2021 Over

It’s hard to comprehend the idea that another year has passed, although perception of time is now at head spinning speed, the amount of actual change that has occurred between this end of year and the last is tricky to discern. It doesn’t help that society at large has been necessarily sluggish in response to the ongoing life threatening global pandemic and this has in turn created fewer opportunities to experience something new, unless it happened to premiere on Disney+

The cinemas reopened cautiously but the choice on offer was carefully curated to maximise ticket sales and certainly not to offer a wide breadth of cinematic experience, meaning I only saw twenty or so movies at the cinema this year and they were pretty evenly split between comic book action movies and lowest common denominator horror movies. At home I didn’t watch a great deal of new movies either, preferring to kill solitude by digging into a huge backlog of purchased/stolen older movies instead. So instead of big end of year lists, here’s a bunch of little lists that reflect what I’ve been watching this year.

5 Best Films I Saw In The Cinema

Watching proper films is definitely getting trickier out there, there’s a clear reluctance on cinemas and studios to take even the slightest risk after the delays and losses occurred due to closures at the start of the year, and choice was often slight. There are plenty of great films out there, as shown by all the film festivals that still ran but to minimise risk I didn’t attend any this year, and so I found myself at the mercy of the multiplex and its aggressively marketed deluge of mediocre crowd pleasing fare. Though there were still a few sparkling gems to be had out on the big screen. 

5: Titane

Unlike any other film I saw this year. I could say the same about Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch which also vied for this spot, but Titane made my toes curl at points and The French Dispatch never did that.

4: The Night House

This years jump scare of the year. At least twice as good as any that came before it.

3: Spider-Man: No Way Home

The peak of a busy twelve months for Marvel was this flurry of fizzing excitement that was so impressive it was still a flurry of fizzing excitement on successive viewings as well.

2: In The Earth

Wheatley at his psychedelic best; disorientating, unsettling and soundtracked by buzzing synth dread. Ace.

1: Dune: Part One

For pure visionary spectacle though, nothing else this year came close to the grand majesties offered up by this utter epic. Part two now please.

5 Great Giallo Movies

I’ve watched a lot of these now and it amazes me that there’s still great giallo movies out there, for such a narrow genre of film there’s such a bounty to be had. Not that great means good, I don’t think that’s the point though they’re great because they’re trashy, lurid and always look absolutely fantastic. Here’s the five I enjoyed most this year.

5: Midnight Killer

Lamberto Bava is generally more miss than hit, but he manages to get it right here by lifting a bunch of good bits from other giallo movies and pasting them together as his own.

4: The Psychic

Far more coherent and polished than much of what Fulci would go on to make, also features the dumbest Psychic I’ve ever seen onscreen, but then you can’t have it all can you.

3: The Dead Are Alive

A perfect example of how a great giallo isn’t necessarily a good film, this thing’s bollocks but absolutely hilariously so.

2: Knife Of Ice

The only truly surprising killer reveal this year. Normally it’s ‘yeah, of course’ or ‘who the fuck is that?’ but this one was ‘oh, very good. Very good indeed.’

1: The Girl In Room 2A

The best of the year in giallo, primarily due to the costume that the killer is kitted out in. Do a google image search you’ll see what I mean.

5 Small Screen Discoveries

At home I watched all manner of trash, some of it recently made, most of it not. Although I didn’t watch any online film festival fare, there were two online Joefests, a large number of individual Joevid viewings and I managed to watch 31 horror films in the month of October because internet. A lot of the Joefest stuff was great, most of the October films weren’t and there was a speckling of excellent movies amongst those I watched through the rest of the year too. Here’s five favourites. 

5: Zack Snyder’s Justice League

A clear demonstration that Snyder knew exactly what he was doing, rendering the Whedon effort even more of an embarrassment than it already was.

4: Psycho Goreman

Essentially one long joke about a being of pure relentless evil being controlled by a child. But it was a good joke and worth making for ninety minutes.

3: Devil Fetus

The best of Joefest. Absolutely deranged.

2: Lake Mungo

Stood out a mile from the rest of the fodder I watched through October by properly pulling the rug from under me. A sneaky film.

1: Rigor Mortis

A jaw dropping display of crazed oriental vampire insanity that begins full throttle and then absolutely does not let up till the end. Awesome.

5 Shittest Films I Saw At The Cinema

I want to be clear, these are not the five worst films I watched this year. At home I sat through some absolute atrocity, most of it during October. I watched a lot of fucking awful films this year but given the small amount of cinema screen real estate out there, I thought I’d focus on those that wasted it so cruelly. Opportunities to bathe in big screen glow were fewer this year and this bunch of shit took up more than a quarter of them.

5: Malignant

Repellently stupid.

4: Last Night In Soho

Flashy and shallow, like a cinematic adaptation of a teaspoon of glitter. Levelled, not heaped.

3: Halloween Kills

Slasher movies generally struggle to hold a story for their full length, so I don’t know who the fuck thought it’d be a good idea to try and tell a Michael Myers story across three films because it’s a shit idea.

2: F9: The Fast Saga

The fast movies always did ride a fine line between fabulous shit and plain old shit but this one was nowhere near it.

1: Old

Shyamalan’s devastating ability to curl out cinematic turds would appear to be effortlessly going from strength to strength.

Another year behind. Another in front. Let’s go, I guess.

Island Of Fishmen [L'isola degli uomini pesce/ Island Of Mutations]

Typically Italian in that it’s a pale imitation of about five other different movies.

The Matrix Resurrections

Surprisingly not shit.

The Inconsolable Widow Thanks All Those Who Consoled Her [La vedova inconsolabile ringrazia quanti la consolarono]

Featuring humour in such bad taste it’s sublime, Fenech is recently widowed and by Italian law her rich husband’s estate defaults back to his family unless she gives birth to a heir in ten months. Yes, ten months, which gives her a month to get involved in reprehensible farce involving her mother, her brothers in law and her husband’s best friend in order to have a baby so she can keep the money.

Titane

Gruelling, visceral, sensory overload filled with whiplash narrative swerves that shake you up and keep you watching till its utterly what the fuck ending.

A Blade In The Dark [La casa con la scala nel buio]

A lot of walking around a house, in fact it’s all somebody walking around a house except for when somebody dies which happens bang on every half hour.

Too Beautiful To Die [Sotto il vestito niente II]

Sold as a sequel to Nothing Underneath in Italy despite the fact that they have nothing in common other than a bunch of murders, a twist that makes no sense and neither is very good.

Nothing Underneath [Sotto il vestito niente]

A mid eighties Giallo that falls awkwardly between being a dull, bloodless slasher and a drab erotic thriller. Saved by an insane final few minutes that bear very little relation to anything else in the movie.

Runaway

As a child I thought this was the ultimate in badass hi-octane excitement as future cops had to battle deadly robots controlled by an evil mastermind. As an adult I now recognise that the robots are mostly just boxes on wheels, that the evil mastermind is just Gene Simmons with a face like he’s trying to hold in a massive shit and that child me clearly did not have a fucking clue what badass hi-octane excitement actually looked like.

Spider-Man: No Way Home [3D]

Overrides any and all cynicism as it openly revels in Spidey’s cinematic past in order to create a new adventure that is one of Marvel’s finest so far.

West Side Story

Spielberg flexing that he is now able to simply make the best version of whatever old movie he feels like making.

Highway Racer [Poliziotto sprint]

An excellent cops n robbers car chase caper that’s impossible to watch without seeing it as the template to a huge number of future Hollywood movies, most of which have Fast & Furious in the title. But this is better because they throw a car down The Spanish Steps.

Candyman

The closest anybody has managed to get to a true representation of Barker’s fiction on screen, including his own attempts, makes for an excellent descent into madness and grim majesty.

Dune

It’s odd given how weird everything undoubtedly is, but this is the most un-Lynch David Lynch movie I’ve ever seen.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife [IMAX]

Couple of things I learned watching this movie; one, they appear to have mistitled Ghostbusters: The Force Awakens and two, I am incapable of seeing a vertical stack of books without saying ‘no human being would stack books like that’.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Not really a film, more edited highlights of what somebody who has never seen a film thinks a film should look like.

Beyond The Door [Chi sei?/ Who Are You?/ The Devil Within Her]

One third blatant Exorcist rip off, one third blatant Rosemary’s Baby rip off and one third blatant pile of steaming bollocks.

Asso

Changing attitudes can often make judging Italian comedies difficult. There’s a lot to enjoy in this quite charming tale of a poker player murdered on his wedding night who then returns as a ghost to look out for his bride, but the ample charm is ever so slightly ruined by the idea that looking out for his bride means stopping her from working and supporting herself and instead forcing her into a second loveless marriage with a rich man.

Last Night In Soho

Left the cinema thinking I’d watched an alright film that was definitely better than Baby Driver, but then I gave it some thought and realised quite quickly that I’d actually watched a very bad film that just happened to look very nice, and yet it was still better than Baby Driver.

Eternals [IMAX]

Whilst Marvel aren’t about to eschew their wildly successful formula any time soon, here it is twisted into an unrecognisable form and provides them with their best ‘introductory’ film since Ant-Man. And I gotta say I fucking loved those Celestials.

Crimewave [The XYZ Murders/ Broken Hearts And Broken Noses]

A hot mess from a trio of cinematic masters at the start of their careers. Absolutely fascinating in that the Coens clearly had no idea how to write for Raimi’s hyperactive technical genius, and Raimi clearly had no idea how to direct the Coens droll darkly comedic happenstance. Ultimately it’s shit, if you want to watch this collaboration done right you need The Hudsucker Proxy, and yet if you do get a chance to watch this then you absolutely should.

Ghostwatch

This Halloween I watched a BBC drama from the 90s that effortlessly delivers maximum Halloween chills whilst paving the way for so much of the mockumentary/found footage scares still to come.

Dark Night Of The Scarecrow

Distinctly made for TV and yet distinctly better than a lot of early eighties horror movies that got shat into theatres.

Secrets Of A Call Girl [Anna, quel particolare piacere/ Anna: The Pleasure, The Torment]

A lumpy soup of soapy melodrama and pimp slaps.

Noroi

A mockumentary about a journalist investigating strange happenings is used as an overlong setup for a brilliant fifteen minutes of found footage insanity at the end.

The Power

You know that cliched horror movie hospital thing where the spooky goings on are actually manifestations of hidden abuse from the past trying to be recognised and avenged? 

Well you don’t need to watch this movie then.

The Legend Of Hell House

Lots of spooky atmosphere, menacing vibe and sudden deaths all completely undone by a climax where the paranormal phenomena is dispelled by somebody mocking its height. Yes you read that correctly, the ghost went away because somebody called it short.

The Fear Of God: 25 Years Of ‘The Exorcist’ [The Festival Cut]

An old Kermode documentary with some extra interview pieces added in and from which the only new info I gleaned is that there’s almost as much time passed between now and this documentary as there was between the documentary and the movie itself.

The Gestapo’s Last Orgy [L'ultima orgia del III Reich/ Caligula Reincarnated As Hitler]

Deplorable film attempt that’s jam packed with atrocity and covered over with a vague stab at appropriating the plot of The Night Porter to try and justify it all.

The Dorm That Dripped Blood [Pranks/ Death Dorm]

A dreary slasher that whittles its paltry cast down to two survivors so one can say to the other “it’s me, i’m the killer” and there’s nobody left who really gives a fuck. Including the audience.

Coffy

A superb bit of cathartic vigilantism as a nurse casually fucks up dope dealers that fucked up her sister.

Sleepaway Camp [Nightmare Vacation]

With an ending as what the fuck as that, it really doesn’t matter how good or bad the preceding film was. Something that definitely works in its favour.

The Visitor [Stridulum]

An absolutely barking mix of space Omen, cosmic Exorcist, Rosemary’s astro-Baby and galactic Kes. Bonus points for slow motion defenestration as a climax to aggressive ice skating.

King.

Malevolent

Has a couple of good ideas embedded in a shambles of a script which is further hacked up by editing that’s in a rush to just get everything over and done with.

The French Dispatch

Wes Anderson uses the anthology format to tell three and half stories that all explore the niche genre known as Wes Anderson Movies.

Demons 5: The Devil’s Veil [La maschera del demonio/ The Mask Of Satan]

Bava jr thought it would be a good idea to remake Bava snr’s gothic masterpiece as a teenage ski trip, presumably to clearly demonstrate just how little film making ability he inherited from his dad. Unusually in comparison to the other ‘in name only’ Demons sequels, this one actually starts to feel like a Demons movie in the middle, but again this just shows how far away this shit is from being a remake of Mask Of Satan.

Midsommar [Director’s Cut]

With an extra twenty minutes reinstated, though I really couldn’t spot the extra bits and when I finished I couldn’t imagine it being any shorter because every minute is pure magnificence.

Dune: Part One [IMAX]

Villeneuve brings the full force of his film skills, ladling everything he’s learned whilst making the rest of his impressive filmography into this beast, creating a movie whose only real flaw is that it’s only half a movie.

Halloween Kills

Undoes the ending of the last one then treads water for ninety minutes before stopping without an ending of its own. Piss poor, almost as bad as the Busta Rhymes one. Almost.

The Beach House

Manages to hide the fact that its characters have absolutely nothing to do, and no way to combat their predicament, for a lot longer than you’d expect. Ace doom drones too.

Boogeyman

A forerunner in the bloodless PG-13 horror boom of the mid 2000s. I had forgotten how effective the scares could be in these films, I had also forgotten that the conclusion will invariably feature a bad CGI monster who will snarl and snap at the air but ultimately do nothing until banished.

H.P. Lovecraft's The Unnamable

The opening scene is a vague attempt at adapting Lovecraft’s story I suppose. The rest not so much.

Deadly Manor [Savage Lust]

Boring until the last ten minutes when everybody dies and the entire plot is forcibly shat out in one uncomfortable lump.

The Dead Are Alive! [L'etrusco uccide ancora/ The Etruscan Kills Again]

What a gem of shitness this is. An undeniably poor film but packed with acting so bad it bends space time, toe curling dialogue like “doesn’t the idea of an etruscan burial tomb turn you on?” or “If you think all this is going to have an effect on me well it has!” and a killer who instead of a knife uses a hollow metal pipe that clangs comedically every time it bludgeons a victim. So plenty to like about it too.

King.

Fear Street: Part One - 1994

The over use of music cues means this starts off feeling like a pub quiz 90s music intros round with a horror movie happening somewhere in the background, eventually though the pub quiz aspect fades away allowing you to focus on the real movie and the shocking twist that the pub quiz 90s music intros round was undeniably the best thing this movie has to offer.

Hostile

A woman in a post apocalyptic landscape must survive a night with a broken leg as she fends off attacks from an alien zombie mutant creature. This causes her to reminisce about how before the apocalypse she was a junkie saved by a rich, french art dealer who she fell in love with and married. And then, I shit you not, it is revealed that the monster is her husband and this fucking travesty ends with her hugging it and saying “I love you”. I don’t care that I just spoiled the ending because if it means you don’t watch it now, then I just did you a favour.

Paranormal Activity 4

Enjoying this is highly dependent on your tolerance for watching teenagers filming themselves watching films of themselves that they recorded earlier and then saying ‘what the fuck?’ at anything unusual.

Midnight Killer [Morirai a mezzanotte/ You’ll Die At Midnight/ Midnight Ripper]

An 80s love letter to all the 70s giallo movies that came before it.

Torture Garden

The cat was ok, the Hollywood robots were dull and the possessed grand piano was dumb as fuck. But Peter Cushing getting pissed on sherry was ace.

Revenge

A clear demonstration of the fine line between finding clever ways to get your protagonist out of dire predicaments and making up any old stupid bollocks because I guess that’ll do until the camera has another opportunity to ogle your protagonist’s ass.

V/H/S/94

Fourth in the anthology series maintaining themes set up in the other movies. So the wraparound story is incomprehensible like the first movie, the Found Footage rules are bent as much as possible like the third movie and just like the second movie Timo Tjahjanto’s segment stands a clear head and shoulders above the rest, blowing everything else clean out of the water.