Tim Burton directs Johnny Depp, Martin Landau and Sarah Jessica Parker in this fifties-set Hollywood biopic of “the worst director ever.”

Howard Shore’s score shifts from ominous age of the atom wail to Tiki lounge playfulness, the two minute credits feature stop motion creature FX with a budget no doubt higher than any of the subject’s productions, Stefan Czapsky crisp black and white cinematography capture the sunny locations of old Burbank and Wilshire Boulevard. I’m in. Every time. You could see Ed Wood as a finely made, very witty and well cast celebration of the life and works of Hollywood’s “worst” filmmaker but really it is all about acceptance. Acceptance of transvestitism. Acceptance of addiction. Acceptance of failure. Acceptance of harmless bullshit. Acceptance of compromise. Acceptance of the penniless dream. I’ve seen Ed Wood’s movies; they are strange and cheap and incomprehensible and really cheap but they do have vision, ambition and charm. They take conservative genres and instead of producing exploitation they become quite humanist. You can laugh easily at all the wobbles and fudges but I’d rather a little personality over professionalism. And Wood’s output leak eccentric charm in spades. Burton’s movie really wants to celebrate the chutzpah of making movies no-one asked for with the bare minimal tools required. He wants to celebrate a community of freaks and drop outs who bandied together and became a little house band of tat.

The rich tapestry of characters produces a showcase for a seemingly never ending parade of juicy deadpan acting. Depp wins with his most recognisably personable lead – the cute dreamer and striver. Landau earned an Oscar in a very tight year and his foul mouth Bela Lugosi deserved the trophy. Lisa Marie’s Vampira shines in the most well written, complex female role. We follow her begrudging fall into being part of the Ed Wood no ring circus over the course of the movie yet she retains her abrasive dignity throughout. Bill Murray steals every scene as drag artist buddy Bunny Beckridge. The always welcome Jeffrey Jones has wonderful mid ground larks as larcenous fake psychic Criswell. Vincent D’Onofrio’s cameo as Orson Welles provides an excellent third act coda. And Patricia Arquette has the best scene as Wood’s second wife in what seems like an underwritten role at first glance but contains angelic moments of silent serenity and support.

I’ve often grumbled about the people who sneer at Wood. After all what have they ever made? The most profitable mass market repackager of the camp and uncanny clearly has a true love for this Tinseltown aberration… so why shouldn’t we? A marvellous warm hug of a movie.

10

Perfect Double Bill: Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

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/

Steven Spielberg directs Ansel Elgort, Rita Moreno and Rachel Zegler in this musical remake about the star crossed lovers caught betwixt the New York street rumbles of the Sharks and the Jets.

Much like Hitchcock and Scorsese, Spielberg has made so many classics over the years, that the standard with which one judges a later work can be cruelly strict to the point of perverse. Almost like the princess and the pea, you lie on a finely made bed, restless for any bump or shift that can cause discomfort. After all, you know this year’s project probably will not be another Jaws or Raiders so a whole new metric is needed. So you need to justify how far off a film is from those flawless diamonds, a comparison you’d never put the cinema of a lesser director through. And we have his remake of West Side Story. Lavish, the lovingly crafted work of a consumate professional. But also inessential. A few songs are swapped, characters motivations are tweaked. But aside from the prestigious care put into this production there’s very little to qualify it as a necessary remake. Spielberg hardly reinvents the musical genre, the only thing he really adds to the big hits are scale and a hundred extras. The Wise / Robbins original actually seems quite punkish and daring in comparison. And by keeping the setting in the early Sixties, one does wonder who is this for? Even the star, Ansel Engort (not the best singer in the world), had his big teen hit almost eight years ago. His fanbase have outgrown him. Luckily the support cast of unknowns are top notch with Ariana DeBose and particularly Mike Faist standing out. Yet as much as I enjoyed every move Speilberg makes, bedazzled by the polish… I just can’t see a future situation where I choose to watch this over the original. That feels again like an unfair measure but what if Nolan or Villeneuve in their dotage decided to remake Jaws or Raiders and the result wasn’t half as exciting? You’d struggle to recommend such a venture, as I’m struggling with this. Still his staging of (I Want To Live In) America has got the blockbuster goods and there’s nothing on either side of this genuine showstopper you’d dare call boring. This West Side Story is perhaps Spielberg’s most visually stimulating movie since Jurassic Park. The colours pop… but again the palette is a classy, vintage faded homage to the Oscar winning classic’s even more daring use of red, yellows and white we saw back in 1961.

7

Perfect Double Bill: War of the Worlds (2005)

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/

Valdimar Jóhannsson directs Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson in this Icelandic folk horror about a couple who raise a lamb as if it were their own child.

The slow, achingly slow, drip feed of information works wonders here. It is a very simple film… it could be music video and still contain most of the plot developments with time to spare. I thought it was pretty much perfect but do wonder how rewatchable it would be once you know just how pure a dark fairytale it is? It really is just all atmosphere. But as Russ Abbott sang “I love a party with an atmosphere.” An ominous gem.

8

Perfect Double Double: Little Otik (2000)

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/

Johannes Roberts directs Kaya Scodelario, Neal McDonough and Donal Logue in this prequel / reboot to the horror video game adaptation series where a town is taken over by infected monstrosities.

Move over Silent Hill – the best videogame adaptation of all time has arrived. That still is quite faint praise. This prequel certainly isn’t original or often more than competent. There’s some terrible CGI, stringy acting and a meh finale. Yet in the main this apes Carpenter / Cameron / Romero better than most. In fact if you imagined a bastard mix of Assault on Precinct 13 and The Crazies you are pretty much there. Some of the creature design is fantastic, especially the “good monster.” I’d definitely rewatch it if I was channel surfing through telly options late at night. It hits the above average zombie shoot-out standards of say 28 Weeks Later or Overlord. Fun…solid… undemanding… And with some pleasingly macabre bursts.

7

Perfect Double Bill: 30 Days of Night (2007)

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/

Douglas Sirk directs Dorothy Malone, Rock Hudson and Robert Stack in this drama about a makeshift family of stunt fliers whose sexual tension and death wishes mar a New Orleans air show.

Sirk, at the end of his career, stated that “perhaps, after all, Tarnished Angels is my best film”. I’d been inclined to agree. The stark black and white photography is wondrous, capturing both the seedy festivities of The Big Easy and the daredevil thrills of the airshow. Dorothy Malone erupts on the screen as the woman every man desires but only the most uncaring character can have. Hudson plays a strange protagonist, someone who sees an absolute toxic spill of a love triangle and decides he wants to pretend to be a white knight and complicate things even further. I assume a few of his chunkier monologues come from the original William Faulkner novel Pylon. These heavy handed wobbles are the only faults I could see. This has a hot hot heat to it, histrionic yet hypnotic.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Hell’s Angels (1930)

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/

Marc Lawrence directs Anna Kendrick, Bill Hader and Shirley MacLaine in this Christmas movie where Santa’s daughter must track down her brother in the real world after he runs away from inheriting the family birthright.

Anna Kendrick sparkles as the eponymous Noelle, in a kids movie performance that is expertly open yet hides a quality thread of keen self awareness. I don’t think we will challenge Elf, the most obvious inspiration, yet this is far more likely to become a surviving seasonal perennial than Fred Claus or Arthur Christmas. There’s enough unabashed joy and charm here to buoy up the formula. Sometimes simplicity, good production design and a nice smile is all you need when you put the decorations up and want to get in the festive mood.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Santa Claus The Movie (1985)

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/

Warren Beatty directs himself, Al Pacino and Charlie Korsmo in this comic book adaptation about the prohibition era detective who takes on all the grotesque gangsters of his matte background city.

The summer after Warner Bros’ Batman rewrote the blockbuster map, Walt Disney’s Dick Tracy tried to pull the same trick off again with weaker results. Merchandising and marketing was on point in 1990. The tri colour Dick Tracy logo was everywhere and on everything. I had a Dick Tracy official watch, I remember that watch more than the movie. This is a hot mess upon a cautious revisit. It looks eye popping but that’s about all you can say. Beatty’s hero feels a little lost in an oversized but elegant yellow Burberry coat and an inappropriate schmuck’s shrug. I’m sure when Chester Gould created his primary coloured Elliot Ness in the 1930s he never imagined him played with the gormless, spineless tone of the airhead from Shampoo.

A fantastic cast of villains are slathered in prosthetics. I have no real issue with this, it is one of the movie’s long lasting selling points, but there’s so many freaks that you lose track of who is who. Clearly the thinking was if Jack Nicolson could deliver the biggest opening ever as a flamboyant yet deformed villain then imagine what we money we could make with Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman and James Caan and William Forsythe and a dozen more names drowned in pink rubber… There are montages instead of action and moping instead of sleuthing.

Glenne Headley and Madonna are the best things in it as the good girl and bad girl respectively. Though Madge’s revealing costumes make a mockery of the PG certificate. Not that I’m complaining. I just get the feeling once this was storyboarded and cast and Stephen Sondheim agreed to provide a few tunes, Beatty got bored or realised he was above all this. Dick Tracy makes for a very stilted adventure romp, the IMDB trivia proving far more fun than sitting through its unconvincing lurches at being an entertainment.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Darkman (1990)

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/

Wolf Rilla directs Terence Morgan, Yoko Tani and Mai Zetterling in this British thriller where a petty thief seduces an exotic innocent and stumbles onto a big score.

Teatime crime that probably felt quite hardhitting in its day. It takes most of the movie before the heist even dominates the action but the build up is pleasant in its own right. The swindle – involving tunnelling into an embassy vault via the London Underground… makes for a pretty gripping finale. The real location work adds to the atmosphere. Dennis Price and William Hartnell hit their marks perfectly, elevating stock supporting roles.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Strongroom (1962)

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/

Kaneto Shindo directs Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura and Kei Satō in this Japanese folk horror where a mother and daughter-in-law of a missing farmer kill for profit the samurais who get lost in their overgrown fields.

Onibaba translates as “Demon Hag” allegedly. This is a simple, eerie tale – very atmospheric and surprisingly sexed up. The horror is quite real world; starvation, plague, decomposition, loneliness, war. Though the samurai’s mask that has become the keystone image for this classic is quite the spooky piece of iconography. The hole where the bodies is dumped is also such a potently realised location you can see it still echoing throughout J-horror to this day. Nobuko Otowa’s lead performance has to be one of the best pieces of acting in the genre’s history.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Rashomon (1950)

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/

Terry Gilliam directs John Neville, Sarah Polley and Eric Idle in this fantasy adventure where an ageing adventurer, whose very existence is the stuff of tall tales, quests to reassemble his old band of super powered cohorts to rescue a besieged city.

Folly. Whimsy. Bullshit. And at a scale that near bankrupted the production on the first week. There’s lots about this epic extravaganza of the imagination that would never be attempted now in such an ambitious combination: the on-location shoot, the rickety practical FX, the unknown leads, the zig zagging narrative, the period setting. I’m not saying we’ll never see a blockbuster (failed) again with some of these elements but never all together and so defiantly prominently. Gilliam is one of the great visualists, one the greatest agitators of neat plotlines and the uncluttered screen, one of the last true rebels who found his way (uncomfortably) into the studio system. His dreams are chaotic, meaningful, grainy and gargantuan. This has so many fine moments; Robin Williams as the King of the Moon, Uma Thurman emerging PG nude from an oyster shell like a Botticelli Angel, a race against a bullet, a sultan’s torture machine cum musical instrument, the JFK assassination remade in Napoleonic garb, the victor’s grin on the face of Neville’s gonad led titular protagonist. So it can be too hazardous to fully keep track of, and you can notice sequences where the planned scale has been fudged and cut back on by the moneymen… there’s still so much unique wonder on display here you can’t help but be swept along. Meta narratives and full scale battles, stunts and monstrosities. This is a true celluloid beauty, undeserving of its turkey reputation. So…it cost way too much and made hardly anything… Munchausen is the cinematic bastard that dreams are made of.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Time Bandits (1981)

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/