Murder By Contract (1958)

My favourite moment in Murder By Contract (1958) was when Claude (Vince Edwards), the cool out-of-town contract killer wearing a suit and a pair of shades, is picked up by two hoods (Philip Pine and Herschel Bernadi) who will oversee his assassination of a jury witness. Claude wants to tour the sights of LA. “I’d […]

Assault On Precinct 13 (1976)

Over time, Assault On Precinct 13 (1976) has become one of my favourite John Carpenter films. Much like George A. Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead, which it was influenced by, it is a triumph of low budget genre filmmaking that cracked the market and inspired countless rip offs. It is the first action picture […]

Cutter’s Way (1981)

My high school library had a copy of Dan Peary’s book Cult Movies 2 and I’ve been trying to track down and watch the 50 films covered in there ever since. One that always intrigued me was Cutter’s Way (1981) if only to reconcile the hapless dad from Home Alone looking like a young pirate […]

Body Double (1984)

While it might not be the best Brian De Palma film, Body Double (1984) is certainly the quintessential Brian De Palma film, and it’s certainly the most notorious, and it’s become my favourite of his auteur thrillers. Publicised as the heir to Alfred Hitchcock in his continual homages to the ‘Master of Suspense’ across films […]

Bliss (2019)

Joe Begos had two films as a director in this year’s MonsterFest and Bliss (2019) was made before VFW on a low budget, shot on 16mm, and exorcising the director’s own creative funk through the horror genre. Focusing on a painter (Dora Madison Burge, from Friday Night Lights) in a career slump who decides to […]