Letterboxd — Your life in film

Though many might have initially balked at the idea of Ted Nicolaou – the Band b-lister responsible for the bubble-headed likes of Terrorvision, Bad Channels and Assault of the Killer Bimbos – taking on a series of sober, stylish, European-shot vampire movies, it would seem, in retrospect, that the naysayers may have been a little hasty in their saying of nay. Rather, the Subspecies films marked the point at which journeyman writer/director Nicolaou unexpectedly raised his game; ridding himself of…

Hard to imagine today, but following the $39 million box-office bonanza of his debut movie (the okayish-in-a-better-than-HAWK-THE-SLAYER-kind-of-way SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1982)), director Albert Pyun was a hot property in Hollywood for around 10 to 15 minutes during the early 1980s. Following his surprise smash for Brandon Chase’s Group 1, Pyun was swiftly snapped up by the De Laurentiis Group to helm the likeable but alarmingly erratic, post-nuke noir RADIOACTIVE DREAMS (1985). However, both films would prove perhaps the pinnacle…

Before we begin, it must be stated that Peter Manoogian's 1987 urban survival pic ENEMY TERRITORY most resembles an unsophisticated, scrappy late-1970s AIP rip-off of John Carpenter's ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976); even the closing credits cue from old-school rap crew The Boogie Boys contains none-too-subtle allusions to Carpenter's seminal synth scores for both ASSAULT and HALLOWEEN (1978). Now, to some reviewers higher of brow than myself, this would no doubt be considered harsh criticism, but to this old hack…

To be perfectly honest, I recently purchased Scorpion’s R1 DVD of I WANT WHAT I WANT as I quite fancied laughing into my sleeve at some 1970s Brit-kitsch, and the thought of scene after scene of a suburban, bell-bottomed transvestite swishing around the Woolworths pick 'n' mix was just too much to resist. But this 1972 obscurity from John Dexter (director of the sorely underrated THE VIRGIN SOLDIERS (1969)) turned out to be a far more sober affair than I…

Once a fairly notorious z-flick producer and studio head during 1970s and ‘80s, North Carolina’s Earl Owensby (dubbed both ‘the redneck Roger Corman’ and ‘Dixie DeMille’) seems to have since been all but forgotten in this digital age: to my knowledge, apart from HYPERSPACE aka GREMLOIDS (which Vipco released several years ago), none of his cheapjack genre epics have so far made it to DVD (although a few can be bought direct from Owensby's own website).

His brand of low-tech,…

Probably the least interesting Brit-flick that BFI’s otherwise rightly celebrated ‘Flipside’ label has released to date, JOANNA (1968), written and directed by ex-pop singer Michael Sarne, has little to recommend it above much of the ‘all style, no substance’ mainstream cinematic fluff that poured out of England during the late 1960s.

Seldom has a central character personified a film’s faults and virtues more than Genevieve Waite’s Joanna: lovely to look at but a real strain on the ears, Waite’s doe-eyed,…

One of three initial movies that were to have been the opening gambit from 'Edge Entertainment' – yet another of Charlie Band's Full Moon offshoots, and one that drafted an ambitious blueprint: to specialise in relatively larger budgeted, high quality yet distinctly edgy product, to be produced by Kushner-Locke and released through Full Moon (the other two titles being Robert Altman's GUN and John Landis' SUSAN'S PLAN). But Matthew Bright's knowingly controversial follow up to his cult smash FREEWAY (1996)…

I remember seeing this failed chiller from Palace Pictures back when it was originally released in 1988 and thought it was okay-ish at the time (despite the pretty damning reviews it received) but, re-watching it for the first time in 20+ years, it has to be said that Harley Cokeliss' attempt at a British NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is a real dud. Jemma Redgrave is bland beyond belief in the central role (even more so having seen her aunt Vanessa…

Overall, CORMAN'S WORLD is a solid documentary charting the career of a genuine movie maverick, but there are a few issues that stopped the film from being all that it could be:

Undoubtedly, the biggest thrill was hearing Jack Nicholson talk at length about his pre-EASY RIDER exploitation career, something I've never previously heard him do. For once, Julie Corman and Gene Corman are given their due and Scorsese is also as eloquent as ever, but then he has never…

Another movie in my long line of 'films I should have seen by now but didn't because there always seemed to be something better to watch', I recently got around to viewing Ken Russell's much-maligned literary chiller via MGM's UK DVD release.

Now, I must confess that the first half-hour of this film is almost comically bad in places, particularly with regard to the clunky dialogue that the poor leads are forced to spout (Byron & Shelley were literary geniuses; needless…

Wow, quite an experience... an Estonian sci-fi detective flick from 1979, THE DEAD MOUNTAINEER'S HOTEL is a truly stylish, atmospheric and near-hypnotic movie with a fantastic soundtrack that veers between atonal synthesised noodlings and cracking, tripped out prog-rock.

DMH also appears to point the way to Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER (released three years later) through the way it approaches 'neon noir'. The DVD I have from Tallinnfilm seems to be rather grainy and murky, but maybe the original print was…