Review: The Night Porter
Blu-ray: The Night Porter (1974)I was about 9 when The Night Porter came out, so missed the furore surrounding its release, and I’ve read that around the time it came out Hollywood had produced a few Pseudo-psycho-sexual Nazi-ish films (The Damned 1969, Cabaret ’72, Salo ’75) sort of looking at the Third Reich in a […]
Review: He Came from the Swamp – The William Grefé Collection
Blu-ray: He Came from the Swamp – The William Grefé Collection (1966 – 77)I’ve always been a fan of low budget independent filmmaking and my VHS/DVD/Blu-ray collection includes films by Edward D. Wood Jr, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and Doris Wishman (Nude on the Moon being a particular favourite of mine…go check it out), but for some […]
Review: Spring
Blu-ray: Spring (2014) Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (previous collaborations include The Endless) once again craft a beautiful looking, slow burning narrative that takes you to places (both figuratively and literally) that you weren’t expecting. Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) is a young man whose life is seemingly spiralling out of control and so decides to […]
Review: Host
Cinema & Digital: Host (2020)How do you make a successful film, on a low budget, during a global pandemic, coupled with a lockdown on movement? Ask director Rob Savage because he has nailed it. Starring Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore, Emma Louise Webb, Radina Drandova, and Caroline Ward, Host tells the story of a group of friends meeting […]
Review: Columbia Noir #1
Blu-ray: Columbia Noir #1 (1945 – 58)Another great blu-ray box set from Powerhouse Films in their Indicator series of releases, Columbia Noir #1 (#2 is due for release in February 2021) features 6 noir movies, each from a different director:ESCAPE IN THE FOG (Budd Boetticher, 1945)THE UNDERCOVER MAN (Joseph H Lewis, 1949DRIVE A CROOKED ROAD […]
Review: Skyfire
Digital, Blu-ray & DVD: Skyfire (2019)Meng Li (Hannah Quinlivan) and her father (Xueqi Wang) survive a volcanic eruption that takes the life of her mother and many others while working as volconologists.Despite that horrific experience as a child, Meng Li also becomes a volcanologist and is working at the beautiful Tianhuo Island paradise resort which is […]
Review: King of New York UHD Special Edition Blu-ray
UHD 4K Blu-ray: King of New York (1990)King of New York, often described as a noir (mmm I don’t think so…) is a film very much of its time. The 90’s.It tells the tale of Frank White (Christopher Walken) a drug lord, recently released from what appears to be a long stretch in prison into the […]
Review: Silent Running
DVD: Silent Running (1972)A favourite from watching on TV as a kid, Silent Running follows botanist Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) as he lovingly tends to the only botanical specimens left from Earth, all based under the huge geodesic domes on the spaceship ‘Valley Forge’.When orders are received to destroy the project and return home, his fellow […]
Review: You Cannot Kill David Arquette
Digital Download: You Cannot Kill David Arquette (2020)My son was, as are most kids, obsessed with wrestling as a small child. It’s one of those things he ‘grew out’ of, and by the age of 11 The Undertaker, Triple H and The Hardy boys were replaced with Manchester Utd.I missed it though, missed the soap […]
Review: Late Phases
Blu-ray: Late Phases (2014)Ambrose McKinley (Nick Damici) is a cantankerous blind military veteran who, after the death of his wife, reluctantly moves into a retirement community at the insistence of his son.All is not peaceful though in this community, as people go missing at a far too regular occurrence, and so, after a shocking incident […]