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DVD Review: The Dark
When we consider horror cinema, our first thoughts are likely to drift to zombies, monsters, serial killers, the supernatural or paranormal. Whilst our imaginations or fantasies can be frightening, nothing is truly quite as terrifying as what can happen in real life. It’s a difficult task to illustrate this on the big screen, especially in …
DVD Review: The Monster
One of the most relatable and disturbing areas of horror cinema is that of a victim being hunted by a predator. This often takes the form of a serial killer (Friday 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street etc), but more recently the terror of being hunted by an unknown entity/force (A Quiet Place, It Follows) has …
DVD Review: Bad Samaritan
With the recent successes of the likes of The Witch, A Quiet Place, Get Out and It Comes at Night, more and more people have become interested in horror movies. However, there’s still a pretentious sniffiness towards genre cinema in many quarters, with idiotic terms like ‘elevated horror’ or ‘post horror’ bandied about. Films like …
DVD Review: Dead Night
One of the greatest joys of being a horror fan is that it’s a genre which doesn’t always take itself entirely seriously. Directors often revel in the weird and wonderful, taking extreme liberties with believability and common sense. Take a well-trodden sub-genre and do something entirely ridiculous with it. This is precisely what Brad Baruh …
DVD Review: Eye of the Needle
As well as being very personable and rather charming, Donald Sutherland is a consistently impressive actor. He’s now 83 and has been going strong since the 1960s. It’s mind-blowing to think that he’s never even been nominated for an Oscar (although the Academy have awarded him an honorary gong). Given his performances in films such …
DVD Review: He’s Out There
One of the most underappreciated facets of modern movie-making is that of sound and sound design. Whilst it’s rarely mentioned, especially compared to say cinematography or editing, it can make or break a film. You only need to watch something like Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio or John Krasinski’s A …
DVD Review: The Eyes of Orson Welles
There are few, if any, film-makers or cinephiles doing more to promote, enlighten and educate than Mark Cousins. The adopted Northern Irishman was responsible for introducing a whole generation to the delights of outsider cinema in his ‘90s TV series Moviedrome. His documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey re-wrote film history and remains the …
DVD Review: The Night Eats The World
Zombies have become big business over the last couple of decades. They seem to have seeped into every nook and cranny of popular culture. Whilst the success of The Walking Dead is possibly partly to blame, that doesn’t really explain the sudden proliferation of films since the turn of the century. The likes of (the) …
DVD Review: The Last Warrior
Over the last decade or so Russia has begun to re-position itself on the world stage as a cinematic competitor to China and America. In a similar vein to the Chinese experience, it has found that many things its citizens find commonplace are often viewed as unusual outside its borders. However, that is slowly changing. …
DVD Review: Gringo
Whilst the ‘American Dream’ may come in many different shapes and sizes, the common denominator is almost always money. Success is measured by the size of your bank balance. On your holiday destination, zip code or the car you drive. Materialism is the new God. Worship at the altar of Mammon. The depths some people …