Red Rooms (2023)

We love an inscrutable protagonist, don’t we, folks? Red Rooms (2023) offers up a compelling protagonist in Kelly-Anne played excellently by Juliette Gariép with eerie stillness. We learn that Kelly-Anne is a model, is addicted to playing online poker, and is first witnessed sleeping in the street to attend the trial of Ludovic Chevalier, charged […]

The Prowler (1951)

When I was in my adolescent phase of loving James Ellroy novels (not so much a fan anymore), I remember the crime author mentioning The Prowler (1951) as one of his favourite classic film noirs. Considering Ellroy’s past as a degenerate substance-addicted peeper before he became a writer (which he talks about in the documentary […]

Issue 25: Special Effects

“This thing doesn’t want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation.”VHS Tracking is a zine of movie recommendations, and Issue 25 holds the theme of Special Effects. A variety of writers examine the glory days of practical effects, from stop-motion skeletons to gloop-covered bodies, dated CGI animation and traumatic freeway crashes, and […]

Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014)

I really loved Chinese director Diao Yinan’s neo-noir The Wild Goose Lake. I’ve seen it twice now, and it is definitely style over substance, in that I remember most fondly the images and sequences rather than the story itself. Purple neon hotel lighting engulfing a room where three thieves talk shop. A motorbike at night, […]

Gun Crazy (1950)

Always gratifying to hear about a film for a long time that’s considered a classic, like Gun Crazy (1950) is considered a classic of film noir, and when you finally watch it, it’s so clear and apparent how great the movie is. Yes, this is a classic. Why did it take me so long to […]