Neil LaBute directs Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington in this belated yuppies in peril thriller about a mixed race couple who move in next door to a bullying cop who objects to their very existence.

For the first 90 minutes this proves a gripping enough if unoriginal potboiler. Powered by a decent villian turn from Samuel L Jackson (the role suits him rather than stretches him) and a dark satirical take, it threatens to transcend its debt to 1992’s Unlawful Entry. Then in the last 20 minutes things unravel to the dampest ending imaginable. Hollywood fantasy yet awkwardly cliched. Shame, as there is a point where it looks like Jackson’s manipulative tyrant might actually get away with his abuse of the neighbours…  and they may end up misguidedly appreciating him. Surely, that would have proved a far more disturbing conclusion? We’ll never know. Beyond all the forced threat and unbelievable resolution, one does have to wonder how in need we were of a racist black man in authority antagonist to be the centrepiece of a mainstream studio release. We haven’t had nearly enough prejudiced white patrol cops lacerated and demonised in the same way yet.

5

Daniel Lindsay and T. J. Martin direct Rodney King, Daryl Gates and Stacey Koon in this collage documentary of news footage and home video depicting the causes and incidents of the LA riots. 

A very powerful motion scrapbook, creating a damning mosaic of what exactly happened in Los Angeles after the beating of Rodney King, the murder of Latasha Harlins and the provocative court decisions that followed these crimes in quick succession. In all honesty, the expansive O.J.: Made in America mini-series explores Police Chief Daryl Gates’ fascistic running of the LAPD and his controversial, black community persecuting CRASH policy with more depth and room. Undoubtedly these were the fuels that burned LA and the controversial verdicts of two high profile court cases in quick succession were the ignition. But the savagery depicted in the riots is genuinely unnerving even 25 years later. Crips and Bloods joining forces, years of gang brutality being mobilised against non-black citizens and businesses. The chaos on the corner of Florence and Normandie, where mobs of youths inflicted recreations of what happened to Rodney King on passing white motorists. The haunting image of truck driver, Reginald Denny, stripped and spray painted black, left for dead after a vicious mass stomping. A disturbed man casually walking the streets, setting light to every tree he passes, no one stopping him. The anguish of small business owners left to defend or pick through the rubble of their American dreams. The sight of the LAPD and the National Guard standing back for days, letting the poor areas eat themselves up before moving in – Incompetency? Or a statement? The documentary never comments through narration or talking heads or title cards, though obviously chooses what footage to include and what to juxtapose it with. It makes for a traumatising history. One that puts films like Falling Down, Trespass and even Do The Right Thing in a prophetic context. One that visually informs The Purge films with their increasingly ‘woke’ power.

8

King Hu directs Cheng Pei-pei, Yueh Hua and Chan Hung-lit in the Kung-Fu epic about a female enforcer called Golden Swallow who has to rescue a general’s son from a bandit gang. 

Typical Shaw Brothers product. The fights are more graceful (Cheng Pei-pei’s background was in ballet) than violent, the framing of the impressive location work goes for a romantic beauty rather than a mere playground for stunts. Both aims are admirable but after a while I found myself drifting away from the story scenes… was this aimlessness my fault or the movie’s? Then the final 10 minutes focuses on the boys fighting even though there is no reason in the plot for Golden Swallow to be sidelined. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Come Drink With Me but I struggled to engage with it. Considering its high reputation within the genre that feels like a failure to me.

5

Nicholas Meyer directs Malcolm McDowell, David Warner and Mary Steenburgen in this time twisting romantic thriller where H.G. Wells uses his time machine to chase Jack the Ripper into the future.

A neat little film, using Disney-fied special effects of the time, to play about in a lot of genres. We get a psycho thriller that owes more to Holmes and Moriarty, as Wells tracks down his nemesis. The Zodiac killer is even mentioned and that doesn’t feel gratuitous. You get a subtle fish-out-of-water comedy as the stuffy yet game Wells (McDowell playing against type – heroic and restrained) experiences McDonalds, escalators and seventies fashions. And a very affecting romance as our anachronistic protagonist falls for a modern feminist bank worker. He and Steenburgen have a palpable chemistry, their instant attraction is believable and her life becoming part of the deadly cat and mouse game ups the stakes surprisingly in the final act. It is a film that has the weave and heft of a teatime family adventure yet the daring and grit of an adult entertainment. And while this might have made it a tough sell oddity at time of release, in now feels like a oddity worthy of mass rediscovery. If only for the sight of the always sinister Warner taking to coke and disco era San Francisco with denim clad relish.

8

 

William Friedkin directs Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer and Francisco Rabal in this New Hollywood remake of The Wages Of Fear. 

Where have you been all my life? Remaking a stone cold classic is folly… it almost never works. But this joins Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Magnificent Seven as an attempt to modernise a great movie that actually succeeds as an improvement as well as an update. Fucking alchemy, turning gold to diamonds. Not that it was considered any kind of success on release. Second only to Heaven’s Gate as a death blow to quality adult American cinema. These indulgent, overrunning costly auteur productions of the late seventies got directorial freedom permanently revoked from the mavericks whom Hollywood had rewardingly gambled on for a decade. The budget for Sorcerer grew and grew and grew. And what did Paramount and Universal get for backing the wunderkind behind The French Connection and The Exorcist? A dour, grimy, sweaty, pessimistic tale of doomed middle aged men shipwrecked by geopolitics. Mainly subtitled. And opening up the same month as Star Wars tore up the box office. Oof! The first I heard of it was in Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. His account of the troubled production and fatal release focused on the hubris of making a film like Sorcerer. He neglected to mention just how intensely fantastic this overwhelming experience is. Friedkin adds bookends to the main narrative. Giving us four convulsive mini-thrillers to introduce us to the desperate drivers. Letting us know just how they found themselves cornered in the middle of nowhere. Then we get the practicality and economics of expendable men driving temperamental nitro-glycerin over unforgiving terrain. Like the original, the action is just as gripping but we see constant critical glimpses of the destruction and displacement that the corporate machine has inflicted on this treacherous paradise and naive people. Every rattle, gunshot and rock crack spells death. We go existential. Tangerine Dream’s synth score caresses us and gives voice to our wailing dread. Even the happy ending is brutal. Realistic adventure. Wry political comment. Dangerous filmmaking. An immersive masterpiece.

10

 

Johannes Roberts directs Bailee Madison, Christina Hendricks and Martin Henderson in this belated slasher sequel set in an (almost) deserted trailer park.

It is like Scream never happened. Fog and neon dominate. A well selected 80s jukebox soundtrack. Lots of creepy lingering and geysers of blood. A finale that ends on a referential, deferential high. But it takes a long time to get going for a slight 80 minute movie. And there aren’t enough victims or sensible decisions to elevate it out of being a faithful delivery system for merely adequate thrills. An average slasher but still a million times better somehow than the recent Truth or Dare’s anaemic grind.

6

José Padilha directs Rosamund Pike, Daniel Brühl and Eddie Marsan in this dramatic recreation of the hijack, hostage situation and rescue mission that happened in 1976.

Entebbe is hamstrung slightly by the fact it is a dedicated recreation of a true story that involves six days of waiting about in a derelict airport terminal and an action sequence that lasted all of three minutes in reality. But it is a fascinating, ethically complex moment in recent international history. And Brühl and Pike (always watchable leads) make for sexy, sexy freedom fighters. “I want throw bombs into the consciousness of the masses!” My manhole is wet. Buttons popping from brown beige blouses as the plane is taken. PHWOAR! Day of the Jackal for horny Guardian readers.

7

Paul Schrader directs Nicolas Cage, Anton Yelchin and Alexander Karim in this espionage drama about a CIA legend, with a deteriorating brain, tracking down his long-lost nemesis. 

This was allegedly taken off Schrader in post production  by the producers and blanded down from an immersive drama to a DTV potboiler. Plot-wise this certainly has potential and ambition beyond being a poor man’s Taken but the end product comes across as flat, cheap and standard. A waste of Yelchin and a shame for Cage.

3

Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie directs Aaron Poole, Kenneth Welsh and Kathleen Munroe in this gory body horror about a hospital under siege from a satanic death cult. 

Why so serious? The Void takes infrequent but winning swings at Hellraiser and The Thing and Assault on Precinct 13 … AND HOLY SHIT KIDS THIS MUTHAFUCKER MUST BE A NEW LATE NIGHT CLASSIC!!! Great inspiration aside, this isn’t. The acting is way too wobbly, the pacing meandering and the ending unsatisfactory. There’s no need for anyone to survive if we have no investment in the minor characters that do. It clearly is an experience that was designed to be a cool trailer first… a feature length experience a distant second. But when those gloopy, excessive, iconic, grotesque VFX shots do rear their gorgeously pulsating heads… God, are they good. An overly serious pastiche, a love letter to a lost genre from the dullest nerds. I’d watch this again for the visceral bursts of freakish mutancy. Possibly even on mute with a nice Zombie Zombie or Godspeed You! Black Emperor vinyl on my turntable.

7

My Top 10 Body Horrors

1. Alien (1979)
2. John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982)
3. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
4. Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987)

5. Freaks (1932)
6. Prometheus (2012)
7. The Exorcist (1973)
8. Re-Animator (1985)
9. The Fly (1986)
10. The Neon Demon (2015)

 

John Woo directs Zhang Hanyu, Ha Ji-Won and Masaharu Fukuyama in this Chinese action thriller about a corporate lawyer framed by his pharmaceutical company who have assassins and corrupt cops on their payroll. 

Sentimental flashback. Doves gracefully darting around a shootout. Antagonists respecting each other and teaming up. I guess John Woo is back doing what he does best. It is very convoluted (another hallmark of Heroic Bloodshed era) and tongue in cheek. A little too parodic – one thing that marked The Killer and Bullet in the Head out was their unguarded sincerity. Equally the action is a little unsustained. It comes in short chaotic, often forced, bursts. Only a motorbike siege on a country house reaches a prolonged sense of kinetic mania. Neat but really not a patch on the Eighties classics it tries to revive. Was Chow Yun-Fat busy?

5