James Glickenhaus directs Robert Ginty, Samantha Eggar and Christopher George in the NYC Vietnam vet vigilante flick.

The one-sheet promised a flame thrower wielding, motorbike helmet flexing, spin on Death Wish and Taxi Driver. The Death Wish comparisons hold up. Half the budget is blown on a Vietnam death camp prologue. Hueys buzz around between plumes of gasoline explosions, Stan Winston pulls off an early decapitation effect. Then the credits! The only way is up once we hit the streets of the Big (rotten) Apple, right? Not really. The first act is confusing. Ginty is such a charisma suck non-presence that it comes as a surprise once he emerges as our psychotic anti-hero. The evil fodder is ghastly and sleazy but short lived. There’s a bike chase but very little flame thrower. Eggar and George are the best things in it. Enjoying their own little completely superfluous side movie. Trash that is inches away from being very entertaining but that dead chubby faced vanilla lead fumbles it.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Exterminator 2 (1984)

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

Yorgos Lanthimos directs Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe in this kinky anthology where the same cast plays different roles in mini dramas that are deadpan power plays about control and desire.

Every world has its flawed god. The first story is cruelly amusing, the second the most provocative and the third drags. Perception plays a huge part in how you relate to each of these and the second story works as it slowly dawns on us that we have been backing the wrong protagonist from the start. Tales Of The Unexpected with flashes of nudity and perversion. How much you are into sad faced fucking and manipulative control is on you. If you loved Lanthimos’ earlier Greek efforts this well made 3 hour indulgence might tickle you more than it did me.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Alps (2011)

Mike Nichols directs Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Jeff Daniels in this drama where a magazine writer marries a cad journalist.

Exactly the type of movie that I would have watched on TV as a kid, not understood and therefore it didn’t gel into the long term memory banks. You see they used to make movies just for adults back then. And us nine year olds just sat through the infidelity and tiffs as the swearing had been dubbed out. The entertainment would have been seeing two great performances, a witty script and some wealth porn. The melodrama is a bit hard faced and it doesn’t help the overall mood of the piece that Jack steals every scene. The reality of the situation is of course he is fucking around. What else are you bringing to bed but a load of neuroses and a big sharer bowl of pasta. Jack had to get his. Fans of Ephron’s later, more magical, rom coms might find this a bit too intellectual and tough skinned. I’m actually not sure it is as smart as it thinks it is.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

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Jonathan Demme directs Juanita Brown, Roberta Collins and Barbara Steele in this women in prison exploitation flick from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures.

Early exploitation Demme that, one or two scenes aside, doesn’t feel all the predatory. The first hour is a grindhouse Orange Is The New Black. The last twenty widens out and amps up the action. All the inmates have quirks and heart. Still fulfils what the dirty mac brigade would have required back then… and at least one of those scenes of sexual threat is quite abrasive. On the whole though… fun.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Big Doll House (1971)

Gary Fleder directs Andy Garcia, Christopher Walken and Gabrielle Anwar in this dark crime ensemble comedy where a slick gangster needs to wrap up his affairs quickly after a mob boss puts a hit out on his crew.

As a teenager this was in heavy rotation on my VCR. A derided flop in the States, I feel (with no real evidence) it was more fondly embraced and financially successful in the UK. Just like Reservoir Dogs was when it banked more cash in its original run over here than across the Atlantic. It has quotable dialogue, quirky characters, easy cool and a hip soundtrack. Now the dust has long since settled and not many (if any) of the kneejerk Tarantino rip-offs have stood the test of time, this stellar cast and hilariously nasty script actually shines brightly. It looks fantastic and moves with a purpose. Garcia is only this in sync with his material in The Godfather III and here. Treat Williams and Walken are outlandishly memorable monstrosities. The living thing is both meta and full of heart. Sheen but breathing. Boat drinks, Jimmy The Saint!

10

Perfect Double Bill: Con Air (1997)

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

Francis Lawrence directs Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson and Mark Hamill in this dystopian road movie where fifty young men take part in a contest of walking endurance; one where 49 of them will be executed when they slow down.

One of Stephen King’s simplest but most haunting novels. Filmed gruesomely. With two of the best young actors out there currently, front and centre and eating up the focus. Horrific in its own cruelly inevitable way but joins Shawshank, Stand By Me and Hearts In Atlantis as one of the superior “non-horror” King adaptations. Surprised this didn’t breakout to a wider audience.

8

Perfect Double Bill: The Running Man (2025)

Cameron Thor directs Justin Lazard, Johnathon Schaech and Moon Unit Zappa in this drama where a group of friends reunite at a mountain retreat only for tragedy to (briefly) interrupt their self centred whining.

Top billed Christina Applegate turns up for three minutes, promptly kills herself by hanging herself with a swing. Then her mates dump her body in the woodshed and carry on with their affairs, pot smoking, arguments, pranks and blah blah blah. There are flashbacks to a sexual assault and both Molly Ringwald and Paul Gleeson are in it. Every other scene is smothered in some horrible dirge-y singer songwriter crap. Might just be the worst movie I have seen. The Big Nil.

1

Perfect Double Bill: The Room (2003)

You can follow me on Letterboxd here https://letterboxd.com/ValVerdeNights/

Chris Nahon directs Jet Li, Bridget Fonda and Tchéky Karyo in this French martial arts actioner where a Taiwanese cop is framed by some Parisian ACABs.

Li’s best stunt work in a western production, he shines when he is wordlessly in motion, taking down all of France with a picture postcard backdrop. Fonda is served up a doozy of a role as… deep breath… a junky whore farm girl white slave with a heart of gold and a kidnapped daughter. This is very much made through the prism of what producer Luc Besson feels both ‘cool’ and ‘femininity’ are. A wayward mess but satisfyingly packaged. Saturday night takeaway.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Unleashed (2005)

Jack Clayton directs Deborah Kerr, Megs Jenkins and Michael Redgrave in this classic psychological horror where a young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.

Lovely, gorgeous repressed Deborah Kerr becomes convinced her two wards are possessed by a horny dead couple. We have menacing creepy and wholly untrustworthy kids. Shadowy figures in the distance. Sleepless night. Paranoia. Doubting servants. Wandering a labyrinth of a country house with nothing the tenuous light of your candelabra. Histrionic and diaphanous. Nightie-tastic.

8

Perfect Double Bill: The Others (2001)

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

Gerd Oswald directs Robert Wagner, Virginia Leith and Joanne Woodward in this thriller where a ruthless college student resorts to murder in an attempt to marry an heiress.

Such a strange movie for its decade. The opening credits suggest it is going to be a Blake Edwards style Technicolor caper comedy. Jazzy, cartoonish. Then we spend the first half in Robert Wagner’s headspace as he tries to kill his pregnant girlfriend while executing the “perfect murder”. That has obvious frisson if you know the star’s infamous future. It all seems indebted / to be lampooning the moral anguish of A Place In The Sun. No such ethical qualms here though. The second half opens up. But there are at least three set pieces that Hitch would give up a year of his foie gras for. It just is so obtusely uneven and eerie. I’m not entirely sure all that is intentional. Seems to exist to be one of those half remembered out of time movies where that happened and then that happened… AND THEN THAT HAPPENED!

7

Perfect Double Bill: Dial M For Murder (1954)