“Human life was cheap. Film was cheap. It was a great place to make a picture.” Machete Maidens Unleashed! is Mark Hartley’s follow-up to his debut, Not Quite Hollywood, which was an oral history of Australian exploitation (“Ozploitation”) films. Similarly, Machete Maidens is an entertaining romp through B-movie history, now focusing on films made in…
Halloween may not been the first masked killer movie (arriving four years after Leatherface), but the implacable Michael Myers’ shadow stretches long across the genre; establishing many significant tropes (the killer is invulnerable until he is unmasked. A perfunctory backstory that doesn’t disguise how the masked man – it’s always a man – stands in…
Hot Fuzz is a modern classic of the comedy genre. It’s the kind of film we’ll point to decades from now with a toothless grin and say, “See! They don’t make ‘em like they used to!” It’s widely loved and yet woefully underrated; this can be blamed on the marketing, which frames the film as…
I came to The Exorcist III on Isaac (of Isaacs Picture Conclusions)’s recommendation, expecting a B-movie. The film is awash with B-movie characteristics: the script is a hodge-podge of supernatural and serial killer clichés, with a climax that feels tacked-on because it is (the studio demanded the film end with an exorcism, and you can…
Bernie is an odd film; an odd story about an odd man. It tells the tale of Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), a funeral director unfailingly described as “nice.” The kind of man who looks you in the eye and listens to everything you say as though it’s the most important thing he’s ever heard. We…
Piranha 3DD is a grotesque Frankenstein’s monster of a film, B-movie components clumsily sutured together without imagination. These extremities are sporadically entertaining, but while Ving Rhames blasting piranhas with a shotgun in slow motion might have its appeal, this slim charm is amputated by the film’s troglodytic smirk, its sneering need to ridicule the very…
Watching Prometheus upon release, it was hard not to sympathise with scientist Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green). Having spent years hoping to find the “Engineers” who brought about the genesis of mankind and left cryptic messages painted on cave walls, he found himself filled with existential despair, upon finding only their corpses. I walked out of…
The World’s End is a success on a whole bunch of metrics. As a conclusion to the loose “Cornetto trilogy” alongside Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, it’s as well-written, acted and directed as you’d expect; Edgar Wright’s kinetic, eclectic style ensures the film is a treat for the eyes. Each of the earlier…
At least there’s one lesson to be learned from the amorphous blob of mediocrity that is Exorcist II, a woefully disappointing sequel: this is the kind of film that doesn’t get made anymore. Not so much the half-assed sequel thing – there are plenty of those – but the advent of the internet means that…
If you’re looking for a definition of “Cronenbergian,” The Brood isn’t a bad place to start. It’s deliberately paced, pairing operatic grandeur with restrained domesticity. It prominently features Cronenberg’s early obsessions of science fiction, horror and body horror, interwoven with more conventional problems; as Cronenberg uses genre conventions to comment on the emotional damage dealt…
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