Morbius

A shitty CGI smudge.

Ambulance

There’s a point roughly an hour in to this where I thought ‘it can’t get any worse than this’, but it did. Relentlessly. For the entire remainder of it’s bloated running time.

Leptirica [The She-Butterfly]

A quaint Yugoslavian folk tale mainly notable for the director’s unusual decision to shoot everything on incredibly steep fields that the cast struggle to stand and move about on.

Colt 38 Special Squad [Quelli della calibro 38]

What should be some rollicking cops n robbers action gets slightly dried out by some insistent socio-political commentary and long exploratory shots of bombing aftermaths.

X

Absolutely fantastic bit of slow burn nastiness that delights with every grotesquerie as it exhibits a dry, understated glee in being as horrible as possible.

Savage Three [Fango bollente]

This film suggests that despite already having enough organised crime to worry about at the time, Italians should also be concerned that everyday working folk could possibly become murderous rapists if they get bored of pizza.

The Batman

A demonstration of how tricky it is to balance between comic book and film. Of all the Batman adaptations this one is by the far the most Batman, but as a film it comes of as an overlong, po-faced, self important mixture of The Crow and Seven. The running time issue could easily be fixed if slow, sad Batman could just figure out how to walk across a room with a bit of pace, but comic book Batman loves a leisurely amble whilst he growls about vengeance and justice. It is a tricky balance.

Arabella Black Angel [Arabella l'angelo nero]

The absolute peak of late eighties Giallo, we’re two decades away from Bava’s beginnings and by this point the sleaze has been dialled up to full on soft pornography, the violence cranked up to gruesome genital mutilation and the story has all been removed to make way for a nonstop series of sudden plot twists that usually make little to no sense. Loved it, obviously.