A hitchhiker is murdered. The killer takes her body to his wheelbound brothers house and plans on disposing of the body. I knew nothing about End Play. I then decided to investigate when I saw that it was on YouTube. Every now and then I strike lucky by doing this. And in this instance I …
Continue reading Marsupial March- 31 Days of Aussie Movies- Day 17- End Play (1976)
A female passenger leaves her handbag in the back of a taxi. The driver seeks to trace her to give it back which is where the adventure begins. A premise like this requires the one thing this TV movie lacks- an interesting plot. It was good to see which actors would go on to star …
Continue reading Marsupial March- 31 Days of Aussie Movies- Day 15- Taxi! (1979)
A serial killer known as 'The Banana Killer' (bananas are found at the site of his murders) is terrorising a town in Southern California. He turns out to be akin to the missing link between man and an ape. He falls in love with a local young woman and resorts to kidnapping her when she …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween 2024- Day 31- Schlock (1973)
Jennifer is the only scholarship girl in a very select and very posh school called Green View. She has fallen foul of the bitchy in-crowd led by the ultra-vile Sandy, whose father is a senator. Jennifer's father is stanchly religious, and they live on their own above the pet shop that he owns. Jennifer once …
Continue reading 31 Days of Halloween 2024- Day 11- Jennifer (1978)
WARNING- There are spoilers ahead. I remember as a young kid going past my local cinema in the family car and seeing the poster for the double bill The Incredible Melting Man and The Savage Bees. Just seeing this poster in passing was enough to give me sleepless nights. In fact, my protestations that The …
Continue reading Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- The Incredible Melting Man/The Savage Bees
I love combing through the archives of the local newspapers to see the ads used for my favourite films as they were released in Yorkshire. If one of these films is controversial enough, it will find itself the centre of attention wherever it is released. One such film was, of course, The Exorcist. The film …
Continue reading The Exorcist Comes to Leeds. Controversy Ensues.
After the death of their daughter by drowning, John and Laura Baxter (played brilliantly by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) decide to go to Venice as John has an assignment there restoring a church. It's here that Laura crosses paths with an elderly pair of sisters named Heather and Wendy, one of whom claims to …
Continue reading Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- Don’t Look Now (1973)
It's 1990. I'm tuning into the excellent Moviedrome series of films on BBC2 with each cult film in the series being introduced by director Alex Cox. The film being shown that night was John Carpenter's second feature film Assault on Precinct 13, his reworking of Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo and my mind was blown. I …
Continue reading Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
One of the best things about Yorkshire Television, when I was growing up, was the eclectic fare that made up their schedules. At night they showed the most wonderful and unexpected films you could ever imagine. They also showed films you had never heard of before that were either unavailable on video because of some …
Continue reading Meathook Cinema Hall of Fame- Slithis (1978)
I had heard so much about the original of Black Christmas from 1974 by the time I finally got to see it. Its reputation as being the main film that inspired the slasher movie sub-genre pre-Halloween was well established, with horror fans salivating over it and singing its praises to the heavens. 'Let's see how …
Continue reading The Gift That Keeps On Giving- What Makes Black Christmas So Darn Scary?
