Fascination (1979)

There’s something prototypical about a Jean Rollin film, in that it can be classified as what people would think of when it comes to ‘Euro-horror’ (nude women, vampires, castles). And yet, there’s something distinct, which probably helps when you’ve seen a few other 1970s exploitation movies. That there’s something slow and atmospheric, which feels very […]

The Hot Spot (1990)

Look, I always knew about The Hot Spot (1990) because of an adolescent crush on Jennifer Connelly. A neo-noir directed by Dennis Hopper was also an alluring proposition, Don Johnson in the lead as an opportunistic drifter in a small Texan town, caught between two archetypical babes, the girl next door (Connelly) and the southern […]

The Whip And The Body (1963)

When a film communicates two emotions happening across a character’s face, all in the one shot, the magic trick of that. In the Mario Bava directed film, The Whip and The Body (1963), there’s a tremendous close-up of the character of Nevenka (Dahlia Lavi), walking down a darkened castle hallway, approaching a door where she […]

Venus In Furs (1969)

The meeting point between exploitation demands and arthouse pretensions is ideal cinematic terrain to my mind. Base pleasures that Venus In Furs (1969) – directed by Jess Franco – offers is nudity and sex (well, what accounts for it late 1960s international cinema) with Maria Rohm nude in a fur coat with stockings and a […]

Please Baby Please (2022)

Director-writer Amanda Kramer’s Please Baby Please (2022) reminded me of discovering Johnny Suede on SBS when I was young. The discovery of an arthouse American indie cinema morphing together the past and the present, a receptacle for a filmmaker’s fetishes. Empty alleys or street facades. Apartment interiors on a studio set. Creating a whole situation to let make-up, hair, […]