Original title: Fleisch This little known German made for television thriller surfaced briefly on British television in the 1980s (it was doing the rounds of the ITV regions in 1983) before ending up in one of those bargain basement 50-films-in-a-box DVD sets. Overlong, it falls apart in the second half but has a few good … Continue reading
League of Gentlemen veteran Mark Gatiss has become the unofficial custodian of that that fine British tradition, the BBC Christmas ghost story. He was, of course, involved in the League‘s brilliant Christmas special from 2000 and over the years has given us the M.R. James adaptation The Tractate Middoth (2013) and its accompanying documentary M.R. … Continue reading
The seventh installment in an increasingly worthless franchise ignores the events of the three direct sequels to Tobe Hooper’s original film (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995)) and the Michael Bay-produced entries of the 2000s (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ( … Continue reading
Original title: Kamera o tomeru na! It’s impossible to discuss Shin’ichirô Ueda’s One Cut of the Dead in any meaningful way without giving away vital plot twists and this review is no different. If you haven’t seen it yet, stop here and come back when you have – the bottom line is that it’s one … Continue reading
Frank R. Strayer’s follow-up to The Vampire Bat (1933) shares much of that film’s DNA – supposed vampires that turn out to be something else, caves, bats, angry mobs, sets borrowed from Universal, small European towns under siege – but it lacks the earlier films interesting cast and is a lot less enjoyable. It mixes … Continue reading
Like its undead protagonists, the zombie film simply won’t lie down and die but just when you think you’ve seen it all, along comes something that shakes things up a bit and breaths new non-life into the genre. Shaun of the Dead (2004) took the mickey out of zombies, 28 Days Later… (2002) (yes, I … Continue reading
Original title: Amanti d’oltretomba Though stylishly shot in glorious black and white by Enzo Barboni and making good use of an actual mansion (the Villa Parisi in Frascati, Lazio), Mario Caiano’s Nightmare Castle is a rather pedestrian affair despite a good opening act. It owes a considerable debt to Mario Bava’s trailblazing La maschera del … Continue reading
