Author Archives: Raggedyman

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About Raggedyman

I write things

It’s called Threads (1984) because of spider webs; do you get it??

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The Eighties; a period defined by the birth of the blockbuster, a wave of colourful and creative developments in pop music, and the ongoing fear of global annihilation from thermonuclear warfare. Thus it was that national TV services over the globe, starting with The Day After in 1983, decided they could crank out Premium Water Cooler TV by showing everyone how nukes could really mess up your day in one landed in your backyard. So obviously the BBC had to have a crack at it, in an incredibly British way…

Spoiler Warning – a lot of things get wrecked.

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I feel silly for not having watched Acción Mutante (1993) sooner

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I never got around to seeing this the first time it was released in the UK, mostly because I found the cover showing Antonio Resines’s bloody face rather too menacing for me to dare pick it up from the shelf in Blockbuster. Now it’s out in glorious HD, thanks to Arrow, and I got sent a screener of it so there was no backing out of watching it.

The subtext is explosions


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Viy (1967) Is Fantastical Folk Horror.

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When someone introduces you to a film that holds the accolade of being the first horror film made by the USSR, it’s only polite to give it a watch with very open arms. It’s based on an 1835 story of the same name by Ukrainian author Nikolai Gogol, and I’ve not seen any films from that region it makes it a double first for me, and that’s what this kind of film blog is all about.

Hands up whoever wants quality entertainment!


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One week, 30 hours, and £2045 later – The Post 30 Hours Of Dragonballs Post

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As some of you might have noticed, between 10am on Friday the 13th of September and 4pm on Saturday the 14th of September I watched a hell of a lot of Dragon Ball to raise money for the homeless charity Crisis UK. And, I’m very happy to say that, as per the spoiler in the title, quite a lot of cash was donated. That is wonderful and has been celebrated extensively, but as I finally escape the jetlag of having done that I thought it warranted a bit more discussion and a look under the hood of what’s involved.

I promise I’ll try not to be too self-indulgent
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The Disappearence of Flight 412 (1974) is paranoid propoganda for tweens!

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I cracked this open as it looked like some 70s UFO-Mania hockem, and, on that front, it started pretty well with a lot of men in uniform talking military-sounding things, and had repeated group laughter done with such a sense of exhausted terror that I had to assume the director had the casts loved ones held just off camera and this was take 173.

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Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up And Scold Myself With Tea (1977)

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As this film was made in Czechoslovakia during the Communist dictatorship, I went in assuming I would miss most of the cultural references within. I have some limited knowledge of Russian Science Fiction of that era, especially Solaris and Stalker, so I know that the genre was often deeply metaphorical, but comedy tends to hinge on the context of its time. I left feeling that I knew nothing more about that part of that then nation’s history, but with a deep awareness that some films are just damn funny and fun to watch.
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Devil De Story (1983)

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And now for a film that was made in 1983, made almost no impact in it’s native Japan, and is only now doing the round because someone was offered the 16mm print in 2022 and then Marty McFiles spent two years doing a fansub of it. It’s an hour long, it’s got some of the most hilariously realistic disappointing sex scenes in cinema, and it’s a delight of strangeness.
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Bomb City (2017) is a brilliant social drama

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This film recants the story of the murder of Brian Deneke, a 19-year-old Amarillo, Texas punk killed by a 17-year-old jock in 1997. Directed by Jameson Brooks, produced by Cheldon R Chick, and written by the pair, it’s a deeply evocative look into the immediate events that lead to that situation. It’s both a singular story and a repetitive one (Sophie Lancaster springs to mind), but the film goes beyond a simple reenactment. Continue reading →

Deliver Us (2023) is out from Today!

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“When a nun in a remote convent claims immaculate conception, the Vatican sends a team of priests to investigate, concerned about an ancient prophecy that a woman will give birth to twin boys: one the Messiah, the other the Antichrist.” Which is a perfect setup for a bit of religious-themed horror, the only thing you need to add is a decent cast and a spooky church.
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Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987) is heartwrenching and amazing.

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Apparently this has been doing the rounds as a “must-see” cult movie for a while, but it’s one that I couldn’t remember hearing about until it was literally shoved into my eyeballs. If I heard of it before and paid it no heed it was probably because it was about The Carpenters and Anorexia, neither of which I have any more than a passing interest in, and because when mainstream critics rave about something being strange that normally means it’s rather dull. I was wrong, and if you haven’t seen this yet either then here is why you should watch it now.
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