Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

Clive Barker’s Hellraiser is obviously a horror classic, and it was something I only experienced for the first time during last year’s Halloween. With a horror icon in Pinhead (Doug Bradley), whatever dated effects are to be found in there are made up for by the film’s perverse, sadomasochistic fervour; this wasn’t just a slasher, […]

Un Flic (1972)

Grey buildings standing imposingly on a French coastline. An incoming storm whips the ocean and rain washes over deserted streets. A car moves slowly with four men in trench-coats and hats. They stop on a street corner and through the mist is a bank with its lights on, just about to close for the day, […]

Psycho II (1983)

Now this is a legacy sequel! Psycho II (1983) was actually a box office hit, from what I’ve read, and exists nicely at this cross-section of eras and influences: obviously 1960s Hitchcock, but also 1970s Network TV Mystery Of The Week and 1980s Slasher Sequels. While an unnecessary sequel to a genre-defining classic twenty years […]

Event Horizon (1997)

When I was a teenager, I loved going to midnight movie marathons at Greater Union. Some of these would be impeccably themed (teen movie fests like Cruel Intentions + Urban Legend + Disturbing Behaviour) and others were a bit random, like the one where I first saw Event Horizon (1997) which was sandwiched between Tomorrow […]

Revolver (2005)

I like Guy Ritchie movies the most when they get pretentious. Like, I’m more keen to rewatch something like Wrath Of Man rather than The Gentlemen. And the zenith (so far) of Ritchie’s pretensions has to be Revolver (2005), his return to the gangster genre after the unsuccessful remake of Swept Away. I’ve always been […]