Either individually or as a team, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made a number of highly distinctive films that venture into EOFFTV territory, from the troubled extravaganza The Thief of Bagdad (1940) to the enigmatic I Know Where I’m Going! (1945), from the mystical A Canterbury Tale (1944) to the glorious ballet film The Red … Continue reading
The last big American science fiction film before Star Wars (1977), Logan’s Run was seen as a big prestige product from MGM and despite its reputation for not being terribly good it was reasonably well received by the critics and went on to a huge box office success, no doubt helping to smooth the way … Continue reading
The age old story of the starlet so desperate for Hollywood fame and fortune that she’ll do literally anything to achieve it. no matter the cost, gets a body horror twist in Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmeyer cautionary tale, a sort of Faustian take on John Schlesinger’s The Day of the Locust (1975). There’s also … Continue reading
First of all there are no phantoms from 10,000 leagues or indeed anywhere else in Dan Milner’s The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues. This was the 1950s so the menace is more radioactive than supernatural. In fact it’s from nowhere more than a few feet deep and spends most of its time skulking in a kelp … Continue reading
Roger Corman’s first genre film as a solo director – he’d debuted with the western Five Guns West and helped out, uncredited, on a few scenes in The Beast with a Million Eyes the same year before making a second western, Apache Woman all in 1955 – was this tedious post-apocalyptic drama that took the … Continue reading
The British arm of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus’ Cannon organisation got in on the ailing late 70s/early 80s British horror cycle with this unremarkable The Omen (1976) inspired “cuckoo in the nest” chiller. “For God’s sake take it back!” screamed the poster taglines and the obvious joke was lurking not that far away… Stodgily … Continue reading
In the late 1970s, producer Dino De Laurentiis was an eager participant in the post-Jaws (1975) “giant animals on the rampage” game. Orca (1977) was his most blatant Jaws rip-off and we all know what happened with his terrible remake of King Kong (1976). But his oddest – and by far the most interesting – … Continue reading
