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

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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The Disappearence of Flight 412 (1974) is paranoid propoganda for tweens!


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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The Conspiracy Of Dark Falls (2022) Is Very Dull


If you’re getting wound up by this years Oscar lists, then please rest assure that movie awards are pointless marketing doodahs, handed out through a combination of marketing, indifference, and stupidity. My evidence for that statement is that this film has won 16 awards and been nominated for another 15, for acting, direction, and production, when it’s less cinematically fulfilling than the NFT adverts YouTube holds your time ransom with. Continue reading

A Warning To The Curious (1972)


It may surprise modern folks, but the reason that A Christmas Carol did so well when first released by Charles Dickins was because it tapped into a grand tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas time. So it’s probably of no surprise that the BBCs decision to commission a run of ghost stories for Festive viewings in the 70s was less to do with providing an alternative to bawdy light-entertainment and more to do with maintaining Victorian values. So it’s educational horror, beyond the usual anatomy lessons.
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13 Slays Till Xmas (2020)


The straplines made me think this was going to be good old fashioned Psycho Santa Slasher, but this is actually a horror story anthology with a Christmas motif and framing device. Which isn’t a problem as that’s prime quality festive family fun in the Super Fortress. Thus we fired up the streaming service and let the intro credits roll.
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Gold Told Me To (1976) is not that devine

Spooky


This was picked because of it’s title and enigmatic premise. After watching it I found out it was made by Larry Cohen, and then I found it he had directed, written, and produced such genre classics as Q: The Winged Serpent, Maniac Cop, and Black Caesar. He also did The Stuff, which I love but I get why others find a bit tedious. So it’s nice to see where he came from, and how far he had improved.
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Wanted: Dead Or Alive (1986)

Rutger Haure died in 2019, and he’s still got two movies to come out because he was just such an unstoppable powerhouse of great acting. Apparently, he himself said he was only brilliant in two or three of his roles, which is clear modesty on his part. So I picked this to watch as he was on the front cover, and I can comfortably say that this isn’t one of his best. But it’s also too interesting to not share thoughts on, so here we go.
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Footprints on the Moon (1975)


This had an enigmatic title, came from a noted Italian genre director, is being marketed under the normal quite crazy Shameless banner, and had a synopsis that sounded rather spicy. So as I was in the mood to try out something with a bit more European flavour than normal, and it didn’t look like yet another giallo slasher, it was worth a punt.
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Winds Of Change (1978)


Metamorphoses (Japanese: 星のオルフェウス, Hepburn: Hoshi no Orufeusu, “Orpheus of the Stars”) is a 1978 Japanese animated anthology film, produced by Sanrio. Directed by Takashi Masunaga and based on Ovid’s book of the same name, it took 3 years and 170 Hollywood animators to make. But that bombed, so 7 minutes were trimmed, a Peter Ustinov narration got added, and the whole thing got re-edited around a disco soundtrack. Did that pull its fat out of the fire? Well…
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Deathstalker (1983) is a terrible film

“We shall committ many sex crimes together, brother”


Quite often the phrase “for its time” is used when trying to evaluate movies, but I’ve no idea as to when the use of rape as narrative punctuation was ever considered an acceptable thing. I also appreciate that saying such things is a strong opening for a review, but when it’s in the lynchpin of the first, second, and every subsequent scene in this sword-and-sexual-assault fantasy its discussion needs to be as prominent as writer Howard R. Cohen and director James Sbardellati made it.
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