The Boys Next Door (1985)

“Everything looks like MTV.” Cruising down a main strip in Los Angeles, the two teenage boys – Roy (Maxwell Caulfield, off the box office disappointment of Grease 2) and Bo (Charlie Sheen, pre-Platoon) – take the street scene all in with glee, yelling at the punks and catcalling the ladies. Director Penelope Spheeris, and her […]

Don’t Torture A Duckling (1972)

The copy of director Lucio Fulci’s Don’t Torture A Duckling (1972) on Tubi that I watched felt like it was an older DVD transfer uploaded as the image quality was desaturated and a little fuzzy, which added to how the Italian village of Accendura comes across in the movie. The rocky hills seem almost yellow […]

Variety (1983)

A young white woman sitting in a ticket booth for a porno theatre. The key image to Variety (1983) that I had in my head before watching it. New York city in its grimy, sleazy prime. “The old New York” is an idea that has been mythologised into nostalgia, often calcified (HBO’s The Deuce, for […]

Morning Patrol (1987)

“The stupidest question anyone on Earth could ask: where the hell has everybody gone?” All the woman (Michele Valley) says she has is a coat and a knife. The world has fallen into dystopia and no-one can remember why. The countryside is littered with abandoned vehicles and detritus. Scavengers ride around in motorcycles. In the […]

Murina (2021)

Deep down in the blue. A morning errand dive for teenager Juljia (Gracija Filipović) and her father Ante (Leon Lučev). The type of father whose moods cloud and control the household. Underneath the water, he can’t say anything, demean and insult. They both carry spearguns to catch eels. Underwater is also where Julijia finds escape […]