during his time on earth he begins to fall victim to human vices such as alcohol, sex, television and corporate greed.

This film was David Bowie's first leading role, and at the time he was at the height of his "Thin White Duke" phase.  He gives an astonishing performance, and is utterly convincing as an alien, according to Bowie he was in such a fragile state at the time that didn't need to act in the role at all, he just learned his lines for the day and acted naturally.  Rip Torn plays a creepy professor who finds the mystery of Newton and his corporation even more interesting than chasing after his female students; Buck Henry plays a patent lawyer who becomes Newton's confidante and right hand man; and Bernie Casey plays the ruthless owner of a rival company.  They all give good performances, but Candy Clark is very good as the naive hotel chambermaid who falls in love with Newton and both becoming the other's nemesis.  Based on the novel by American author Walter Tevis (who also wrote The Hustler and it's sequel The Color of Money which were both made into successful films, and The Queen's Gambit which became a miniseries on Netflix), the film was directed by British director Nicolas Roeg, who was coming off the success of the horror film Don't Look Now (1973).  Roeg was known for his innovative style, combining surreal, poetic imagery with a jagged stream-of-consciousness style of editing.  Despite a fairly conventional alien innocent on Earth storyline, The Man Who Fell to Earth is a very unconventional science-fiction film.  For one thing, there is very little traditional science-fiction imagery in the film, aside from several brief sequences where Newton remembers his homeworld.  Despite being set entirely in America, it is a British film made with an almost entirely British crew, which may help explain how the film makes America look like the alien planet, it's one of the great outsider's views of America.  The film is long, slow, and the style makes it at times difficult to follow, but it is mesmerising.  At times it is funny and it is powerful, while the technology and values on display (such as Rip Torn's professor sleeping around with students) date the film as a product of the seventies, it is still a pertinent comment on the modern world, which may be more pertinent now than in 1976.  The film is visually striking, powerful and memorable, and remains one of the highpoint of David Bowie's career and of 1970s science-fiction cinema.

David Bowie is The Man Who Fell to Earth