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)
Ridley Scott directs Matt Damon, Jeff Daniels and Kristen Wiig in this sci-fi adventure about a stranded astronaut who has to survive Mars with limited life support while NASA mounts an unplanned rescue mission.
“I’m gonna science this shit outta this.” Only a decade old and they genuinely don’t make them like this anymore. A classy ensemble wittily negotiating the impossible around a charismatic and bubbly turn from Matt Damon’s smart alec Robinson Crusoe. This is a problem solving movie. And a good format for how we should all live our lives. Prioritise one emergency at a time until the solutions cascade into each other. Very few modern blockbusters celebrate decency and intelligence like this. And because Ridders was the gun-for-hire, it looks the utter tits. Massive uninhabitable alien expanses, A-listers looking glamorous (unless in peril) and sheen-y shiny believable tech. It is constantly entertaining over 150 minutes and leaves you with a series of massive smiles on your big dumb stupid face.
10
Perfect Double Bill: Ad Astra (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
Scott Derrickson directs Mason Thames, Ethan Hawke and Madeleine McGraw in this horror sequel where, 4 years later, the survivors are still haunted by The Grabber and his victims.
Everyone is back for chilly revelations rather than unrelenting terror. There is atmospheric menace rather than threat. Would it have hurt to introduce a jock and cheerleader just to dispose of in 1982?
5
Perfect Double Bill: Sinister 2 (2015)
Phil Tippett directs Alex Cox, Niketa Roman and Satish Ratakonda in this stop motion dystopian vision where The Assassin travels through a nightmare underworld of tortured souls.
30 years in the making. A labour of love that roped in film and animation students to work on weekends and summer vacations. Not a moment of relent. This is so bleak, so unnerving and so nasty that you’ll never want to watch it again. As a one off experience it is powerful, if often purposefully slow. Tippet really makes you marinate in the futility of insect politics. Annihilation art.
7
Perfect Double Bill: The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb (1993)
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Peter Sasdy directs Ian Bannen, Judy Geeson and John Paul in this British chiller where an environmental scientist investigates spills at an unusually unwelcoming island community.
Now this IS like The Wicker Man… only with dumped chemicals replacing the songs, sexual repression, Christopher Lee and the pagan sacrifices. So really, really boring then. Humourless. Horror-less! At one critical point, the mutated surround the protagonists and then just start crying and having a bit of a moan. Surely, I can’t have waited through 80 minutes of dry environmentalist messaging and humdrum investigation for that to be the big finale. Very poor. Here’s the thing about Doomwatch. It had an eye catching hand drawn poster back in the day. Promising a lot more than it delivered. That’s the only reason why you can buy it for £15 quid at Fopp as a limited edition blu ray. It looks cool on a shelf as physical media. Awesome movies like The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin, The Silent Partner, Air and all the older Ghibli animations are currently unavailable on disc in the UK for fucks sake!?
3
Perfect Double Bill: X – The Unknown (1956)
Michael Reeves directs Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy and Hilary Dwyer in this true tale of a genocidal witchfinder exploiting the hysteria of the English Civil Wars for his own wicked gains.
This is often mentioned in the same breath as The Wicker Man which I feel is a little unfair. I guess they match each other in genre smashing ambition but this is a beast with its own bloody heart. On location production values that outstrip Hammer or Amicus, transgressive violence that matches Straw Dogs or The Wild Bunch and a chilling lead turn from Vincent Price. Reeves and Price did not get along, Price was told to tone down his hammier instincts, hated being bossed by a young director and turned out his finest piece of acting. The historical basis grounds the action but also makes it a bit of a romp with horse chases and flintlock shootouts between the sexual torture and mob mentality. Evil in all the best ways. This one gets better and better with every rewatch.
9
Perfect Double Bill: The Blood On Satan’s Claw (1971)
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
Emilie Blichfeldt directs Lea Myren, Thea Sofie Loch Næss and Ane Dahl Torp in this Danish body horror reimagining of the Cinderella fairytale told from a stepsister’s P.O.V..
A goofy innocent puts her body through hell trying to be the belle of the ball while facing stiff competition from a grieving Cinderella. Visually this is very exciting, it is horny as fuck and the acting is pleasingly energised. Expect to see Lea Myren in more. The poster promised a bit more hacking and slashing but what is actually delivered is a more period answer song to The Substance peppered with demented moments of excess. If it were a little more tightly plotted I would have fallen for it head over heels.
7
Perfect Double Bill: Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997)
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 