Ronald Neame directs Michael Caine, Shirley MacLaine and Herbert Lom in this romantic crime caper centering around a lookalike for rich art collector’s lost wife. 

This colourful little timewaster coasts along on star power (Caine is particularly glowing) and smart narrative tricks. The opening swindle (on us the audience it transpires) is an expert bit of storytelling and the final “job” has a killer punchline – one of the best visual gags in movie history. Everything else could move a little quicker or hit a little harder but all in all Gambit proves still a lovely, relaxed method to steal away an afternoon.

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Peter Sykes directs Christopher Lee, Richard Widmark and Nastassja Kinski in this tale of a teenage nun raised by satanists who comes under the care of an occult fiction writer. 

A poor man’s The Omen / The Exorcist that twiddles it thumbs cheaply, mainly in Widmark’s Docklands flat, then ends abruptly with no distinct resolution. Clearly the budget dried up early on in the production.  A top to bottom (in more ways than one for Christopher Lee and an underage Kinski) excellent cast muddle through to make it watchable. You cannot have this much talent floating about on screen and not get a few moments of quality… Scares, on the other hand, are off the menu today.

4

The Pang Brothers direct Kristen Stewart, John Corbett and  Dylan McDermott in this haunted farmhouse horror. 

Standard product. Some good overcranked appearances from the ghosts and a pretty cast keep this acceptably glossy and nice to look at, just adequately enough while you wait patiently for the twist to explain all the turfed-up mysteries. When it comes along you’ll nod gently to yourself and think “Ah yes, of course… that one.”

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Dario Argento directs Jessica Harper, Joan Bennett and Alidi Valli in this full fat horror about a German ballet school that is a front for a murderous coven. 

Sensory overload hits as a near constant amped up Goblins soundtrack (“wiTCH! wiTCH! wiTCH!”), blinding primary colour schemes and fiendishly OTT tortures are bombarded at you for 100 minutes. You will eventually submit to Suspiria’s garish and deafening charms enough to appreciate the experimental mastery on display but it is never a comfortable experience. A real hot curry of a movie, not exactly pleasurable to work through but the heat and flavour stay with you in a unique way long after.

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Bernard Rose directs Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd and Xander Berkeley in this modern gothic tale of an urban legend that proves hauntingly real. 

Released during the deepest ebb between horror cycles, Candyman got lumped in with careless cash-in sequels to Nightmares, Fridays and Critters for on its surface it introduced just another visually exciting slasher killer for the covers of Fangoria, ignored by the masses away from the gorehounds. Yet it is a far superior film to its peers that has improved with age; Rose’s direction is somber and intelligent, Philip Glass’s score minimalist and apt, and the performances are mature and committed. Virginia Madsen, in particular, is given a gamut of emotions and mental states to work through, which she does with aplomb, handling the various terrifying gauntlets thrown down at her convincingly. Her lead here really belongs in the horror parthenon of brilliant genre acting together with Sigourney “Aliens” Weaver, Jodie “Lambs” Foster, Nicole “Others” Kidman and Catherine “Repulsion” Deneuve. Shame she never found further challenging work or a wider audience. The Clive Barker sourced plot, tinged with the author’s trademark self-born mythology and intoxicating tortures, playfully shifts and leaps so that its settings includes the soap opera of academia, gritty ghetto life (more convincingly recreated here than in many ‘hood movies that were prevalent then too), gothic romance fantasy and syrupy red mayhem. As for the titular ghoul himself, Todd embodies him well and his limited but intriguing glimpses and torturous hypnotic yearning make him feel like a monster still worth revisiting… assuming that any reboot was to be handled in the inspired way this unfairly ignored chiller was. Sweets for the sweet.

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Roman Polanski directs Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry and Yvonne Furneaux in this psychological horror where a fragile girl loses her mind when left alone in her Swinging London flatshare. 

A genuinely affecting sequence of incongruous sounds, ominous malaise and bursts of surreal terror. Deneuve hooks you in with a compelling turn as the near silent quivering waif. Polanski ramps up the claustrophobia with angles and neat effects that crush you tightly in within her mental trap. Still an artful and potent shocker 50 years on.

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Jacques Tourneur directs Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas in this twisty turny noir about a detective who fell for the wrong dame then cashed out only to be drawn back into a new crime by the murderous ex who hired him to originally find her.

Proudly over complicated and nihilistic. Bramble tangle plotting that seems to add a new crime or indiscretion with every other line of dialogue makes this a satisfying puzzle to straighten out. You get a rare sympathetic turn from the burly and cool Mitchum, an against type unpredictable villain in Douglas and a queue of hard hearted but stunningly beautiful dames to mistrust. The verbal exchanges crackle, a lethal sexiness pervades, the shadowy visual symbolism captivates. Every pore of this mystery bleeds quality, bleeds noir. Get lost in its deep black oozing pleasures.

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Scott Derrickson directs Benedict Cumberbatch,  Mads Mikkelsen and Tilda Swinton in this trippy superhero origin tale of a surgeon who masters dimension altering magicks. 

As a comic book fan but no Marvel zealot I went into Doctor Strange with tempered expectations. Brutally assessed, it is probably the weakest of the official canon Marvel movies, damaged by an awkwardly confined Cumberbatch (who swings from dislikable and arrogant to uncomfortable with quips and battles – he’s no Rudd or Downey Jnr) and a been there, done that self pitying first hour where we trudge through tragedies and training with no real end point but to get Strange up to speed with his needed “gifts” for the standard mega threat finale. Bolted on romances and shit learning montages are eventually kicked aside though. The second half improves when the large scale FX take over – a rompish quality kicks in and a still struggling lead often just shuts up and let’s you get lost in them. Giacchino’s spot on score injects fun into the Inception inspired knockabout and the epic visuals are pleasingly incoherent. Just about saves itself from being the first true stinker from the Stan Lee cookie cutter… Though second billed Chiwetel Ejiofor may want to call his agent and ask whether he actually had a character to play in some earlier draft or was merely a human shaped reserve sign for a sequel villain. His Mordo is a cypher whose change of heart at the end to set up his next entry naughtiness comes out of fucking nowhere. Mads and Tilda at the very least bring a bit of flavour to their stale, stock parts.

4

Pablo Trapero directs Guillermo Francella, Lili Popovich and Peter Lanzani in this Argentinian true crime story of a family who took to kidnapping for ransom during the political upheaval of the 1980s. 

Strong actors take on unsympathetic characters while the occasional brutal shock moment stop this from totally wearying the viewer. It is a tale not made for an international audience, assuming its target domestic audience will not require certain key information spelled out, so we, the secondary market, often feel adrift as to what is unspokenly going on in this moment of Argentine history. It appears that such crimes were unofficially accepted under the regime and even in the aftermath, an air that as long as the kidnappings remained unacknowledged then anyone could do it with impunity? Anyway as a viewer not au fait with that political climate I found myself adrift. There’s just not enough black humour or sustained tension to captivate while trying double guess what the bigger picture was, though the improving meals being used to symbolise the family’s returning fortunes is a nice human touch. A shame, as a good movie shouldn’t need footnotes.

5

 

Kazuhiko Yamaguchi directs Etsuko Shihomi, Sonny Chiba and Hiroshi Miyauchi in this barely related spin-off to the Terry Tsurugi revenge actioners. 

Another martial arts swindle you can’t help but forgive. This is a completely different movie that just happens to feature Chiba in a non- Terry support role, swiftly rebranded as a sequel to his iconic Grindhouse hit. Taken on its own strengths this is colourful enough, nasty enough and with a strong lead performance from Shihomi that once again you can ignore the naughty counterfeit activities. And that crazy energy is still there in spades. Features the Amazon Sevens (what would happen if David Lynch directed a lady Kung fu squad with The Flintstones wardrobe) plus an off-putting sadistic rape of a school girl. So something for everyone then?!

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