Ivan Reitman directs Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis in this supernatural comedy smash where three failed New York scientists go into the business of catching ghosts like exterminators.

We used to have a shit brown corduroy sofa in the first house I remember living in. When my Dad got home from work, after he had washed up from whatever graft he had done, the childrens’ programming would be switched over to BBC Two and we would watch whatever western or Laurel & Hardy or Star Trek was on. Me, my sister and my Dad crammed on a two seat sofa, us slotting in between his laid out body. I was only six or seven when Ghostbusters was brought into the house. Video rentals were a weekend treat but in my recollection this was after school, after work, on that sofa. Was it a pirate video borrowed from a work colleagues at the parts factory? Or had Mum and Dad rented it on Sunday – made sure what we wanted to watch was not too scary for sensitive, horror averse little me – and then allowed us to view it quickly the next day before it had to be returned to SelectaVideo down the road? The former makes more sense but the latter is a possibility.

I wonder how much debate there was in allowing me to watch Ghostbusters that first time considering my childish propensity for nightmares. As the spectral effect work in Ghostbusters still holds up (I genuinely don’t know how they achieved some these phantasmagorical tricks of light) and they’d be effective in any 18 certificate full fat horror. Perhaps being a family friendly comedy with proven stars gave the matte artists and visual technicians an unprecedented budget to play with that allowed them free reign to perfect. The spook work is consummately executed, iconic and breathtaking. From the librarian to Slimer to the explosion of the undead when the containment grid is shutdown. Just WOW!

You have to approach this silly scary adventure as a workplace comedy. The streets are real, the characters shabby and the music feels like a time travelling radio station broadcasting lost one hit wonders through a portal to modernity. It isn’t “cool” but I listen to my vinyl of the soundtrack a lot: Ray Parker Jnr. to Elmer Bernstein to Laura Brannigan. There’s something about the grit of New York location shoot and the deadpan authenticity of the supporting cast and extras that make this feel almost timeless. Fantasies either happen in space or misty fields or comic book ideals of suburbia. Here you can smell the hotdogs and BO, dodge the rats and litter and know everything costs a dollar more than it should.

That approach towards the true bolsters the humour. The context has a verisimilitude that elevates it above sitcom or parody, frames the outlandish glowing poltergeists in a near documentary setting. The movie makes sure everyone but Bill and Rick Moranis play things straight. Dan and Harold’s super uptight nerds get laughs from their inflexible tunnel vision towards the paranormal as a meaningful scientific endeavour. They are boyishly excited by terminology and evidence, their convincing dedication and education bouncing devilishly off of their less professional frontman horndog Peter Venkman. The chemistry between Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis is nuclear. Everyone respects a precise script, the gags only work in context, you have to love these characters and this situation to rinse the nuances. A very quotable film but the quotes only ring funny is you now the set up and delivery. “I collect spores, molds, and fungus.” “Yes… It’s true… This man has no dick.” “Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say “YES”!” These jokes land as the comedians stick to script finding humour in the wording and then delivering it as if were their own improvised riff. This tightness is lacking from modern Hollywood comedies. That’s what makes Ghostbusters unique… its professionalism.

I love Stripes and Scrooged but it is fair to say one is sloppy and the other to enamoured with excess. Ghostbusters dances gracefully within the thin line the separates the two modes of blockbuster comedy. It feels loose but is expertly calibrated. It feels like an outlier while being so of its time… a childhood memory that lives up to scrutiny. Just a seamlessly made product of the imagination. The little boy who hid away from certain jump scares and didn’t understand the more adult gags got just as much out of this as the jaded movie buff who has seen it all a thousand times before. No matter how many times I watch Ghostbusters it impresses, entertains and feels like complete diamond in the rough to its 1980s peers.

10

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson directs Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone and Tony Lawrence in this documentary arranging and contextualising the “lost” footage from the Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of weekend concerts celebrating black music that were free to any resident who could fit into the local park.

A frankly amazing assemblage of live performances, enthused crowd shots and outlandish fashions. The movie tries hard to work as a cross section of the black experience in 1969. Exposing the political, societal and cultural shifts that occurred among the predominantly African American population of uptown Manhattan that summer. Mission accomplished, although there is possibly one moment too many where the talking heads interrupt the toe tapping stage show we bought a ticket for. Added bonus: The Harlem locals vox pop reactions to the Moon Landing are priceless but pointed.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

M. Night Shyamalan directs Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps and Thomasin McKenzie in this supernatural thriller where a group of holidaymakers find themselves trapped on a beach that ages them fifty years in one day.

No spoilers but Old is far better than you’ve been led to believe… with the caveat that this being Shyamalan there’s plenty to criticise too. If you can put to the back of your mind his house style (overly sincere mood, pointless last minute twists, exposition dialogue that clunks out of characters mouths, an almost deadpan autistic acting requirement, gifting himself extended cameos that wink at the camera with a dastardly blandness) then this manages to rinse plenty of thrills, mystery and moments of iconic shock. The middle 70 minutes on that beach is brightly lit nightmare fuel, served by a storyteller who rarely lets up on piling on the pressure and dread. I’ve read a lot of reviews and am surprised nobody has mentioned Luis Buñuel. Shyamalan traps the bourgeoisie in a place and will not let them exit, they begin to behave erratically, abandoning societal rules and sanity in a series of surreal set pieces. Even if the ensemble is purposefully stiff (after 6 films in this declarative mode we need to accept it as a stylistic choice), Krieps and McKenzie still stand out, sneaking a little warmth and accessibility into their totems. Mike Gioulakis’ outstanding cinematography uses film and it lends the sea and the sand an air of shimmering unreality. Much as those auteurs who chose to make black and white films in the Eighties and Nineties were trying to separate their vision from the pack, it feels like the choice to shoot on celluloid here is done to give the movie an overriding sense of “otherness” compared to contemporary flat digital content. That camera darts around, seemingly untethered by normal rules of editing or shot composition but it allows Shyamalan to achieve some pretty effective sleights of hand. For example, the awkward ageing of the children into adults is cleverly kept just out of frame, tantalisingly so, allowing your own imagination to fill in those body horror blanks. There are a lot of later “surprises” that I want to comment on or at least make snarky jokes about but that’d be unfair. I left the cinema feeling like this was his best work since The Village but also a bit deflated by the underwhelming reveal. Yet Old is certainly this much maligned director’s best movie in a long old time, one I feel might age gracefully and build a cult following. And those finer qualities have stayed at the forefront of my thoughts this week, so I may just join that cult.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Ari Folman directs Robin Wright, Danny Huston and Harvey Keitel in this sci-fi drama where movie star Robin Wright sells the rights to her image and personality to a movie studio and finds herself 60 years later a stranger in an animated hotel which is hosting an event celebrating her continued fame.

What is reality? Every movie that seems to attempt to attack or expose the construct of an artificial existence seems ready made to blow only those unguarded minds already primed for demolition. The Matrix. Mr Nobody. Zero Theorem. A sub genre of over stylised meh that just leaves me cold. They never find a valid enough reason for a world without rules, made from the imagination of a microprocessor. Not my cup of tea. The animation used to conceptualise Robin Wright’s prison of the fake being is colourful, chaotic and with some nice Max Fleischer nods in the population… but the plot around it is incoherent, unworthy of the visual effort. Why is everyone’s face in the future live action “reality” so dirty? Water must exist in some form or they’d be dead. Is it like, The Matrix, just a further layer of fake existence? Do I care? Considering I’m not really sure how we got here after a slew of incoherent but earnest storytelling? Pretentious guff.

3

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Peter Weir directs Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany and Max Pirkis in this rousing sea adventure, where Captain “Lucky Jack” Aubrey enters a cat-and-mouse pursuit with a technically superior French war vessel.

Perhaps the most immersive blockbuster experience of this century already feels like a film from another age. I remember seeing it twice at the cinema on release and both times not completely able to fully unpack the plot and characters as I was so swept up into the expertly realised world we are transported into. Not one moment, prop or extra does not ring true. We are on a Napoleonic man-of-war, of one mind with our crew’s missions and fears throughout. This is completely Peter Weir’s achievement – madness he has only made one movie since. The bonus is Russell’s best performance… surprisingly humane and unbombastic when it could have easily been a rerun of Maximus with a ponytail. He shines just as much in his one to one encounters with individuals in the crew as he does the rollicking period action. None more so than his musical sparring matches with Bettany’s likeable outsider Doctor. Just wonderful. “The Surprise is not old; no one would call her old. She has a bluff bow, lovely lines. She’s a fine seabird: weatherly, stiff and fast… very fast, if she’s well handled. No, she’s not old; she’s in her prime.”

10

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Abel Ferrara directs Peter Weller, Kelly McGillis and Charles Durning in this crime thriller, an adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s book about a former soldier who gets drawn into a deadly love triangle.

Possibly not the best Elmore Leonard to adapt, in that the book seems to give up on its more potent plot thread early on just to pursue something more… bog standard. This choppy, often characterless, adaptation struggles to gain any firm footing with such an awkward pairing of plots. Ferrara’s brings a nasty dark edge to a story that would work far better told a few settings lighter.

4

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Mike Leigh directs David Thewlis, Lesley Sharp and Katrin Cartlidge in this urban drama where a troubled but intelligent man travels to London and walks the streets.

“Is it going to be grim and depressing?” asked Natalie. “I remember it being quite funny.” was my response. But no… this is bleak and misogynistic, unrelentingly so… but intentionally… so there’s that. Thewlis remains a powerhouse and his unbridled, acerbic lead performance holds up as one of the great achievements in British acting. The film surrounding it is quite oblique in its intention but it is hard not to see it as damning assessment of humanity. I’ve always found Leigh’s “comical” take on the working classes snide and patronising, his treatment and presentation of those female characters especially in Naked is hard to stomach and tally up. Probably at its best when the camera is just roving the desolate London backstreets, making the last days of Thatcherism look like Lynch’s The Elephant Man.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Jonathan Kaplan directs Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale and Bill Pullman in this teen drama where two holidaymakers find themselves in Thai prison when heroin is discovered in their backpack.

I watched this pretty much only for Claire Danes back in 1999… and I can’t think of any further motivation behind revisiting it now. It is a pretty uninspired weak tea prison drama with a constant thread of racism to it. Only the surprisingly non-Hollywood ending and a coy refusal to actually let us know if the girls are guilty proving in anyway memorable.

4

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Emma Seligman directs Rachel Sennott, Danny Deferrari and Fred Melamed in this comedy where Jewish student tries to avoid having her bisexual call girl secret life exposed at the funeral afterparty from hell.

Amusing in spits and spots but outstays its welcome – mainly due to an incongruous and near constant horror score track. Rachel Sennott is a sympathetic presence playing a character who would be quite detestable in weaker hands. A solid indie directorial debut with the expertly judged final scene suggesting better things to come. The well observed final set piece of an entire neighbourhood begrudgingly cramming into a single minivan will evoke awkward memories for anyone has had to attend such an event’s aftermath.

6

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Paul Schrader directs Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell and John Heard in this horror remake of the 1940s ‘woman might turn into a killer cat when aroused’ classic.

I made a previous comment about 1940s horror before that it all seems like a series of classy set ups for sex scenes that never happen. Schrader obviously felt the same way about 1942s Cat People as I did about 1943s I Walked With A Zombie. He expands on the original with excessive, erotic kink. Pumping every scene and entire acts with bonus incest, bondage, full frontal nudity, body horror and bestiality. The atmosphere is steamy, the fantasy elements are heightened. The few moments that recreate faithfully the traditional scares of the original are overwhelmed by fantasias of red desert dreamscapes from pre-history and a hard humping score from David Bowie and Giorgio Moroder. Is Cat People XXX scary? Very rarely. Is it utterly captivating? Yes indeed.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/