Guillermo del Toro directs Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth in this big budget adaptation of the horror classic.

Solid… if a little underwhelming considering Mary Shelley’s classic text is the keystone in everything Del Toro has ever put up out there on screen. The production design is fully committed but there is a deadening digital flatness. If this was shot solely with cinemas in mind it might be the closest we have got Coppola’s Dracula. Issac is having rare fantastic fun as the mad scientist but positioned to often as a pitiable figure. Just let him be a cunt! Goth and Christopher Waltz are also perfectly cast… which given their lack of screen time in the second half is galling. The movie’s grip slackens after the monster is re-animated. Classy but not very compelling. Is a study in bad parenting the best hook for this iconic tale? And for Del Toro ultimately well trodden ground. This was my birthday night out movie.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Mary Shelley (2017)

Franco Zeffirelli directs Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Michael York in this Shakespeare adaptation.

Sumptuous production design. Bawdy and chaotic. Both Burton and Taylor literally wreck every set they are in. It is hard to follow the dialogue or the narrative but who cares as they kick down doors and smash through windows while glaring at each other? Wrecking ball cinema.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Kiss Me Kate (1953)

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

Mario Bava directs Daliah Lavi, Christopher Lee and Jacques Herlin in this gothic chiller from Italy.

A sadistic nobleman’s ghost goes on an BDSM rampage, and possibly kills a few others too, in a big stone castle. Didn’t follow the whodunnit story but it looks lovely. I like the sickly, garish kaleidoscope of primary colours Bava bathes his chesty beauties in. Is that enough for me to fall head first for this auteur? It hasn’t happened yet. Hints of Edgar Allen Poe and too much wandering down the same staircase.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Black Sabbath (1963)

Michelle Garza Cervera directs Maika Monroe, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Raúl Castillo in this remake of the yuppie in peril / nanny from hell Nineties mainstay.

Monroe Vs Winstead. Take my money. And Winstead just about wins in the diva off. She absolutely falls apart. Two of my 21st century faves take on this childhood relic. Exactly the right sort of material to rehash. The 90s potboiler was no big shakes. It almost made Rebecca DeMornay an A-lister and still fills a Saturday night in an undemanding way for Gen X-ers. This version is probably on a par. It is less transgressive but overtly sexier and mysterious. Though the third act revelations do suggest that we might have been rooting for the wrong bisexual scream queen after all. “That woman deserves her revenge.”- Budd, Kill Bill Ends on a whimper. You can’t help but worry that MEW’s blank of a husband never once take her side. What a dick! Though she did refuse to buy his pasta sauce for him at the farmer’s market so maybe revenge is a healthier dish best served cold? Slick… slicker but not an actual improvement.

5

Perfect Double Bill: The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)

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Joe Lynch directs Heather Graham, Barbara Crampton and Judah Lewis in this Lovecraftian horror where a psychiatrist becomes obsessed with one of her young patients, who she later discovers is linked to an ancient curse.

Body swap horniness. A strange brew that mixes Stuart Gordon’s Eighties aesthetic (morgues, necronomicons) with a Nineties erotic thriller (staid mental health professionals growing obsessed with their hot young clients). There are even a couple Hitchcockian tumbles from a great height. This doesn’t have the best reputation online due to an indie cheapness but I actually really got into it. Not all the cast are as good as Graham and Crampton but those two legends go all in. And look great while doing it.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Mayhem (2017)

Kevin S. Tenney directs Amelia Kinkade, Cathy Podewell and Linnea Quigley in this horror where teens takeover a deserted mansion for a Halloween party and… eventually… are possessed by hellspawn.

One I was too scared to borrow from my local VHS rental shop. Takes FOREVER for the horror to start and meanwhile you are trapped with some very annoying stereotypes. And when the demonic stuff does kick off it is mainly running up and down the same corridor for twenty minutes. Good FX for the era and the two female demons are giving it everything.,

4

Perfect Double Bill: Night Of The Demons II (1994)

Roy Andersson directs Lars Nordh, Stefan Larsson and Bengt C.W. Carlsson in this Swedish art house darling.

Eerie beard scratcher. The first joyless sketch carousel of drab apocalyptic mundanity.

5

Perfect Double Bill: About Endlessness (2019)

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

Doug Liman directs Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor McGregor and Daniela Melchior in this remake of the “shitkicker bar gets cleaned up by a zen bouncer” trash classic.

The story is the same, the attitude is all different. Very little “de-escalation”. Gyllenhaal might be ripped but he is miscast… he comes across like Ferris Bueller on steroids rather than a man who can handle himself. That is creepy. The fights contain too many CGI stunts, the plot overly laborious. It is almost unwatchable digital-shit until Conor McGregor turns up butt first. He can’t act… he almost aggressively can’t act… and that proves utterly compelling. Road Hash becomes very enjoyable in the second half for all the wrong reasons. People will write dissertations about this one in the future.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Accountant 2 (2025)

William Wyler directs Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall and James Stephenson in this courtroom drama where a rubber plantation manager’s wife kills a man in cold blood on her doorstep.

Sultry, steamy orientalism. Then Bette steps out her front door and unloads a whole revolver into some faceless guy. We are only two minutes in. Butter wouldn’t melt once the gun cools down. Her defence is good, until it isn’t… and then the drama begins. Almost gothic opera for the final sequence. Gorgeous looking old classic.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Mr. Skeffinton (1944)

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Toyoo Ashida directs Kaneto Shiozawa, Michie Tomizawa and Seizō Katō in this Japanese anime where a half vampire hunts the demonic count who has bitten a local beauty.

Super simple. Which is what I want from a hand drawn cartoon with titties, gore and monstrosities. I want it to feel like a Saturday morning kids cartoon but… y’know… for adults. This horror western is neat mixture of Leone and Stan Winston. Very entertaining, the right shade of illicit.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Urotsukidōji: Legend of the Overfiend (1987)