David Robert Mitchell directs Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist and Olivia Luccardi in this supernatural horror where a stalking curse that can take any human form is sexually transmitted to a suburban girl.

The most original, and certainly the most effective, horror of the last decade. Announced David Robert Mitchell as a major talent and then nobody watched his sprawling, eerie Under The Silver Lake and we haven’t heard a peep from him since. Very Lynchian – even though it delivers traditional shocks and tension too. The bleak romantic, horny yearning atmosphere of it really needles at you between the set pieces. There’s something significant being said here about sex and mortality, trust and intimacy. Maika Monroe is the only Scream Queen to rival Jamie Lee Curtis in terms of looks, acting ability, charisma and choice of projects. It doesn’t get much better than this. Disasterpeace soundtrack = chef’s kiss. No idea what the seashell kindle / torch one of the backing character’s use is?

9

Perfect Double Bill: Watcher (2022)

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

Alfred Hitchcock directs Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason in this espionage thriller where an advertising executive is mistaken for a spy who doesn’t really exist and nobody who is chasing him will believe he isn’t the spook.

The first action comedy? Strange to think this came out 3 years before a big screen 007 was made. It feels fully informed by what was to come, almost a spoof of something that doesn’t quite yet exist. Grant is sauve and vulnerable in fascinating ways. It does feel like his whole star persona is being put through the ringer, not just his Roger O Thornhill character. Eva Marie Saint feels a bit more polished than other Hitchcock blondes, even Princess Grace of Monaco, genuinely sophisticated. North by Northwest probably is 30 minutes overlong but I’m not sure what I’d cut. It is a movie where each sequence improves on the last and I wouldn’t risk that momentum. The lengthy teasingly frank train journey ‘meet cute’ between Grant and Saint has as many fireworks as assassination attempts, crop duster hits and monument clambers. As much a vibe as a cohesive experience, North By Northwest is Hitch at his most generous and playful.

9

Perfect Double Bill: Charade (1963)

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/

Brian Gibson directs Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne and Vanessa Bell Calloway in this music biopic about the abusive marriage between Tina and Ike Turner.

Pretty powerful acting… and avoids the pitfalls of most rock life story hack jobs by having a compelling central story that defines the narrative.

7

Perfect Double Bill: How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998)

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

Jamie Blanks directs Denise Richards, David Boreanaz and Marley Shelton in this slasher where five mean girls are stalked by the boy they humiliated at a high school dance over a decade ago.

The closest Hollywood has ever gotten to replicating a giallo. That doesn’t mean it is particularly good or even competent. Two of the kills scratch an itch and the fact that everyone is an utter dick is kinda sweet. If I was casting Valentine from a pool of 2001 C-listers I could still replace everyone except Marley Shelton a dozen times over and find an improvement. Would it have rocked with Rose McGowan and Joshua Jackson or Tara Reid and Luke Wilson? Not much more. But, cleavage excluded, Katherine Heigl will never be an adequate substitute for Drew Barrymore.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Urban Legends (1998)

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/

Peter Weir directs Jeff Bridges, Isabella Rossellini and Rosie Perez in this allegorical drama where a man who survives an air crash keeps putting his life at risk to escape his PTSD.

Again… a formative movie. One of those adult movies that really broadened my horizons as a teenager. Got me into Weir. Got me into Bridges. It is both weighty and fuzzy, psychologically sophisticated but narratively simple. The ensemble is excellent, Allen Daviau’s on location cinematography is crisp and bold. Obviously the stand-out sequence is the plane crash, used as an interrupting framing device, threaded throughout the movie. But there’s also spiritual redemption, Christ metaphors, people resetting their personalities and rewriting their personal histories for prosaic reasons. In many respects this feel like the TV show’s Lost serious, more grounded elder brother. And Lost isn’t a dirty word in my house.

9

Perfect Double Bill: The Truman Show (1998)

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

Rob Savage directs Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina and Vivien Lyra Blair in this adaptation of a Stephen King horror story about a grieving family who let something creepy into their poorly lit home.

Yellowjackets breakout Thatcher is fine in this dour and unremarkable massmarket horror. It is just a bit too glum and familiar to be remembered in six months time. Even if it does everything right in terms of atmosphere while you are watching. David Dastmalchian and Marin Ireland have small yet showy roles and the movie spikes whenever either are on screen.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Babadook (2014)

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/

Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson direct Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld and Brian Tyree Henry in this sequel where Miles Morales discovers he is not welcome in a secret society of multiverse saving Spider-people.

Miles Morales is my Spider-Man. I still buy the comics and he’s the only Marvel character I’m currently loyal too. This looks glorious. Tri-colour, retina overkill. There’s a lot of movie here, at its best with the physics defying action sequences. Almost too much in length, I felt my mind having little time out pit stops in the slightly less frenetic emotional parts. It isn’t quite as tight as the miraculous first entry but as summer blockbusters go Across proves top value.

8

Perfect Double Bill: Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse (2024)

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

Martin Brest directs Al Pacino, Chris O’Donnell and Gabrielle Anwar in this drama where a prep school student looks after an suicidal blind man who whisks him off to New York for one last weekend of pleasures.

“Women! What can you say? Who made ’em? God must have been a fuckin’ genius. The hair… They say the hair is everything, you know. Have you ever buried your nose in a mountain of curls… just wanted to go to sleep forever? Or lips… and when they touched, yours were like… that first swallow of wine… after you just crossed the desert. Tits. Hoo-ah! Big ones, little ones, nipples staring right out at ya, like secret searchlights. Mmm. Legs. I don’t care if they’re Greek columns… or secondhand Steinways. What’s between ’em… passport to heaven. I need a drink. Yes, Mr Sims, there’s only two syllables in this whole wide world worth hearing: pussy. Hah! Are you listenin’ to me, son? I’m givin’ ya pearls here.”

Birth of the Hoo-Ha! Actually everything Pacino does is perfect. OTT but utterly entertaining. Ham and cheese, Oscar gold. The movie is about an hour longer than it needs to be – loose with silly stuff and scenes that revisit old ground. Brest isn’t entirely sure what tone to go for from one scene to the next. Do we really care about the prep school ethics trial that bookends all the meat? Yet let blind Al tango, let him call a toddler ‘a piece of tail’ or let drive a Ferrari and I’m all in. A guilty pleasure.

7

Perfect Double Bill: The Devil’s Advocate (1997)

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/

Jean Renoir directs Sylvia Bataille, Jane Marken and Georges D’Arnoux in this French comedy where a two horny rogues disrupt a family daytrip so they can get the women of the family to themselves.

An incomplete film that actually works fine in its assembled state. You get the ultimate point, there’s minimal fat and it doesn’t outstay its welcome. The pastoral satire is fun, especially the attention to detail.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932)

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

Jacques Audiard directs Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup and Adel Bencherif in this French prison drama where a bottom-of-the-food-chain Algerian boy slowly climbs up the crime pecking order through cunning and patience.

This blew me away at the cinema on original release. Gritty with moments of fantasy metaphor. Well acted but never sacrificing its tension by forcing a flashy monologue. The progression of Rahim’s Malik is gentle and fraught with risk. The position he finds himself at by the end seems quite fantastical considering he was an illiterate without ‘country’ who the lower punks beat up for his shitty trainers in the opening moments. Yet his sly climb to safety is credible, with impactful small scale bursts of shocking violence. You feel his soul be challenged, pruned, nourished and strengthened by surviving the prison system. Even his little bit of second act wealth and power initially (believably) goes on porn, prostitutes and PlayStation yet eventually begins to be invested into quite a wholesome, respectable future outside. A long movie that earns every moment.

9

Perfect Double Bill: Dheepan (2015)

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/