Arachnophobia (1990)

Recorded on VHS tape from Channel 7, I repeatedly watched Arachnophobia (1990) as a child. Along with Tremors, these were horror comedies that worked best as ‘gateway horrors’ for me, at a time when I was petrified by the horror aisle in a video store due to the suggestive box covers. Both Arachnophobia and Tremors […]

Eyes Without A Face (1960)

I thought about transition scenes in movies and the greater power that some can have over others. In Eyes Without A Face (1960), a French horror movie about a plastic surgeon (Pierre Brasseur) who kidnaps women to provide a new face for his disfigured daughter (Edith Scob). There is a transitional scene where we see […]

Distant (2002)

I associate Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan with long takes of expansive landscape from the couple of movies I’ve seen of his. And the opening shot of Distant (2002; aka Uzak) fulfils that association, as a solitary figure trudges across a field, a small town in the distance and a road in the foreground from […]

Scream For Help (1984)

Somewhere between a live action Disney movie from the 1970s (Candleshoe? I’ve never seen it) and Last House On The Left. Douglas Sirkian suburban New England with big houses and fall leaves, tainted with a strain of scuzziness. Disreputable pig Michael Winner has always been to my knowledge a god amongst hacks who employed his […]

The Lorry (1977)

Though I don’t remember much of the details in the story told within Le Navire Night, directed by Margeurite Duras, I remember the feeling of the film and how it blurred into the experience of watching it alone on a laptop in the dead of a sleepless night. Duras’ words on the narration, the movement […]