Hatchet For The Honeymoon [Il rosso segno della follia]

Some of Bava’s finest camera trickery is put to work in this tale of a psychopath murdering a series of beautiful young brides. The fact that it’s narrated by the murderer and his identity is never hidden means that not only was Bava already subverting the Giallo before it had all really kicked off but he also managed to prefigure American Psycho. More evidence of the man’s undersung genius.

A Good Woman Is Hard To Find

(Frightfest Day 5)
Starts as social drama then spins off into eye watering dismemberment and brutality. Like a Shane Meadows movie with teeth. Ace.

Rabid [2019 Remake]

(Frightfest Day 5)
A passionate love letter to David Cronenberg, a reverent adaptation of his second movie and an original movie that could only come from the Soskas all happening at the same time, which can sometimes be a bit much but top marks for ambition.

Tales From The Lodge

(Frightfest Day 5)
An extremely British story about telling stories. Not British in the shitty way where everything looks cheap and everybody just shrugs and gets on with it but the good way where all the humour is bone dry and snarky and everything is full of invention.

Satanic Panic

(Frightfest Day 5)
Not the greatest movie ever or anything but soccer moms as stroppy satanists does have an undeniable charm.

The Black String

(Frightfest Day 5)
Bollocks.

Nekrotronic

(Frightfest Day 4)
Never really had any idea what was going on but there was a demonic version of Pokemon Go, so swings and roundabouts.

Ready Or Not

(Frightfest Day 4)
An excellent caper that slowly boils over into glorious madness.

Daniel Isn't Real

(Frightfest Day 4)
When we read of historical reports of possession and demonic activity we now know this to be an intensely ignorant view of mental illness and advances in education, science and medicine mean we can approach the subject sensitively and with a greater understanding because we’re no longer stuck in the dark ages. Unless you’re the wankers behind this that is.

Eat, Brains, Love

(Frightfest Day 4)
So droll and laid back I almost forgot it was a film, and by the end I think the film itself forgot this too. Which was fine, i just liked hanging out with it for a bit.

Spiral

(Frightfest Day 4)
Films like this make me angry because it had something really important to say and then fucks it over and over again into an incoherent mess.

Why Don't You Just Die! [Papa, sdokhni]

(Frightfest Day 3)
An amazing grand guignol chamber piece that jolts the senses in every way. A remarkable movie.

Madness In The Method

(Frightfest Day 3)
Jason Mewes from Jay and Silent Bob making a film about Jason Mewes not wanting to be associated with Jay and Silent Bob and which then references Jay and Silent Bob throughout its entire running time.

Critters Attack!

(Frightfest Day 3)
Is able to maintain a level of trashy enjoyment set in place by the original series all those decades ago. Also maintains the level of cheap ass shoddiness.

Feedback

(Frightfest Day 3)
Threatened to be an intelligent, well thought out thriller but every time it was in danger of being just that everybody would pick up weapons and yell over the top of each other until you were convinced it was nothing of the sort.

Ghost Killers Vs Bloody Mary [Exterminadores do Além Contra a Loira do Banheiro]

(Frightfest Day 3)
Amongst the many standout moments on offer here are a possessed turd and a feotus pissing in somebody’s face. Crass, over the top and relentlessly bad taste. Loved it, obviously.

Death Of A Vlogger

(Frightfest Day 3)
Despite clearly being produced on a teeny tiny budget this plays to its limitations so well that it ends up being better than most movies that would spend this on their opening credits alone.

Porno

(Frightfest Day 2)
I'm at the point that I would consider myself fairly hardened to the nastiest that horror can offer up, but there was a bit in this that had me both laughing hysterically and curling up in a fetal knot of revulsion at the same time. Superb.

Bliss

(Frightfest Day 2)
Excels at being both intensely visceral and utterly charmless.

Kindred Spirits

(Frightfest Day 2)
A brilliant central performance helps counter the fact that you’re watching a fairly basic Single White Female clone that paints itself into a corner then panics.

Knives And Skin

(Frightfest Day 2)
An excellent dream like exploration of coming of age that deserves the Lynch comparisons but is nothing like Lynch.

Girl On The Third Floor

(Frightfest Day 2)
Girl on the TURD floor more like. Sometimes i’m just too funny. Whatever, this was bollocks.

Haunt

(Frightfest Day 2)
A bunch of college kids head for a local haunted house attraction only to discover that a group of unhinged maniacs with incredible planning skills have constructed a complex labyrinth so they can murder their customers because... well there is no because, just an empty realisation that i’m so done with this kind of fucking nonsense.

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

(Frightfest Day 1)
A series of exceptional scare sequences.

Crawl

(Frightfest Day 1)
An empty story thrashing about in the water with a bunch of shit CGI.

Come To Daddy

(Frightfest Day 1)
Grinds its gears as the plot lurches about but consistently saves itself with its fantastic characters, dialogue and level of sheer insanity.

Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood

7% love letter to the past, 36% people driving in cars, 57% feet.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

Opens with a glorious half hour hymn to lunacy that the rest of the film can't hope to match and so devolves into repetition, padding and a lot of people being thrown through a lot of glass.

The Banana Splits Movie

The Banana Splits was a neat kids show about four goofy animals played by people in furry suits. In this fucking awful movie they are now robots, played by people in furry suits, who inexplicably gain conciousness and systematically slaughter anybody who delivers uncomfortable, awkward, stilted, cliched riddled dialogue i.e. pretty much everybody.

Flawed Is Beautiful

Documentary about a genre of music so tiny it only consists of two bands, one of which I was in to and one I wasn't, the result being half was very interesting and half wasn't.

The Frightened Woman [Femina Ridens/ The Laughing Woman]

Enjoyable captor/captee face off slathered in bold 60s Italian style and crass 60s Italian attitudes.

Apocalypse Now: Final Cut [IMAX]

Tighter than Redux, looser than the Theatrical Cut, but still perfection in all its forms.

John Wick: Chapter 2

A superior sequel that staves off the boredom of constant coldly efficient gunfights by having Wick fully self aware of his abilities and projecting gentle sympathy onto the criminal underworld before hopelessly massacring hundreds of them.

In Fabric

A really quite good three part anthology movie, only the first two parts are a half hour too long and the third part is missing.

The Beach Bum

Existential meditation that goes no deeper than do your own shit, fuck the rest and everything will work out just fine.

The House On Sorority Row [House Of Evil]

Starts with a similar plot premise to Black Christmas released a decade earlier, and I was stunned at how they seemed to lift entire sequences verbatim from that movie until the penny dropped half way through that I have clearly never seen Black Christmas, and the movie I've been remembering as Black Christmas was this one, which now makes sense as to how I struggled to recall any actual Christmas happening.

The Haunted House Of Horror [Horror House]

Very little to recommend here other than Frankie Avalon getting stabbed in the dick.

Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw [IMAX]

All the elements of the Fast & Furious movies, only pruned of all the uselss dead weight like family barbeques, street racing and Vin Diesel, leaving more room for The Rock, Statham, Massive fuck off explosions and lots of super awesome slow motion punching. With any luck they'll all be like this from now on.

Oldboy

Displays a virtuosic command of cinema, every frame a masterpiece.

Oblivion

A prime example of how modern cinema thinks plot twists should be delivered whereby characters withold vital information until it can be dropped for full dramatic effect, changing other character's perspectives, but simply affirming something you already suspected and are confused as to why nobody wanted to talk about it earlier.