Hamlet (1948)

Watching Grand Theft Hamlet this year made me realise that I’d never watched an adaptation of Hamlet. Obviously being one of the big William Shakespeare plays, I know it through pop culture, the famous lines, the references and parodies (thinking of Schwarzenegger doing Hamlet in the parody dream sequence from Last Action Hero). I wanted […]

Benediction (2021)

Benediction (2021) was British director Terence Davies’ final film before he died in 2023. Experiencing it after recently seeing his first film, Distant Voices, Still Lives, was very interesting with their intersections. Distant Voices, Still Lives is an autobiography by Davies of his family growing up in working class Liverpool. In contrast, Benediction is a […]

Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)

“The one thing I can’t bear now is atmospheres. I can come into a room full of people and I can tell you who’s had the row. I always say: if I’ve upset you, just come out with it. If you cold-shoulder me, I instantly see him [my father] sitting in the corner of the […]

Theatre Of Blood (1973)

Vincent Price playing a hammy theatre actor, delivering Shakespeare monologues, right before taking revenge on a critic who’s wronged him, played by a gallery of great British character actors (Harry Andrews, Robert Morley, Jack Hawkins), and the bloody murder has some thematic tie to a Shakespeare play. And then you have Diana Rigg playing Price’s […]

The City Of The Dead (1960)

It’s a simple but effective trick. Works for rock shows, and it certainly works for old, black-and-white horror movies. If you don’t have the budget for set design, just pump in the smoke machine! The City Of The Dead (1960; aka Horror Hotel) gets a lot of atmospheric effect through its one major street set […]