The Bad Sleep Well (1960)

Unboxing DVDs that I’ve had in storage for several years, I didn’t realise I had this copy of Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well (1960). So I finally watched it and it was excellent. Set in post-war Japan, it unravels the revenge plot set in motion by Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) who is climbing the ranks […]

Four Flies On Grey Velvet (1971)

Before 2018 ended, I finished Dario Argento’s ‘animal’ trilogy with Four Flies On Grey Velvet (1971). This is a giallo thriller about a drummer in a rock band (Michael Brandon) who is blackmailed by a masked stranger for an inadvertent murder he may or may not have committed against someone following him. The hero here […]

Spirits Of The Dead (1968)

Following Lewis Rice O’Donnell’s recommendation, I watched Spirits Of The Dead (1968; Italian: Tre passi nel delirio, French: Histoires extraordinaires), a omnibus film of three stories based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe by different directors. The first starring Jane Fonda and directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim is about a debauched countess who becomes obsessed […]

Mandy (2018)

I was really primed with anticipation for Mandy (2028) and yeah, no surprises, but I loved it. Definitely a case of style over substance or that style is the substance here, but I fully bought into director Panos Cosmatos’ desire to create a “1983 A.D.” where lumberjacks, religious cults, biker gangs were all subsumed in […]

Stroszek (1977)

High on the list of movies I’d always felt guilty about not seeing was Werner Herzog’s Stroszek (1977). I’d heard so much about it, particularly from friends, and even had a DVD copy of it that sat unwatched for years and years. The first thing I was struck by was Bruno S’s performance as the […]