John Carpenter directs Roddy Piper, Keith David and Meg Foster in this cult paranoid thriller about a drifter who discovers aliens walk secretly among us and probably vote Republican.

A bubblegum movie that sits better in your memory banks than on your flatscreen. There are the illicit thrills of the tongue in cheek 10 minute long alley fight, the occasional inspired line and the world as seen through the bullshit filtering Ray Bans but all in, this is Carpenter noticeably on the wane. The acting just about pasts muster (Kurt Russell is a noticeable loss), the plotting almost obnoxiously weak, it is as loose as a motherfucker, and the aliens, once revealed, appear no tangible threat apart from in their competitive, inflitrating politics. A great reputation for a merely good, albeit silly, albeit prescient movie.

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Gavin O’Connor directs Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal and J.K. Simmons in this thriller about a highly functioning autistic who takes to looking into some very bad peoples’ ledgers. 

About midway through The Accountant I figured out everything that would occur, and also exactly what it is. There is a flashback heavy scene of exposition that occurs between two subsidiary characters at the 90 minute point that had the length and heft and taste of an Issue 5 in a comic book series. An issue where traditionally we get a self contained subplot that also manages to fill in a lot of the blanks of the main character’s mysteries.  I’m not the first person to realise that The Accountant is a low fantasy superhero origin story… but more importantly it is, in every fibre of its very being, a comic book movie. I should love it then, right? But it is a comic book movie with a need for every image and idea and wrinkle introduced in the first half of the plot to find a fitting home in the second. Every column must add up to an end sum, every piece of the jigsaw (a fitting metaphor considering our protagonist is first introduced completing one) must slot together to form a neat square. Too neat to enjoy once you twig that is the goal, to show off, to Sixth Sense you. Coincidence becomes cliche. Formal issues… and they are difficult to overlook… aside we get strong performances from a starry cast and glossy, kinetic violence that satisfies, but too often in the second half, grip gave way to audible chuckle as an entire cinema screen realised another misshapen piece had popped in perfectly. I even feel those laughs are intentional… but I came for a thrill ride a la Bourne or John Wick, not a screenwriting Rubik’s cube. An efficient  actioner about an emotionally closed off individual has early moments where it truly connects, until you realise just how grindingly mechanical the manipulations are. An enjoyable enough shame.

6

John Sturges directs Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall in this fictional World War II flick about a Nazi mission to kidnap Churchill on English soil. 

Lazy direction from retiring journeyman master Sturges almost hobbles this taut and surpringly romantic fantasy war thriller but luckily New Hollywood star power wins through. Sutherland and Duvall shining brightly in particular as an IRA inflitatrator with the soul of a poet and the man with a plan respectively. The tricky situation of encouraging an audience into backing the baddies is sensitively handled, all our protagonists seemingly take on the impossible mission to avoid doing more troubling Nazi work, and by the end, by God, do you almost wish they make it. No mean feat considering weighty real life tragedies this daftly light boy’s own adventure is constructed around. So it is no The Great Escape or Attack! this last hurrah for the blockbuster ensemble war movie hits a spot no longer catered for. Unless Nolan’s upcoming Dunkirk proves incredibly cheerier and much more triumphant than anticipated.

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Ronald Neame directs Michael Caine, Shirley MacLaine and Herbert Lom in this romantic crime caper centering around a lookalike for rich art collector’s lost wife. 

This colourful little timewaster coasts along on star power (Caine is particularly glowing) and smart narrative tricks. The opening swindle (on us the audience it transpires) is an expert bit of storytelling and the final “job” has a killer punchline – one of the best visual gags in movie history. Everything else could move a little quicker or hit a little harder but all in all Gambit proves still a lovely, relaxed method to steal away an afternoon.

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Peter Sykes directs Christopher Lee, Richard Widmark and Nastassja Kinski in this tale of a teenage nun raised by satanists who comes under the care of an occult fiction writer. 

A poor man’s The Omen / The Exorcist that twiddles it thumbs cheaply, mainly in Widmark’s Docklands flat, then ends abruptly with no distinct resolution. Clearly the budget dried up early on in the production.  A top to bottom (in more ways than one for Christopher Lee and an underage Kinski) excellent cast muddle through to make it watchable. You cannot have this much talent floating about on screen and not get a few moments of quality… Scares, on the other hand, are off the menu today.

4

The Pang Brothers direct Kristen Stewart, John Corbett and  Dylan McDermott in this haunted farmhouse horror. 

Standard product. Some good overcranked appearances from the ghosts and a pretty cast keep this acceptably glossy and nice to look at, just adequately enough while you wait patiently for the twist to explain all the turfed-up mysteries. When it comes along you’ll nod gently to yourself and think “Ah yes, of course… that one.”

3

Dario Argento directs Jessica Harper, Joan Bennett and Alidi Valli in this full fat horror about a German ballet school that is a front for a murderous coven. 

Sensory overload hits as a near constant amped up Goblins soundtrack (“wiTCH! wiTCH! wiTCH!”), blinding primary colour schemes and fiendishly OTT tortures are bombarded at you for 100 minutes. You will eventually submit to Suspiria’s garish and deafening charms enough to appreciate the experimental mastery on display but it is never a comfortable experience. A real hot curry of a movie, not exactly pleasurable to work through but the heat and flavour stay with you in a unique way long after.

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Bernard Rose directs Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd and Xander Berkeley in this modern gothic tale of an urban legend that proves hauntingly real. 

Released during the deepest ebb between horror cycles, Candyman got lumped in with careless cash-in sequels to Nightmares, Fridays and Critters for on its surface it introduced just another visually exciting slasher killer for the covers of Fangoria, ignored by the masses away from the gorehounds. Yet it is a far superior film to its peers that has improved with age; Rose’s direction is somber and intelligent, Philip Glass’s score minimalist and apt, and the performances are mature and committed. Virginia Madsen, in particular, is given a gamut of emotions and mental states to work through, which she does with aplomb, handling the various terrifying gauntlets thrown down at her convincingly. Her lead here really belongs in the horror parthenon of brilliant genre acting together with Sigourney “Aliens” Weaver, Jodie “Lambs” Foster, Nicole “Others” Kidman and Catherine “Repulsion” Deneuve. Shame she never found further challenging work or a wider audience. The Clive Barker sourced plot, tinged with the author’s trademark self-born mythology and intoxicating tortures, playfully shifts and leaps so that its settings includes the soap opera of academia, gritty ghetto life (more convincingly recreated here than in many ‘hood movies that were prevalent then too), gothic romance fantasy and syrupy red mayhem. As for the titular ghoul himself, Todd embodies him well and his limited but intriguing glimpses and torturous hypnotic yearning make him feel like a monster still worth revisiting… assuming that any reboot was to be handled in the inspired way this unfairly ignored chiller was. Sweets for the sweet.

9

Roman Polanski directs Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry and Yvonne Furneaux in this psychological horror where a fragile girl loses her mind when left alone in her Swinging London flatshare. 

A genuinely affecting sequence of incongruous sounds, ominous malaise and bursts of surreal terror. Deneuve hooks you in with a compelling turn as the near silent quivering waif. Polanski ramps up the claustrophobia with angles and neat effects that crush you tightly in within her mental trap. Still an artful and potent shocker 50 years on.

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Jacques Tourneur directs Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas in this twisty turny noir about a detective who fell for the wrong dame then cashed out only to be drawn back into a new crime by the murderous ex who hired him to originally find her.

Proudly over complicated and nihilistic. Bramble tangle plotting that seems to add a new crime or indiscretion with every other line of dialogue makes this a satisfying puzzle to straighten out. You get a rare sympathetic turn from the burly and cool Mitchum, an against type unpredictable villain in Douglas and a queue of hard hearted but stunningly beautiful dames to mistrust. The verbal exchanges crackle, a lethal sexiness pervades, the shadowy visual symbolism captivates. Every pore of this mystery bleeds quality, bleeds noir. Get lost in its deep black oozing pleasures.

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