Category Archives: Film

Wild Zero (1999)

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Rock and Roll and horror movies have always been connected at the swaggering hip. From the ’50s onward they have shared an undying bond of heightened emotions, juvenile daydreaming, cheap production values, the mystique of delinquency, and high tempo drama. So, getting Guitar Wolf, arguably the finest garage rock bands to have come out of the 80’s Tokyo punk scene, and putting them in a zombie movie is a bit of a no-brainer. That the movie is this fast, chaotic, and unwilling to slow down for anyone just makes it even more perfect. That Takeuchi Tetsuro, a prominent music video director, directed this 1999 psychotronic rock-&-roll fable is just the cherry on top of the Molo
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Werewolves On Wheels (1971)

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When you go looking for a werewolf movie and discover there is one called “Werewolves on wheels”, that pitches itself as a cross between Sons of Anarchy, The Devil’s Rain and Easy Rider, there really is no option but to watch it. And, after sitting through these particular 85 minutes of 1971 low-budget horror, I can happily confirm that it’s the finest weird-west satanic-horror biker-gang lycanthrope road moview I’ve ever seen. Then again, writer and director Michel Levesque doesn’t exactly have much competition in those stakes – which makes it a shame that there are a lot of nice ideas without enough solid execution.
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The Last Days of American Crime (2020)

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There’s been a lot of hype going around Netflix’s latest action-adventure, The Last Days of American Crime; mostly that it’s a terrible movie and that Netflix should be ashamed of themselves for making it. But, having sat through its 148 minutes run time (138, if you discount the solid 10 minutes of credits), I believe that it’s not that bad a movie. It’s just a bit too long, a bit undercooked, and nihilistic in an unfashionable manner.
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The Mamma Mia! Reviews

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Before I get into this review, I want to make a couple of things very clear.

  1. Thank you to everyone who donated to Shelter to make me go through the “experience” of watching these two movies. I think it cannot be overstated that without your money I would never have done this. And if you haven’t donated: don’t worry, there is still time!!
  2. If you like ABBA then please don’t consider this a shot at the band. They aren’t my cup of tea, mostly because in my opinion, if they were tea then they would be the kind that’s made by showing hot water a tea bag for a second and gets presented to great disapproval from your Gran who was quietly listening to some Slayer. But I can accept that ABBA are very good at their job.
  3. If you like the live musical Mamma Mia!, accept that this isn’t a shot at that either. I wouldn’t want to go see it myself but it takes skill and talent to do this kind of thing live, so watching any stage show gets to be impressive by the default of raw human accomplishment. I’m not a fan of jukebox musicals, I’m not a fan of ABBA, but I’ll still tip my hat to those involved in that kind of performance.

So, with that in mind, here’s how I feel after 221 minutes of having my mind hammered into stunned silence by some of the most high-gloss mediocrity I’ve come across.
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Doctor X (1932)

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When most people think of a 1930s Hollywood Horror, they think of some drawn-out gothic classic like Dracula, Frankenstein, or The Invisible Man. Well, beyond glitzy stages and novel reworks, filled with mortality-play tales of man’s inner struggle, the 1930s brought us the first works of exploitation cinema by plying its trade to a titillated audience (whilst also ushering in the Hayes Code). Tod Browning’s Freaks shocked audiences by showing disabled people, Erle C. Kenton blended sensuality with cruelty in the Island of Lost Souls, and Michael Curtiz gave us this technicolour body-horror nightmare with Doctor X – a film so ground-breaking and debauched that it got a name check in The Rocky Horror Picture Show!

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Nomads (1986)

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It’s always frustrating when a movie manages to put in all the effort of being a good film, but ends up for far from the mark you thought it could have landed on. Unlike with other films that have been mauled in this column, a lack of talent and a dodgy core concept can’t be blamed for this state of affairs. It simply ends up biting more than it can chew, and becomes less than the sum of its parts.

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Wedding Bells for the Otaku (2017)

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Because it’s always good to go outside of your normal world, for this trip into obscuria we’re having a watch of a Japanese romantic comedy-drama. Based on the 2015 comic series “BL Mangaka Desukedo Kekkon Shitemo Iidesuka” by Haruki Fujimoto, who is also credited at writing the screenplay, Wedding Bells For The Otaku is an hour-long made-for-TV special. Directed by Toshimitsu Chimura, who probably got the job due to working on other nerdy TV series, it’s the kind of show that Japanophiles will probably wax lyrically about for many moons. Well, I’m not writing for them and any of their apologist behaviour, so my advice is that if you ever find this in a bargain-bin you should leave it there. Unless you know a J-Drama obsessive you can up-sell it to.
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The Cars That Ate Paris (1974)

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Titles can be important when building up expectations in movies, so when something is called “The Cars That Ate Paris”, you know it’s not going to be a run-of-the-mill affair. Released in 1974, and mostly funded by the Australian Government, this slice of Ozploitation was directed by Peter Weir, written by Hal and Jim McElroy, and starred Terry Camilleri. Amazingly, all of them went on to have long careers in the industry, rather than forever being known as “those guys that made that film”. Still, George Miller wrote Made Max and Babe, so making the blackest of satires just seems to be a stepping stone to success in that region.
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The Uncanny (1977)

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This film got picked for review because my wife asked me to find something with cats in it. If you don’t think random “is there a film about X?” challenges are a valid way to select your viewing then you really haven’t lived – or, you are one of the lucky few who’s suggested viewing algorithm isn’t a stream of safe choice variations on the timeless classic “this film will fill an hour and a half of your life.” True, it took about twenty minutes of searching, and rejecting a million variations on Cat People to find The Uncanny was even a thing; but that’s only five minutes more than going all the way through Netflix to bung on what it first shilled at you when you turned it on.
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The Beach Girls and The Monster (1965)

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There are some films where you just know the producer hammered two random things together in the hopes that the result would be entertaining. Snakes and planes, sharks and tornadoes, Nazis and any excuse to see them brutalised. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes it doesn’t work on a level that just fills you with awe at the majestic beauty of how misshapen and proud the final creation is. There is no way you can convince me that the people behind “Beach Girls And The Monster” knew what they were doing, on any level, as no one could ever intentionally put together such an epic piece of ridiculousness. They just went “people like Beach Girls and Monsters… now go and write that script”.
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