Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

George Pavlou directs Larry Lamb, Denholm Elliott and Nicola Cowper in this noir-pastiche sci-fi horror where a mad scientist’s drug is mutating the sewer dwellers of London.

There’s a lot going on here in this early forgotten Clive Barker flick. Distracted plot, sub Dr Who visuals and a wasted support cast. Richardson, Pitt, Berkoff and Malik all collecting cheques but not doing much. Very hard to care about what unspools. The story has minimal momentum. The electronica score was provided by a duo who went on to become… hey… Underworld. Only really for Nightbreed completists who want to see an early rough sketch of what Barker went on to do himself.

3

Perfect Double Bill: The Midnight Meat Train (1984)

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Gideon Raff directs Chris Evans, Michael Kenneth Williams and Haley Bennett in this true story of Mossad agents who run a covert operation to rescue Ethiopian-Jewish refugees from Sudan to safe haven.

Captain America in some airless propaganda that goes through all the cliches.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Munich (2005)

Geeta Gandbhir directs Susan Lorincz, Ajike Owens, Franklin Baez-Colon in this documentary where a minor disagreement between neighbors in Florida takes a lethal turn, with police body camera footage and interview room CCTV making up everything that we see.

A heartbreaking collage. An all too plausible sequence of events. Very telling about the grassroots mindset of Trump’s America.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Crash (2026)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin

Pat Boonnitipat directs Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul, Usha Seamkhum and Sanya “Duu” Kunakorn in this Thai comedy drama about a feckless grandson who starts caring for his elderly relative in the hope of inheriting her home.

Sweet, well observed generational satire that goes on forever.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Farewell (2019)

Colin Higgins directs Dolly Parton, Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise in this sex comedy musical where a town’s Sheriff and the Madame of a historical whorehouse fight to keep the institution running when a television reporter targets it as the Devil’s playhouse.

This was a runaway smash back in its day. Faded into the background of cultural consciousness purely as it has hard R rated content made with cutesy PG sensibility. Where do you put it on TV schedules? Afternoons with nearly a third of the scenes censored? The Grease / Dirty Dancing dilemma. They are adult movies that the kids adore. Sunny innocence in a sexy package. As a vehicle for Dolly this has exactly the right mix of glamour, sass, perkiness and joy. She shimmers through it. Reynolds has surprisingly great chemistry with our beloved Country superstar. The energy coarsing throughout is wholly seductive. The big musical set pieces are camp and no holds barred. Charles Durning steals the show in a cameo as a twinkle-toed politico. This is now part of the Carroll household Hall Of Fame. RIP Dolly.

9

Perfect Double Bill: Rhinestone (1984)

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David Ayer directs Odin, Brad Pitt and J.K. Simmons in this adventure movie where a disabled German Shepherd and its retired military handler have to survive the Alaskan wilderness after a plane crash.

Gritty Dad weepie with an excellent lead dog performance from Odin and Brad Pitt doing his Steve McQueen schtick. Did I like it? Of course. Is it basic as fuck? Yes, please.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Leave No Trace (2018)

Zach Cregger directs Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry and Paul Walter Hauser in this reboot of the survival horror video game series where a hapless courier is tasked with delivering a package to Raccoon City.

A splatterhouse rollercoaster. Cregger and Abrams replicate wonderfully the feeling of completing a game on easy mode and still only getting through each terrifying set piece by the skin of your teeth. Luck, slapstick, wild shooting, bad choices, body horror, extreme gore. The first 30 minutes has the finest colour use and framing in a horror movie since Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It is a feast of bold visual choices. The fear factor is ramped up constantly. OK… so the finale is a bit too consistently goofy. But as 90 minute multiplex thrill rides go, there has never been a video game adaptation that is this much larks.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Wyrmwood: Road Of The Dead (2014)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin

Frank Marshall directs Laura Linney, Tim Curry and Ernie Hudson in this Michael Crichton adventure novel adaptation when, after an expedition to the African Congo ends in disaster, a new team is assembled to find out what went wrong.

Congo was a mid-tier blockbuster that came in for a ton of flack for not being Jurassic Park. Not undeservedly but… what is? Yet it is one of my wife’s guilty pleasures and it grows on me. The male lead is a blank but this allows Curry, Hudson and animatronic ape heroine Amy to gloriously steal focus. All three ham it up shamelessly and you kinda wish the nerds were cannon foddered off by the start of the second act. There are a couple of wild set pieces but it is hard to care about the main plot. It is a flimsy excuse to hang the good, the variable FX and the bad off of. This will probably move up to a cheeky 7 next watch.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Medicine Man (1992)

George A. Romero directs Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan and Michael Rooker in this Stephen King adaptation.

King’s novel about a pen name pseudonym come to life to kill everyone in an author’s life involved in his “cancellation”. A solid adaptation of the book that resurrects the plot but little of the nasty, seedy atmosphere. Only a giallo tinged New York sequence matches the lurid highlights of the book. Hutton is too boring for the dual role. This one has young Nic Cage written all over it. Needs that wild, unpredictable intensity. Or Jean-Claude Van Damme… solely as he likes sharing the screen with himself. Timothy Hutton: The Dull Half… Am I Right!?

5

Perfect Double Bill: Stephen King’s Thinner (1996)

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Brett Ratner directs Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hayek and Woody Harrelson in this heist caper where a couple of master thieves retire to an idyllic tropical island paradise only to be dragged into a final job by the disgraced FBI agent they bamboozled.

I seriously think this script started life as a TV pilot spec script. The first hour is zippy, enjoyable, close to undemanding brilliance. A glorious vehicle for an enviable starry ensemble. Then it utterly, completely goes off the boil. Like the final half and hour is just a holding pattern with no impact. Woody was firing on all cylinders while Pierce and Salma looks like a billion mega bucks. How can something so effortlessly throwaway just buckle at completion? Reshoots? Studio interference? Marvellous to meh in one scene change.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Tailor of Panama (2001)