Is this- a) A beautifully acted, nuanced and sensitive portrayal of the horror of the Nazis and those unlucky enough to have crossed paths with them? or b) A badly acted slice of exploitation resplendent with terrible dubbing and almost no budget? I'll give you a clue- look at the film's name! This is also …
Continue reading Day 2- 31 Days of Halloween- The Horrifying Experiments of the SS Last Days (1977)
I first learnt of this film as it was called The Day After Halloween and marketed as a sequel to John Carpenter's classic. It isn't. But it's still a really interesting movie. Angela (played by Prisoner Cell Block H's brilliant Sigrid Thornton) is persuaded to ditch her low paid hairdressing job and enter the world of …
My local cinema, The Hyde Park Picturehouse here in Leeds regularly shows cult films. I was looking forward to seeing The Room as it had regularly played at a lot of the cult film cinemas like The Prince Charles Cinema and so I thought it must be some kind of newly discovered classic. The screening …
Continue reading Another Reason to Hate Millennials- The Room (2003)
A gorgeous slice of Ozploitation that is extremely well made, acted and written. A young man named Patrick is in a coma after killing his parents three years earlier. A new nurse named Kathie has been assigned to tend to him and they strike up a relationship through a typewriter that Patrick can telekinetically control …
Continue reading Day 21- 31 Days of Halloween- Patrick (1978)
I first heard of Phantasm when its sequel came out. Barry Norman reviewed it and admitted that he hadn’t even heard of the first film. Neither had I. Fortunately, my sister in law had a friend who had closed down their video business and so gave her a lot of the videos he used to …
Continue reading Day 9- 31 Days of Halloween- Phantasm (1979)
Small town vigilantes wrongly accuse a mentally challenged man of attacking and killing a little girl. It turns out he didn’t attack her but saved her from a neighbour's vicious dog. The vigilantes find this out just after killing the innocent man who is disguised as a scarecrow. Oops. When the local courts offer no …
Continue reading Day 5- 31 Days of Halloween- Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
What a cracking film to start my 31 Days of Halloween with. This is a British film which stars Bette Davis as a nanny for a family living in London in which a young boy has been sent away for supposedly killing his sister. The boy is due to be released after two years and …
Continue reading Day 1- 31 Days of Halloween- The Nanny (1965)
I feel like I've grown up with the Friday the 13th movies. Jason and his lovingly psychotic mother feel like friends to me. Through the many twists and turns of life, they have remained a constant. Even if that constant is stalk, kill, repeat. Yet it would seem that the British Board of Film Classification …
Zombies, gore and guts. Oh and spaghetti. Whats noticable about this film is the incest subplot involving the effeminate manchild character called Michael played by Peter Bark. I didn't know about this when I first watched the film. Its now seered into my mind for better or worse. This film is for titmunchers of all …
Continue reading Burial Ground – Day 12 – 31 Days of Halloween
A young schoolteacher trues to escape small town Australia and reach Sydney...but gets waylayed in the darkest possible way. This is an amazing examination of small town madness, the unspoken madness of such a life and the brutality and destruction undertaken by men. Its also an amazing portrayal of cabin fever being caused by nothing …
Continue reading Wake in Fright- Day 6- 31 Days of Halloween
Meathook Cinema 