Winter Light (1963)

Continuing my education into the work of director Ingmar Bergman, I picked Winter Light (1963; Nattvardsgästerna) to watch next. Mostly on the basis that it’s one of the big inspirations for Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. In that movie, it was a struggling priest dealing with a suicidal parishoner obsessed with climate change apocalypse – here, […]

Branded To Kill (1967)

Every hip movie about a hitman must have taken something from the Japanese cult classic Branded To Kill (1967; Koroshi no rakuin); for example, Jim Jarmusch lifted a drain-pipe kill from it for Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai. Directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Joe Shishido, Branded To Kill is a dazzling, dark, funny […]

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969)

Dance marathons were competitions held in the depression-era America for couples to potentially win big money if they went the distance and remained on their feet for days and days and days. With some competitions going beyond 1,000 hours with minimal breaks for food and sleep, this utter exhaustion was spectacle for the watching crowds, […]

Witchfinder General (1968)

Deeper into the Vincent Price Blu-Ray boxset, I’ve finally come to the acclaimed folk-horror film, Witchfinder General (1968), which has the reputation of being one of Price’s finest performances. Having seen it, I think his acting is as good as he is in many of the other Corman/Poe movies, but maybe it is more that […]

The Masque Of The Red Death (1964)

Delving further into the Blu-Ray boxset of Vincent Price movies I received last Christmas, I watched another Roger Corman directed Edgar Allan Poe adaption, The Masque Of The Red Death (1964), which I believe is one of the best of them. Set in Medieval Italy (though no Italian accents, mainly British aside from our main […]