Film posts
I've posted reviews of films off and on for years, but it only became regular when I attempted the 2020 #31DaysofHorror film challenge. I discovered I loved having a structure around watching films, and making myself write a few paragraphs embedded the film a little more in my brain. That led to watching the films of David Lynch in chronological order in 2021, and then Dario Argento in 2024.
I find it hard to choose what to watch these days because almost everything is available at any point in time. A film challenge is a form of curation. It helps me start and provides guide ropes as I go. I still like to post a review when I fancy though.
March 17 2025, 20:51
Afire
Writer Leon travels with his friend Felix to a remote house to finish his book. Felix’s cousin, Nadja, unexpectedly joins them, as well as local lifeguard Devid, and Leon’s obsession with his work over all else becomes a source of humour and friction. When Leon’s publisher arrives, forest fires are threatening the house, and Leon has to face reality.
March 13 2025, 19:46
Black Bag
George works for a British intelligence agency in London and is tipped off someone in the service is trying to sell a deadly secret. Known for his tenacity, he quickly assembles a list of suspects and begins to unpick their various motivations, but his wife, Kathryn, is also on the list.
March 09 2025, 09:51
Mickey 17
Mickey Barnes owes money to sadistic loan shark Darius Blank. To avoid a tortuous death, Micky enrols on a colonising mission to a new planet as an ‘expendable’, a person digitally copied so they can be endlessly recreated after kamikaze scientific tasks. But Mickey 17 doesn’t die before Mickey 18 is created, which makes them both question everything.
December 31 2024, 21:54
Black Christmas
In the days before the Christmas break, a killer breaks into a sorority house and begins to pick off the girls one by one. The girls are also being plagued by obscene phone calls from someone who calls himself Billy. It’s a richly layered film with plenty of political meat on its bones for what could have been a cheap thriller for teens.
December 30 2024, 21:06
The House with Laughing Windows
Stefano arrives in a half-empty Italian town at the behest of the mayor to restore a fresco inside a local church. An impeccably crafted but scuzzy Italian folk horror. The final fifteen minutes are wild.
December 30 2024, 18:07
Dario Argento: Panico
This is the documentary that gave me the idea to watch all of Dario Argento’s films this year, and it was interesting to watch it again at the end of the project.
December 29 2024, 20:34
Cuckoo
After her mother dies, Gretchen moves with her estranged father’s family to a resort in the German Alps. To stave off boredom, Gretchen takes a job at the resort reception, where she notices the odd behaviour of the residents and of her boss, Herr König.
December 28 2024, 19:57
Dark Glasses
Diana, a sex worker, is chased by an unknown assailant, leading to a car accident that kills the parents of a young boy and leaves her blind. She slowly adapts to her new life and temporarily takes in the orphaned boy, but the killer returns to finish the job.
December 26 2024, 20:11
Argento’s Dracula
There’s a moment when Rutger Hauer’s Van Helsing arrives two-thirds in and my spirits lifted because perhaps the film could be saved, but the moment he started to say his lines, I knew it was actually a stake through my heart.
December 24 2024, 11:32
MadS
Romain tries a new drug from his dealer before going to a house party in the suburbs of a French city. He picks up an injured woman who might have escaped from a nearby military facility. From there things get progressively darker—what is real and what might be a bad trip?
December 23 2024, 17:26
The Hound of the Baskervilles
This was a dose of good cheer after watching Dario Argento’s Giallo. A Hammer Studios production, Peter Cushing, André Morell and Christoper Lee, as well as a supporting cast of luminaries, play off each other beautifully. Fisher made this not long after Dracula, and the sets and costumes are similarly lush.
December 23 2024, 13:21
Giallo
Inspector Enzo Avolfi specialises in finding serial killers. In Turin, someone is cutting up and killing beautiful young women, and when model Celine fails to arrive to meet her sister, Linda, Avolfi has to help her search the city before Celine becomes another victim.
December 22 2024, 07:50
Mother of Tears
A grave containing a rune-covered box is discovered outside a churchyard in Rome. Art restoration student Sarah Landy helps her tutor open the box, which contains magical artifacts including a tunic that bestows great power to the still-alive medieval witch Mater Lachrymarum.
December 16 2024, 20:41
Maniac Cop
The VHS cover for Maniac Cop was iconic to video shop-haunting teens like me. Tom Atkins plays Tom Atkins as the detective, Frank McCrae, hunting a mysterious police officer who’s killing innocent people on the streets of New York. Also - Bruce Campbell!
December 16 2024, 07:11
Nightmare City
A radiation incident is reported in an anonymous Italian city moments before a military plane lands at the civilian airport. Mutant humans pour out and begin a city-wide massacre, killing indiscriminately, drinking victims blood, and infecting everyone who manages to survive.
December 15 2024, 13:04
In a Violent Nature
It’s rare a film comes along in the horror space and asks questions about the form. Cabin in the Woods did it back in 2011, and this does it with the slasher genre, subverting its conventions in pointed and interesting ways.
December 14 2024, 22:43
Anna and the Apocalypse
Staying festive, a Scottish zombie musical that captures the longing to escape a small town, the tricky relationships we navigate as teenagers, with peers, parents and teachers, and the power of musical theatre to kill the undead.
December 11 2024, 18:29
Silent Night, Deadly Night
On the way home from visiting his grandfather on Christmas Eve, young Billy Chapman watches his parents slain by a robber dressed as Santa Claus. Years later, grown-up Billy gets triggered into violence when he has to be Santa Claus himself.
December 10 2024, 16:23
Christmas Bloody Christmas
A grimy, low budget, fun-but-annoying mashup of Terminator, every sleazy slasher ever, a hangout movie, Texas Chain Saw Massacre and... First Blood?
December 09 2024, 21:27
Violent Night
Santa Claus is drunk in a bar, despairing of children’s greed, and thinking about giving it all up. While delivering presents to a rural mansion, he interrupts a robbery, and to save good girl Trudy he has to call on his skills as a Viking warrior.
December 08 2024, 15:14