So much for film theory claiming that the knife in slasher films represents a phallic object - here Brian De Palma uses a great big fucking drill! And in case you didn't quite get the reference, we even get a shot of the killer murderously using the drill between his legs. I wonder what De Palma is trying to say?! The film takes obvious influence from Hitchcock (notably Vertigo and Rear Window) but less talked about is the clear Argento…
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Double Indemnity 1944
For my money, this is the greatest film noir ever made. The story is set in motion with a clever metaphor - a car running through a stop sign. This leads to a hard boiled story of murder and deception. The way the film is set up instills a sense of foreboding over every sequence - it's brilliant storytelling, steeped in dramatic irony. The direction courtesy of the great Billy Wilder is absolutely flawless - and matched by an intelligent…
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Dead Ringers 1988
Dead Ringers is David Cronenberg at his most challenging. Psychological body horror examining the relationship between two identical twins. Two personalities, each one complimenting and completing the other. The two share their lives until a woman comes between them - making one twin consider his own Individuality; thereby splitting the singular personality into two and shattering the equilibrium. The film is anchored by an outstanding performance from Jeremy Irons, who plays the two twins. It's two absolutely distinctive portrayals -…
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Rumpelstiltskin 1995
This used to come on TV a lot when I was growing up in the nineties. It seems to have completely vanished into obscurity since then. The film is a modern day update of the Rumpelstiltskin fairytale - though in practise it's basically a rerun of director Mark Jones' hit Leprechaun from a couple of years earlier. It gets straight into it with a scene set in the 1400s that sees the title character on the run after stealing a…
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The Brood 1979
David Cronenberg's answer to the creepy kid movie is a warped tale of experimental psychology, motherhood and dealing with trauma. The film takes an interesting idea - here termed "Psychoplasmics", the manifestation of emotion - and explores it to the full. We focus on a man whose estranged wife is under the care of a renegade psychologist; while at the same time a series of brutal murders is happening, apparently commited by small children. The concept is rich in ideas…
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Inferno 1980
Every viewing of Inferno is a pleasure! There aren't many films that make perfect sense in their own right and no sense whatsoever simultaneously. Argento's story is carried not through logic but by feeling and sound. A curious girl looks for a key; drops her keys, then finds a key in a secret flooded room under a basement. A letter is carried from New York to Rome by notes of classic music. Time forsakes logic, spanning different periods in different…
