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…
Favorite films
Recent activity
AllPinned reviews
More-
-
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…
Recent reviews
More-
The Dead Zone 1983
Sandwiched inbetween Videodrome and The Fly, David Cronenberg made this film; an adaptation of a Stephen King story about a man who awakens from a five year coma with the ability to see into the future. It's a fairly conventional film compared to the bulk of the director's filmography - there's no fleshy body horror or weird psychosis, but it's still an odd one in terms of the way the plot moves. It's not a horror movie - more of…
-
Lake of the Dead 1958
Lake of the Dead, a Norwegian horror film from the late fifties, depicts a group of friends who go to stay in a cabin near a lake - where local legend has it that a one legged ghost haunts the vicinity. The film is deliberately paced and dialogue heavy. The characters are all intellectuals and their conversations focus most interestingly on debate between the merits of spiritualism and rationalism. How challenging belief can shatter a world view, and how your…
Popular reviews
More-
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…
-
Possession 1981
This film is pure adrenaline on screen. Director Andrzej Zulawski's opus about a fractured couple (apparently based on his own experience of divorce) is rich with metaphor and symbolism. The dream logic means that it doesn't always make perfect sense - but the film is utterly captivating, helped by Andrzej Zulawski's nauseating roaming camera and a pair of brilliant central performances from Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani - the latter of which absolutely owns the film. It's a mesmerising and…
