Wes Craven directs Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp and Johnny Depp in this classic VHS-era horror where if you fall asleep Freddy gets you.

Best watched near the edge of exhaustion. Shifting reality-scapes, unpredictable dream logic and truly surreal nightmare fuel. It feels like an exploitation flick grafted on to a fairy tale, a suburban satire that has become overgrown and baroque. The ceiling evisceration. The bath time nap into oblivion. The phone tongue. All are as much symbolic rapes as they are mystical murders. Englund plays this Fred Krueger seriously, he’s nasty in looks and unpredictable. His toying with his teen prey is there to up the fear factor rather than is played for cheap gags. Who knows where the franchise might be long term if they held on this harder iteration of the boogeyman? Obviously first timer Johnny Depp keeps catching the eye… but I have a big old, long-held soft spot for Heather Langenkamp. She might not be RADA trainer or Playboy material but she has a medieval princess look transposed into a mallrats wardrobe. And her character enthusiastically embraces being THE FINAL GIRL trope, constantly sleuthing to figure out Freddy’s weaknesses and then going full blown domestic Rambo when it comes to taking him down. A horror classic.

9

Perfect Double Bill: Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)

My wife and I 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/

Robert Rodriquez directs Ben Affleck, Alice Braga and William Fichtner in this mind bending chase movie where a cop tries to stop a hypnotist who makes innocent citizen rob banks and is somehow involved in the kidnapping of the hero’s daughter.

Robert Rodriquez’s first boring movie. Quite surface level ambitious but feels limited by budget and lack of originality. There are big world changing twists at the start of both the second and the third act… none of which will surprise you massively. I definitely preferred it when it was just a frazzled cop versus a spooky master criminal crime flick, to be honest. Rebel Rodriquez score at least pumps a bit of thrust into the proceedings.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Paycheck (2003)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Rob Marshall directs Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King and Melissa McCarthy in this live action remake of the Disney Renaissance classic.

Ugh. Swings between ugly and murky digital miasma to faded Fatface high street surf shack tones. The one highlight is Kiss The Girl… you could say Under The Sea matches the energy of the original number but the anatomical sea life dancing chorus is nightmarishly Cronenberg-esque. The leads are bland, pretty… Bailey has decent set of pipes on her. Melissa McCarthy is well cast but smothered by some of the worst CGI animation to find its way into a wide release recently. Javier Bardem is comically intense, especially when he has to stand still in a water tank, glowering damply, for two extraneous epilogues. All the extra plot bobbins added, add nothing. I don’t want to be part of this world.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Beauty And The Beast (2017)

My wife and I 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/

Joseph Kosinski directs Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde in this belated sequel to the rebellion inside a video game cult favourite.

Perfect surfaces glide towards nothing slowly. Cod-philosophical exposition. Daft Punk score. Olivia Wilde looks nice. There’s very little here to cling onto. Like the original if you’ve seen the trailer you’ve already gotten all of what the full length experience had to offer. Boring.

3

Perfect Double Bill: Tron (1982)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Michael Caton-Jones directs John Hurt, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer and Bridget Fonda in this British dramatisation of The Profumo Affair where a British MP and possible Russian spy were revealed to be sleeping with the same model.

This made a big impact on release when I was young. Like most mainstream movies that dabble in sex it couldn’t possible live up to its horny reputation. Sure, there are a dozen nude extras and unconvincing body doubles but it is hardly Showgirls. What the movie does get right is the seedy atmosphere of underground London circa the early Sixties. A world where the rich and powerful indulge their illicit whims behind closed doors and in their secluded country houses. You can tell the establishment is due for a nasty shock, their hypocritical apple cart is ripe to be upturned. Yet the two key characters caught at the centre of the eventual storm, Hurt’s Stephen Ward and Whalley-Kilmer’s Keeler, remain enigmatic. You never know what their true motivations are. Making their decisions, appetites and martyrdom a little inert over three acts. Blaming the whole tabloid furore that brought down a government on them is unfair. But the injustice never really kicks in to life. It all feels a bit procedural… and very sad.

5

Perfect Double Bill: The Look Of Love (2013)

My wife and I 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/

Nicholas Ray directs Maureen O’Hara, Gloria Grahame and Melvyn Douglas in this mystery where a singer shoots herself yet her manager tells the police she did the deed… flashbacks ensue.

It might not be the most memorable film ever… kinda soapy noir… but with these top drawer leading ladies it proves a solid one-watcher.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool (2017)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Carl Franklin directs Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman and Jim Caviezel in this courtroom thriller where a tough lawyer realises she doesn’t know her husband all that well when she has to defend him for war crimes.

As a movie this doesn’t work – Judd and Caviezel are too bland to care about and their characters are as about as consistent as jelly with bacon bits in it. But it is an airport novel courtroom thriller, no matter how garbled, no matter how slick looking… I like that party. AND the support cast of Freeman, Amanda Peet and Adam Scott are bringing it big time. So not a complete write-off.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Double Jeopardy (1999)

My wife and I 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/

John Hough directs Bette Davis, Christopher Lee and Kim Richards in this Disney sequel where those alien good kids visit L.A. – Tia joins a gangs of cute rough boys and Tony gets kidnapped by a mad scientist and his benefactor.

Full of cheesy SFX and broad, gentle humour. The kinda movie that was in heavy rotation at holiday camps and kids clubs on rainy days when I was a lad. Finds time for a comedy goat and a timely nuclear meltdown finale. Held up better than I expected.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Escape To Witch Mountain (1975)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/

Dean Semler directs Howie Long, Scott Glenn and William Forsythe in this forest fire action flick.

Hard Rain meets Backdraft. William Forsythe’s enjoyable evil, overly capable villain breaks out prison using a forest fire as his cover to disappear. Howie Long (who played American football and was unmemorable as one of John Travolta’s goons in Broken Arrow) makes his failed bid to be the next Steven Seagal. Rote dialogue, coy action, sloppy edits. Firestorm makes good on very little that it sets up and is far too orange thoughout. Has the colour palette of an Outspan and all the thrills of peeling one.

2

Perfect Double Bill: The Taking Of Beverly Hills (1991)

My wife and I 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/

Henry King and Otto Lang direct Jennifer Jones, William Holden and Torin Thatcher in this Hong Kong set romance based on the true story of a biracial doctor who finds neither the European or Chinese cultures accept her when she begins an affair with a married American journalist.

Tough one this. A very handsomely assembled big studio slice of orientalism. What must have felt like quite a progressive discourse on race at the time now feels utterly inept. The casting of Oklahoma born white bread Jones (who is very capable in the lead in every other respect) as a Eurasian completely fails to modern eyes. And considering this as a film where the protagonist’s racial status affects every interaction, story development and emotion… nah… it just can’t work.

4

Perfect Double Bill: Beat The Devil (1953)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/