There's Something In The Shadows (2021)

Writer-director John Williams has an anthology horror movie coming out soon called Tales Of The Creeping Death, and I am keen to see what he can do in that format. That is despite the fact that he has, with There’s Something In The Shadows, delivered one of the very worst found footage movies that I’ve ever seen.

There are good elements here, if they were separated and placed in a movie that had any way to use them coherently. First of all, the main cast are a group revolving around someone who presents YouTube videos of his investigations into supernatural shenanigans. That character is played by John Solomonides. Seems okay so far, right? Then you have the fact that they are travelling to Loch Ness. A found footage movie set on the banks of Loch Ness? I am there. Then you have a theory that a Bigfoot creature may be in that area. Wait . . . what? And there could be portals allowing for these creatures to appear, as well as causing other strange phenomena. 

If you read all of the above and felt the same way as I did about it, you can see why I checked out early with this one. I knew that Williams didn’t care about what he was creating here. He just wanted to throw everything together, get some people acting amongst lots of trees, and move to a third act that makes you wish you had just rewatched The Blair Witch Project instead.

Solomonides doesn’t seem great in his role, but nobody is. They are stuck with the unenviable task of trying to make this nonsense seem even remotely believable. The other main cast members are Pete Bennett, Darren McAree, Williams himself, and Steve Wood. Fair play to them all for doing what is asked of them, considering what is asked of them seems like some kind of elaborate prank to rope them into an abysmal movie.

There’s nothing else to say, other than negative comments. The camerawork gets shakier when Williams needs to hide his extremely low budget, the opening title card even mis-spells the word “amateur” (admittedly, maybe some kind of small gag I just didn’t get), and there is a dummy fall/throw here on par with the worst, and most hilarious, I usually see in Italian thrillers of the 1970s.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, I am hopeful for the next movie from Williams. That at least should feel more like a proper movie, instead of a weekend lark with mates. But I advise everyone to avoid this one completely, with my generous rating simply based on the fact that the second half just managed to avoid being completely boring.

Oh, there’s also a closing credit that somehow made me resent the film even more. Plan a film around the concepts of film-making, not around a gimmick you think could excuse any and all shortcomings.

2/10

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Mubi Monday: Annette (2021)

Although very much a film from director Leos Carax, Annette is also very much a film from the minds of writers Ron and Russell Mael (AKA Sparks). A strangely antagonistic and defiantly non-traditional musical about performing, about the relationship between performers and audiences, this is also a look at strong passions running between people who may view themselves as separate from the masses who flock to appreciate their talents.

Adam Driver plays an acerbic and dark comedian named Henry McHenry, a man who seems to find his unique talent dissipating when he falls in love with, and marries, an opera singer named Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard). Things are further complicated when they have a daughter, Annette, who shows signs of inheriting her mother's talent.

Deceptively light and amusing at the start of the whole thing, with the wonderful "So May We Start" a musical highlight the rest of the film never quite equals, Annette soon drags viewers into the surreal and strange style of the modern opera it hews close to. Nothing here is subtle, although a number of moments in the first half initially feel more ambiguous than anything in the second half, and almost every moment is delivered in song, even if it veers away from musicality for a while before veering back.

Carax is in his element, clearly relishing the opportunity to stage those Sparks songs in unusual settings and situations, and actually makes a lot of correct decisions for the material, including the use of a “puppet” for most of Annette’s screentime. There are one or two ingredients that feel extraneous (a sequence about women coming forward with some accusations ultimately goes nowhere, disappointingly, and one character gets to bemoan a missed chance at love in a way that doesn’t really make any impact), but he mostly delivers something that feels like the perfect result of this collaboration.

Whether you will enjoy it or not is an entirely separate thing. I was on board, willing it to challenge and impress me, then it lost me for quite some time, and then I got back on board during the third act.

Although it is both Driver and Cotillard in the lead roles, and both are more than up to the task, the film is largely carried by Driver, who is excellent and completely trusting in how the director will use his raw performance. Simon Helberg has some screentime, playing that character who missed out on love, and he does just fine, but I would have preferred the whole thing to focus simply on McHenry, Defrasnoux, and Annette.

For the performance from Driver, for the creativity from Sparks, and for the audacious staging, I cannot rate this as a bad movie. It’s not average either. But the bad onscreen almost outweighs the good, which is why I ultimately rate it only just above average.

6/10

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Netflix And Chill: Sweet Girl (2021)

Grief can affect you in so many ways, as we have seen in various movies over the years. I very recently watched Nicolas Cage change people around him as he searched for a beloved pig, and now I have watched Jason Momoa and Isabela Merced kick ass on a quest to counter the injustice of unaffordable medication that led to the death (by cancer) of wife/mother, Amanda (Adria Arjona).

That almost sums up the plot here. After the death of Amanda, Ray (Momoa) and Rachel (Merced) want answers. Ray is contacted by someone who claims that he has information on the pharmaceutical company responsible for blocking the route to market of the cheaper medication that could have saved Amanda’s life. There’s then a death, which leads to more death, and it’s not long until the bodies start to pile up while the murky deals and corruption lead, of course, higher and higher up a chain of prominent individuals. The police are on the case, and one (Alex Scott Davis) has much more insight than the rest, as well as some more direct communication with Rachel.

Directed by Brian Andrew Mendoza, his first feature in that role (although he has been involved as a producer on some other Momoa vehicles), and written by Gregg Hurwitz and Philip Eisner, Sweet Girl is a solid, if unspectacular, bit of action with a couple of fun turns and a sadly relevant strand of commentary on the financial pain of being sick in the USA. It’s a film that doesn’t hold any real surprises, despite the fact that one or two moments are played out that way (although one reveal in the third act was nicely done, admittedly). Some may think I am being unfair by saying that, but the general structure, and fate of most of the characters, allows me to make that statement, and stand by it. This may be wearing some new clothes, but it's a very familiar framework.

Momoa is fine in his role, trying to make the most of the emotional moments in between throwing his fists and firing guns. Merced is also absolutely fine, although I must admit to being more of a fan of her Dora The Explorer work (it’s a fun film, no matter what you may assume). Davis is enjoyable in the role of  “effective, but understanding, cop”, and Justin Bartha, Amy Brenneman, and Raza Jaffrey offer decent support. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is a highlight, playing a determined killer who is contracted to tie up loose ends.

Unsophisticated, slick, entertainment, Sweet Girl is something easy to stick on when you want to kill some time without keeping track of any majorly twisty plotting. It’s disposable, but also enjoyable enough. And the 110-minute runtime feels enjoyable brief, compared to the current propensity for these kinds of movies to rarely clock in at under two hours nowadays.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: Superhost (2021)

Writer-director Brandon Christensen may not be immediately recognisable to most horror fans, but he's been creating some enjoyably solid genre fare over the past few years, and seems to be improving slightly with each film (I thought Still/Born was okay, I liked Z a bit more). While Superhost may not be the darkest or scariest horror movie you see this year, it's a hell of a lot of fun, helped by a completely unhinged turn from Gracie Gillam.

Gillam plays Rebecca, a young woman aiming to be reviewed as a "superhost" by Teddy (Osric Chau) and Claire (Sara Canning). Teddy and Claire have had a successful YouTube series for some time, but are currently losing followers, and relevance in that crowded field. Rebecca hopes to keep everything perfect though. A bad review from Teddy and Claire can ruin someone's business, as Vera (Barbara Crampton) discovered. 

Best summed up by the tagline "don't forget to like and survive", Superhost is generally fun from start to finish. The main potential problem that it has is the fact that Rebecca seems quite batty, to put it mildly, from the very beginning. But that's part of the fun, because Teddy and Claire think what they can get on camera will end up getting them a great reaction online, and push their numbers back up. Christensen does a good job of mixing the thriller element of the plot with a nice bit of full-on creepiness, at least one great gore moment, and the commentary on how things are presented online compared to how things are in reality. 

The leads do a good job, with both Chau and Canning believable in their normal interactions and equally believable when using their louder and more lively personas for their online videos. Crampton may only be onscreen for a few minutes, but she's as welcome as ever. Then you have Gillam, the manic and unbalanced heart of the film, giving a performance that easily puts her up there with the very best of the modern movie psychos. There's no surprise when her potential is fully realised, it's just up to the viewers to try and figure out what her actual motivation is.

Christensen gets everything right here. I can easily imagine a version of this movie that would have been painful to sit through, (either not casting the right people, deciding to go the found footage route, or any of a multitude of ways this could have felt wrong) but his instincts steer him right. And the fact that it all builds to an ending that is as darkly comedic as it is obvious means the whole experience is a satisfying and entertaining one.

I look forward to whatever we get next from Christensen. He's been on the right path for years, and if he delivers some minor modern classic in the next decade or so then remember that I told you so. Because I'll also say "I told you so".

8/10

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Pig (2021)

Every time another Nicolas Cage film comes along lately, I end up wondering when he will finally stop having his better onscreen moments viewed with the surprise that seems to meet every other performance he delivers recently. Yes, he still takes on more projects every year than most actors, or so it seems (well, so it seems to everyone but Eric Roberts), but he constantly does his best in them. And when the film is worthy of his best, as this one is, you get something special.

Cage plays Rob, an antisocial individual living in a cabin in the middle of the woods. It's just him and his pig, and the two do a damn fine job of finding truffles, which are collected by a young man named Amir (Alex Wolff). The whole delicate balance is upset when Rob's pig is stolen - pignapped - and Rob has to track down the thieves. He and Amir go on a journey that leads Rob to reconnect with a number of people from his past, and that means also creeping towards some memories that have been buried by Amir's father, Darius (Adam Arkin).

The first full feature directed by Michael Sarnoski, who also wrote the film with Vanessa Block, Pig is a film that requires some patience as it takes you down a path you think you know before then sidestepping any number of easy options in favour of something genuinely moving and grubbily beautiful. You may be expecting a film about a man who gets desperate and angry while trying to find his beloved pig, but you end up with a film that does more to illustrate the incapacitating and sometimes-insurmountable tidal wave of grief that can hit someone than any other recent film I can think of, with the exception of Inside Llewyn Davis.

Cage is superb in the main role. He's slightly Cage-y, but also has a lot of times when he's just creating space, moments of quiet, for others to fill. He is a man avoiding a confrontation with himself by confronting others, even if many of those confrontations are calm and non-violent ones. Wolff continues to pick decent roles in films that have allowed him to build a filmography already filling up with a great variety of interesting choices. His character may not be the focus of the film, but his own journey, and that of his father, ends up inextricably linked with Rob in a way that crystallises beautifully on the way to an ending that is, and I'm not exaggerating here, deeply moving in an unexpected, but earnest, way.

You can love someone, or something, and that can fill a huge space in your heart. And you can then be stuck with one hell of an empty feeling if you lose that loved one. Pig shows people who have that emptiness, for different reasons, but it also shows that you can work towards filling that space again. Maybe not entirely, maybe not by much, maybe just providing yourself some kind of interior cushion made up of memories that you hope will help you get through a few more days until you can figure out some other way to deal with things, or find some other distraction. If Pig managed to remind just one viewer that they're not alone in how they have ever struggled with grief/loss of love then it would be a success, but I suspect it actually reminds everyone of moments they have battled through, or at least reminds everyone that most people we know in our lives have been through, or will go through, at least one huge trauma that will irrevocably change them in some way.

If you're somehow unable to empathise, it's still a good, simple, tale of a man out to retrieve his stolen pig.

9/10

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Demonic (2021)

Writer-director Neill Blonkamp is back, this time with a film purporting to be more of a horror than his usual sci-fi fare, but don’t be fooled. This is actually the kind of lame blend of horror and tech that would appear throughout the 1990s, usually revolving around someone using a chunky computer and cumbersome headset.

The basic plot concerns Carly (played by Carly Pope), a woman who is asked to visit her comatose mother (Nathalie Boltt). Her mother was imprisoned for some major incident years ago, which means that Carly isn’t really that bothered about checking on her health. There’s been a breakthrough though, a way for Carly to effectively enter the mind of her mother and communicate with her. Carly seeks closure, but what she sees and hears ends up providing more questions than answers. Just what exactly ended up driving her mother to commit her crime, and is it something that can still affect Carly?

There’s no way to tiptoe around this. Demonic is terrible. Blommkamp has been on a steady downward descent since his superb debut, District 9, but this is, for now, his nadir. A horror movie with no tension or scares, but with a pinch of preposterous sci-fi to take the plot wherever Blommkamp wants it to go.

The script is terrible, which is the biggest hurdle to overcome. The fact that Blommkamp clearly believes in his own material makes you realise early on that it’s not going to be surmountable. Familiar moments crash against one another, despite the new set of clothes draped over everything, and the premise feels half-baked throughout. “Rules” are laid out, or so it seems, only to be cast aside later, when those restrictions need to be undone.

It doesn’t help that the central cast aren’t as strong as they could be either. I wasn’t a big fan of Pope or Boltt, and Michael J. Rogers, Chris William Martin, and Terry Chen are stuck with characters who simply aren’t interesting enough for them to make any decent impression. They’re all collateral damage, unable to fight against the material they are stuck with, and I doubt a stronger cast could have done enough to majorly improve things.

Trying to pass itself off as something refreshing and new, Demonic is actually, sadly, worn out and tired by the time the very first scene has played out. Nothing stands out, unless it is for all the wrong reasons, from the score to the editing, from the production design to makeup and effects. While the budget may save it from being alongside the worst of the worst that I have seen, it is undeniably dull, dumb, and just quite terrible.

3/10

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Prime Time: Momentum (2015)

I have said it on numerous occasions, but there are people who will always get me to watch any movie, for all sorts of reasons. I have been a fan of Olga Kurylenko since her time spent being the highlight of a very messy Bond film, Quantum Of Solace. So I went in to Momentum with the small hope that it would provide me with some easy, unsophisticated, entertainment. That hope soon disappeared.

Things begin with a robbery, one that doesn’t go to plan, and everything is about to get very tricky for the robbers, who have inadvertently stolen a drive that contains some very sensitive information. Olga Kurylenko is Alexis, the most skilled of the robbers, and she ends up being aggressively pursued by the ruthless Mr. Washington (James Purefoy) and his assistants.

That is all I want to say about Momentum. Trust me, that is plenty. The first feature directed by Stephen S. Campanelli, this is an absolute mess from start to finish, a muddled heap of clichés and ineptly-shot action beats. It’s so bad that I am amazed Campanelli has been allowed to make more movies after it.

To be fair, most of the awfulness is delivered by the script, by Adam Marcus and Debra Sullivan (two people who have done much better work on films actually directed by Marcus). It’s absolutely ridiculous throughout, and not in an entertainingly knowing way. The main character is always a step or two ahead of the villain, despite relying on one piece of good fortune after another, and the supporting characters are so barely sketched out that they really needn’t even be there. And you get Mr. Washington taking every opportunity to pretend to be reasonable and eloquently comment on the situation as it is unfolding.

Campanelli takes the script and does nothing to help distract from it. Every decision made seems to highlight either the incompetence or the lack of budget, or both, and most viewers will be keen for this to get to the final scene. There’s one wince-inducing torture sequence, but it feels as if it has been placed here from some other film.

Kurylenko isn’t at her best here, and cannot really sell herself in the role, unfortunately, so the saving Grace turns out to be Purefoy, who at least seems to enjoy being committed to the performance of his one-note villain. Everyone else seems to come from either the cheapest supporting actor agency or Rent-a-thug, with the only other standout being Shelley Nicole, as a badass woman named Ms. Clinton. You also get a cameo from Morgan Freeman, who can easily now put this film as one of the very worst he has been involved with.

You may just glean enough enjoyment from this if you go in with the lowest of expectations, maybe, but it’s pretty terrible, even for the type of entertainment it aims to provide. That still won’t stop me from checking out the many other Kurylenko movies I have yet to see though. I’ll just never revisit this one.

3/10

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Candyman (2021)

There are two things associated with this latest working of the Candyman mythos that can provide a lot of irritation and/or amusement. First, the amount of people that keep referring to it as a bloody Jordan Peele film, when it was directed by, and co-written by Nia DaCosta (ironically . . . say her name, and remember it). Peele also worked on the screenplay, and his name as producer most probably helped the studio get behind this, but the ignorance/laziness of people wrongly crediting Peele, whether they love or hate the movie, is astonishing. Not the first time, of course (remember "Eli Roth's" Aftershock, or poor Henry Selick so often being forgotten as the actual director of The Nightmare Before Christmas?), and it won't be the last, but if the past few years have taught us anything it is, surely, the importance of correcting inaccuracies and misinformation. The other main thing that you should choose to just roll your eyes it, well, it's the amount of people complaining about the content of this film, either trying to call it racist, or complaining about it being "too woke", as if the original films weren't exploring the racially-charged mistreatment and abuse of a black man, the social climate and systemic issues that bundled African Americans together in one small area where they could be left to their own devices, gentrification, and the power that can be gained by examining something in the open that has been left to fester for so long behind closed doors.

Anyway, let's get to the film itself, a continuation of the story delivered to audiences in the original film. This time the main characters are an artist, Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), and his successful partner, Brianna (Teyonah Parris). Struggling to find his way back to anything like his previous form, to put it mildly, Anthony finds his imagination fired up when he bumps into William Burke (Colman Domingo), a man who confirms the tale of Candyman, and the subsequent incident that ended with a stolen baby being returned and the fiery death of Helen Lyle. Anthony creates a new selection of work, based around the phrase "say his name", and starts a chain of events that could drastically affect his future, while also forcing him to find out a bit more about his past.

From the very first seconds of Candyman starting, the focus of this film is crystal clear. Much like the first film, it's about exposing something that has been kept in the dark for too long. This is the perfect way to craft a sequel to a well-loved modern horror classic, despite the fact that some people will just want more of the thing they enjoyed most the first time around. You still have commentary on gentrification, you still have the amusing dissection of art and culture from people acting smug and superior while living outwith the main sphere of influence that helped to create that art and culture, and you have a study of an urban legend, and how it can be reshaped and turned into something better or worse over time. You also get a look at the ongoing problem of police brutality, something strongly underlined by the whole "say his name" mantra that runs through the whole film.

DaCosta doesn't go for many easy scares, but they're very well done when she does. She instead creates a growing atmosphere of unease, emulating the original film with a blend of fear of the boogeyman and fear of very real problems afflicting some of the main characters. The script, co-written by herself, Peele, and Win Rosenfeld, is smart, layered, and pretty much a textbook example of how to respect an original work while not feeling the need to slavishly replicate everything it did. There are mirrors, and other reflective surfaces, everywhere, and so many shots are framed to allow viewers to consider everywhere a danger could be lurking.

Abdul-Mateen II is a fantastic lead, someone charismatic enough to make it easier to stick alongside him as his journey takes him further and further away from the person he once was, and Parris does well with a character who is allowed to react naturally to someone who changed into what could be a very dangerous presence. Domingo is fine, but ends up overacting slightly in the third act, and Vanessa Williams reprises her role from the 1992 film. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and Kyle Kaminsky help to lighten things up a bit, playing Brianna's brother, Troy, and his boyfriend, Grady, respectively. Brian King, Miriam Moss, and Rebecca Spence play people who may well say "Candyman" five times while looking in a mirror, and the inclusion of Tony Todd will surely keep fans happy.

Is it a flawless masterpiece? As is the case with the majority of movies released throughout time, no. But it's easily one of the best mainstream horror movies I can think of in recent years, and it's a thought-provoking, and often beautiful (I didn't even mention the backstories told in shadow puppet form), piece of work. It also doesn't forget that people will want a hook-handed "boogeyman" to turn some victims into a mass of blood and gore. I would definitely be interested in seeing what could happen in a sequel to this, and I am very keen to see what comes next from DaCosta (say her name).

8/10

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Mubi Monday: The Harder They Come (1972)

A rather simple tale of the rise (and fall?) of someone who ends up pushed around by many people until he turns to a life of crime, The Harder They Come is a landmark film for a couple of reasons. First of all, it was the first hit movie to come from Jamaica, as far as I can tell. Secondly, the soundtrack is full of what you might want to call "absolute belters". 

Jimmy Cliff plays Ivan, a young man who returns home to his home in Jamaica with the hope of becoming a successful Reggae singer. He gets a job to tide him over in the meantime, and also makes time for the company of a lady who has caught his eye (Elsa, played by Janet Bartley). Things soon take a turn for the worse, leading to a crime that is punished with a harsh whipping, and then Ivan becomes more and more determined to record and release a song, "The Harder They Come". In typical producer fashion, apparently, the producer stiffs Ivan out of any chance to make some decent money, and this leads to the next main chapter in his life, a drug-running career that gets him into more and more trouble. That's not bad for the record producer though, who keeps making money from Ivan's song as he promotes it with the image of Ivan as an anti-authoritarian "gangster" on the run.

When you look at the actual film-making here, specifically the direction from Perry Henzell (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Trevor D. Rhone), there's not much to recommend The Harder They Come. It feels rough and very simplistic, in many ways, but that's also part of the charm, the way it is presented as if the screen between viewers and the lead character is thinner than it usually is. Ivan is shown at one point enjoying Django in the cinema, and you know that a lot of his spontaneous actions feel informed by his imagined creation of the kind of character he would enjoy watching in a movie, which is the character we end up enjoying watching in this movie. Whether deliberate or accidental, I really can't tell, it's a nice bit of characterisation that brings up parallels, as well as highlighting major differences between fiction and reality.

Cliff is decent enough in the man role, with the big plus being his vocal talent. Bartley is fine, but stuck with simply being there to cave in to the charms of Cliff, while there are decent turns from Carl Bradshaw, Ras Daniel Hartman, Basil Keane (an intimidating preacher), and Winston Stona. Everyone may feel a bit awkward and stilted at times, but they're essentially there to simply support the real star of the show, the soundtrack, which includes the title track, "You Can Get It If You Really Want", "Pressure Drop", and "Many Rivers To Cross", as well as a few other greats.

I may have enabled the subtitles, to make sure I could understand everything being said, but you can make a personal choice on that front, depending on how quickly you find yourself able to get the gist of the words being spoken in the Jamaican Patois. Let's face it though, this isn't about catching every syllable. The dialogue and plot aren't very complex, and the strong accent has a certain lyrical quality that winds nicely in and out of the soundtrack choices.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Silence (2019)

I left it too long to watch The Silence, but also maybe didn’t leave it long enough. Because this is a movie I could quite happily have gone through my life without seeing. The main draw for me was Stanley Tucci (damn you, Tucci), and he once again does great work, despite this being one of the worst movies he has starred in.

Some pesky people break through into a cavern, unleashing a flock of creatures that go on to cause havoc and carnage in our world. The creatures are like man-eating bats, and they react to sound. That should be okay for the Andrews family (headed up by Hugh, played by Tucci). The Andrews family have been learning sign language since their daughter, Ally (Kiernan Shipka), lost her hearing in a bad accident. Everything quickly goes from zero to the collapse of society, and you also get a cult (led by a preacher, played in full creep mode by Billy MacLellan).

Directed by John R. Leonetti (responsible for such masterpieces as . . . Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, The Butterfly Effect 3, and Wish Upon, ALL films I enjoyed more than this), The Silence is one of those movies completely hampered by the contrivances thrown into the plot. That might have something to do with the script, written by Shane and Carey Van Dyke (names I know from their work with The Asylum, as well as them being part of the Van Dyke family, and they also wrote Wish Upon). It’s uniformly terrible, from the depiction of the main characters to all of the plotting that puts them in increasingly deeper peril.

Tucci, as mentioned, is great, and there aren’t too many reasons to complain about Shipka, MacLellan, Miranda Otto (playing the mother of the family unit), or anyone else involved. In fact, a lesser cast would make this much more painful. 

There are so many things here that don’t make sense, from the spiralling devolution of society to the fact that so many characters opt to use sign language and still speak some of the words, albeit at a low volume, at a time when silence is the most important thing. I was so irked that I even disagreed with Shipka having to deliver dialogue explaining how she has learned to live in silence, and therefore being equipped to deal with the current circumstances. She has had to adapt to a loss of hearing, which is actually no help at a time when you need to be wary of every noise that you might make.

The premise could have worked, if the writers had put a lot more effort in, and the director had better material to work with, but this isn’t anywhere near being the best way to make a movie around the core idea. Supporting characters don’t make much of an impression, the set-pieces are clumsy and ineffective, and none of the main acts have even one highlight (the beginning is flat, the middle is infuriating, the end is laughable at times).

The saying goes that if you don’t have anything nice to say then you should just say nothing. I still really like Tucci. Unfortunately, that may be the only good thing I have to say about this.

2/10

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Shudder Saturday: Edge Of The Axe (1988)

Although I now own some films from director José Ramón Larraz, this was actually my first time watching one of them. It hasn't inspired me with confidence about the rest of his filmography. Edge Of The Axe is a slasher movie that feels even sillier than many other films from the subgenre, and the fact that it was from the later 1980s, as opposed to that first half of the decade that proved to be the "golden period" for the slasher flick, meant that it should have been trying harder to stand out from a very packed field. 

The plot is very simple, and laid out by the title. There's a masked killer on the prowl with a big axe. People are disappearing, or turning up in corpse form. But that doesn't matter so much to young Gerald (Barton Faulks), who is enjoying getting to know a young woman named Lillian (Christina Marie Lane). The two enjoy computers, as well as the company of one another, but Lillian soon starts to worry when she finds that Gerald has a database on his computer of all the known murder victims.

Having looked up what others thought of this, I was bemused to see a number of positive takes. Some people think this is a superior little slasher. Fortunately, for the sake of the other Larraz movies that I own and have yet to watch, the director himself apparently considered it his worst feature. Slasher movie fans will find some fun elements to enjoy, particularly with an ending that is as predictable as it is amusing, but it's generally not as inventive or gory as it needs to be.

It's odd that four people are credited with creating this script, which is outright shambolic at times. The most egregious example of the poor writing is shown in the first third of the film, with a scene showing Gerald and his friend, Richard (Page Mosely), discovering the corpse of a murder victim sandwiched in between scenes of them being generally carefree and unbothered by the current situation. 

The blank mask isn't too bad, considering how important it can be to give a memorable look to your mystery killer in these things, there are some enjoyable bits of nastiness throughout (including an impressive removal of some digits as someone reaches to grab ammo for their weapon), and the set-pieces generally work well because of the brazen nature of the killer. The first main kill takes place in an automated car wash, and deserves props for being a bit different from many that we've seen before.

The cast vary wildly, in terms of acting quality, but none of them can do much to distract from the weak script. Lane is a more enjoyable lead than Faulks, who suffers from his earliest scenes working to make him the first main potential suspect. Mosely is okay, I guess, but it's the actresses who get to impress more while they are trapped in the more tense sequences. Patty Shepard, Alicia Moro, and May Heatherly all play characters who are stalked by the killer at one point, and all do well enough at being imperilled.

When this first ended, I was massively disappointed. I considered it one of the worst things I'd watched in some time. But it's not. And it's one of those films that retains a certain charm, despite (or because of) the goofiness of it. It's still not good, and I'd rate it as one of the many lesser slasher movies to be released in the 1980s, but it's a film that many horror movie fans will still be able to enjoy, just maybe not in the way that Larraz actually intended.

4/10

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The Adventures Of Pluto Nash (2002)

Famous for being a massive flop when it was released, The Adventures Of Pluto Nash is a film that you cannot help going into with low expectations. If you ever decided to watch it. So it's perhaps inevitable that it exceeds those expectations, but only does so by being generally watchable throughout. Not good. Watchable.

Eddie Murphy starts as Pluto Nash, an ex-prisoner who ends up owning the hottest nightclub on the moon. Having already been relatively famous for his criminal life, Nash is now a very big fish in the small pond that he swims around. He has a robot bodyguard, Bruno (Randy Quaid), and a buyer who really wants to buy his club for a lot of money. He also ends up with an employee named Dina Lake (Rosario Dawson) who ends up on the run with Nash when the lively nightclub is blown up. Someone really wants that club, and they also want Nash dead.

The last film written by Neil Cuthbert, I'd assume the phone stopped ringing after this was released, this is a comedy that isn't very funny, a sci-fi film that doesn't do enough for sci-fi fans, and a family film that won't satisfy any family who sits down to watch it. There's not enough of anything to make it of interest to any one demographic, and I struggle to think about who it was aimed at. There are no satisfying action beats, the jokes that feel more like adult humour feel out of place, and even the final sequence feels like something that just limps along to the end credits.

Director Ron Underwood does nothing to help, although I suspect that he was hampered by his star (Murphy seems to have a tendency to not listen to those who don't want to do things his way). He is at least helped by a supporting cast full of welcome faces, but that's about the only main positive. Don't even start me on the soundtrack, which put my back up from the very beginning with a horrible rendition of "Blue Moon".

Despite not being on top form, Murphy isn't terrible in the lead role. Make his character a bit more worthy of the attention that he receives and you could have a fun person you want to spend time with. A fast-talking hustler who made it big? Yes. And that's how the character is meant to be, but it doesn't really come across that way, certainly not after the first scenes. Dawson is a fine addition, because Dawson is a fine addition to most movies that she's involved with. It may be far from the best thing that Randy Quaid has ever done, but he has some mildly amusing moments throughout. Elsewhere, Jay Mohr is a club crooner, and annoying for almost every minute that he's onscreen, Joe Pantoliano and Victor Varnado are the main villains (both working for a mysterious boss figure), Peter Boyle and Pam Grier have a couple of good scenes, Illeana Douglas is a lot of fun as a doctor with shady ethics, and there are roles for Luis Guzmán, James Rebhorn, Burt Young, Miguel A. Núñez Jr, and John Cleese.

In much the same way that most films people rush to call the latest "best thing ever" don't actually end up being the best thing ever, most films that people rush to call the "worst of all time" aren't usually anywhere near as bad as the very worst of all time. The Adventures Of Pluto Nash isn't good, and it's not one I'd recommend anyone to watch, but it's not irredeemably bad. It's just bad, and mostly dull. The latter is quite an impressive feat, considering all of the stuff thrown around onscreen.

3/10

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Innerspace (1987)

An updated version of Fantastic Voyage, but with some better special effects and a fair amount of comedy added, Innerspace is another film from director Joe Dante made in the middle of a period where he could do no wrong (from the late '70s all the way through to the early '90s) . . . unless you were someone always wanting to see a decent, or indeed any, financial return from his films. Because as beloved as many of them are today, many Joe Dante movies only found a fanbase when they were discovered on VHS. The director himself perhaps views the underwhelming box office performance of this one with particular disappointment, having said that positive test screenings were followed up with a poor marketing campaign that didn't clarify exactly what kind of movie it was. An image of a tiny vehicle, and tiny pilot alongside it, being held between someone's finger and thumb may show the miniaturisation at the heart of the plot, but it doesn't reassure people that they will get a lot of laughs and entertainment.

Dennis Quaid plays Tuck Pendleton, a pilot who has volunteered to take part in a groundbreaking experiment. He will be placed in a small vehicle, miniaturised, and then injected into a bunny rabbit. But there are some villains who want the technology, which leads to some chaos, leading to Tuck actually being injected into the butt of hypochondriac Jack Putter (Martin Short). So now everyone wants the tech that is in Jack, and they’re not too bothered if Jack and Tuck survive the process. Once Tuck figures out where he is, he communicates with Jack and helps him avoid danger, also enlisting the help of Tuck’s on-off girlfriend, Lydia Maxwell (Meg Ryan).

Written by Chip Proser and Jeffrey Boam, Innerspace is a wonderful adventure that makes inventive use of the premise to blend a lot of comedy with many family-friendly thrills. Simply focusing on the voyager inside the human body could have been a showcase for special effects, but may have also become quite dull after the initial excitement died down, so having Tuck able to communicate and help Jack is the masterstroke that elevates this above the film it most closely resembles.

Whether you tend to love or hate the films of Dante, and I fall firmly into the former camp, there’s no denying that he excels at creating films that satisfy a wide audience demographic, with younger viewers impressed by FX work, laughs, and thrills, and older viewers also able to appreciate the many references to the history of cinema, and Loony Tunes cartoons.

The other thing that Dante so often does is cast well, and Innerspace certain benefits from superb casting. Quaid is at his cocky, charming, best as Tuck, and this is one of many fine comedic performances from Martin Short that serve to highlight what a superb actor he is. Ryan is at the start of a run of performances that would mark her out as a female lead that everyone fell in love with for a number of years. Robert Picardo, Kevin McCarthy, and Dick Miller all appear, of course, playing The Cowboy, a main villain, and a taxi driver seen in one scene, respectively, and all are as great as ever, with Picardo having the most fun of the three. Fiona Lewis is also a villain, working in tandem with McCarthy, and Vernon Wells is a menacing “henchman” who could easily be part of any James Bond movie (his fake hand providing one of the more amusingly risqué gags in the film). There are also great little turns from Henry Gibson, Wendy Schaal, and a number of other familiar faces.

Arguably the most straightforward family film from Dante during this period of his career, Innerspace is everything you could want from a polished blockbuster. Lots of fun ideas, a cast of memorable characters, great set-pieces, and an ending that is so enjoyable I end up watching the footage that plays out over the credits every single time. There’s also another great Jerry Goldsmith score, and great use of the song “Twistin’ The Night Away”. The only main issue is the pacing of the first half, which could have been tweaked to get to all the fun stuff a bit quicker. 

Sometimes the best things do come in the smallest packages.

8/10

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Prime Time: Point Break (1991)

It came from a story idea by Rick King, it was turned into a screenplay by W. Peter Iliff, it was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and it starred Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, with sterling support from Lori Petty, Gary Busey, and John C. McGinley. It threaded together a plot that featured undercover FBI work, surfing, skydiving, masks depicting ex-presidents of America, and the best ever foot chase committed to film. And Point Break became one of the best action movies of the early '90s. Tonally, everyone involved judges this just right, and you can take comfort in the fact that this pretty much holds up as well today as it did when you first saw it. Even that bit referenced in Hot Fuzz when Keanu Reeves shoots his gun up in the air and goes "aaahhhhhh".

Reeves is Johnny Utah, the new guy at an L.A. branch of the FBI. The area has seen a number of bank robberies over the past few years, really professional work by people who have barely left one clue at any crime scenes, which leads to Utah being sent undercover. Because one potential theory, thought up by Agent Pappas (Gary Busey), considers the notion that the robbers are a group of surfers. Utah soon finds his way in to the surfing scene via Tyler (Lori Petty), which gets him close to Bodhi (Swayze) and his buddies. They're a good bunch of thrill-seekers, but would they ever think of robbing banks? 

There’s so much to like about Point Break in pretty much every main sequence, even when you are just wallowing in the action movie tropes that crop up. The story is enjoyably ridiculous, and famously reworked to start a certain car-filled franchise, and the action beats remain slick and impressive. Bigelow often feels like a bit of a “get out of jail free” card when people are asked to make one female director they like, especially as she made so many films that seem steeped in testosterone, but she has the reputation that she has because she absolutely deserves it. And Point Break shows her excelling once again, and delivering a bit of a modern classic.

Reeves is excellent, physically capable in the role of Johnny Utah, while still wet enough behind the ears to complicate the situation when he finds himself making a whole bunch of new friends he could end up having to arrest. Swayze gives another one of his star turns from this period, once again playing someone trying to live by a certain code of ethics as things get tougher and tougher, although his character eventually becomes much more morally flexible. Petty may be stuck with the “potential love interest” role, but she does well, and is allowed some interesting little moments throughout. Busey is as gregarious as ever, and John C. McGinley is the stereotypical angry boss, a role that fits him well. There’s also a very small role for Tom Sizemore, playing another undercover agent, that means he was involved with two of the best action thrillers of the nineties.

The script may be more brie than brilliance, but that is part of the charm. Point Break delivers everything you expect from this kind of film, and then some, but it has a mix of earnestness and humour that helps to keep it near the very top of the action movie tree. And it is one that is arguably just as influential as some of the other action movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s.

9/10

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Mad God (2021)

If you have fallen in love with any major blockbuster movie from the past four or five decades then you have probably appreciated the work of Phil Tippet. He is a special effects master, known especially for his superlative stop-motion animation. If you've watched Star Wars movies, Indiana Jones films, Starship Troopers, Jurassic Park, Robocop (he animated ED-209), or even Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, to name just a few, then you have seen Tippet's work.

Mad God is an animated feature, largely utilising stop-motion, that Tippet has been working on for many years, a dark sci-fi epic displaying epic vision while relishing so many tiny details.

The plot is fairly simple, initially. A character descends in a diving bell to explore some dangerous and fantastical lands. Things get darker with his every step, viewing the strange creatures around him and observing some of their bizarre, and sometimes stomach-churning, activities.

There are a few actors used here, with director Alex Cox being the main one, but 99% of the characters onscreen here are created by Tippet and his talented team. And 99% of those creations are imaginatively grotesque, in terms of their physicality and how they spend their time. Think of diving down further and further into some incredibly deep underwater abyss, a place where the creatures are affected by the pressure and the darkness, and you will have some idea of what kind of experience Mad God provides. The closest comparison point might be the works of Jan Švankmajer.

There’s a lot more to it though, this is more than just a fantastical travelogue, but I am not going to pretend that I connected every single dot. A central plot point concerns a bloody medical procedure, and a baby being born, but I had already accepted the fact that I was just going to sit back and take in the minutia of this wild world being put on display.

It may be an indulgent project, and Tippet needed help from many fans to find the final vision, but sometimes allowing an artist to be indulgent is incredibly rewarding. It is art for the sake of art, visions created just because someone imagined them and felt an overwhelming need to turn them into a reality. There may be a mad god within the movie, or maybe not, but it is obvious that the title of this movie refers to Tippet himself. Someone who can build or destroy lives and worlds as he pleases. And there will be many film fans as ready to worship at the altar of Tippet as I was. You may not completely enjoy being thrown into his world, but you’re certainly unlikely to forget it. 

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Censor (2021)

There are a couple of things to bear in mind here, as my review for Censor unfolds. First, I never aim to be contrarian just for the sake of it. Second, something can still be original even as it brings to mind numerous other movies. Oh, and one more thing, this current nostalgic glow for the "video nasties" era is already overstaying its welcome, although I suspect I am in the minority with that viewpoint.

Censor is the story of Enid Baines (played by Niamh Algar), a woman working at the board of censors during the 1980s, the height of the moral panic over video content suddenly being available to most households. She struggles with every decision that she makes, battling against people who want their films uncensored, and also struggles with the weight of her sister's disappearance many years ago. During a time that sees her harangued by the public for some of her decisions, Enid views a film that contains an actress she suspects may actually be the key to unlocking exactly what happened to her sister. But maybe she is seeing what she wants to see, or maybe she is being affected by the material she watches every day at her work.

An admittedly fantastic feature debut from director Prano Bailey-Bond, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Anthony Fletcher, Censor manages to thread together a number of thought-provoking and unsettling scenes set against a background that will still feel fresh (sore?) to many horror movie fans. It's easy to romanticise that time - every horror fan of a certain age will have at least one tale of the time they were able to source a supply of fine "under the counter" nasties - but it's better to look back on it with the disdain and disgust it deserves. People were facing huge fines and jail time. Because of movies. And many of those movies are very easily available now, many of them uncut. The censors were enemies, viewing many adults with a horribly patronising attitude (covered by a sentiment of "won't someone please think of the children"), and maybe one or two stories could still be told with that focus. Censor doesn't want to do that.

What you have here is a mix of The Canal, Evil Ed, and Berberian Sound Studio. Those are good movies to want to emulate. Even Evil Ed. The aesthetics of the film feel spot on, and there are some nice touches that lend authenticity to an experience that feels admirably like a video cassette you've just put into a shiny new top-loader machine. What you don't have is a perfect and unique modern classic. Although nicely put together, and there are a number of impressive scenes throughout, Censor never really stretches itself any further than it needs to. Bailey-Bond does great work on the atmosphere throughout, but squanders the opportunity to present viewers with something smarter and fresher.

Algar is excellent in the lead role, very quiet and reserved until she starts to become more affected by everything going on in her mind. A number of other cast members do decent work, but none make a stronger impression than the excellent Michael Smiley, giving another of his enjoyably unsettling performances (a manner that is just too familiar, a smile that stays a bit too long). Clare Holman and Andrew Havill are excellent as concerned parents, and Felicity Montagu is very good in her small role, but Censor is more of a mood piece than an actor's showcase.

I really liked this, despite what you may think from reading what I have just written above. I didn't love it though, and I'm a bit surprised by just how much love it has been receiving recently. It's surprisingly straightforward and predictable, uses the VHS witch-hunt as little more than background noise to a plot that ultimately could be viewed as saying that the BBFC and others were correct to try to "ban this sick filth", and often feels more like an exercise in style than the more interesting, visceral, psychological horror that it could have been.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Flying Monkeys (2013)

No, this is not a spin-off from The Wizard Of Oz, which could have been a much more interesting movie. Flying Monkeys is a movie that barely needs any further explanation. It's about deadly flying monkeys.

Maika Monroe is unfortunate enough to star in the lead role, playing Joan, a young woman who seems to be consistently disappointed by her father, James (Vincent Ventresca). Things haven't been the same since her mother died. After he arrives late to her graduation ceremony, James tries to make up for his latest error by buying a pet monkey for his daughter. She wants to be a vet so owning a pet monkey should be good practice. Unbeknownst to everyone, however, the monkey isn't actually a normal monkey. It can turn into a dangerous winged creature, and when shot with standard weapons it actually multiplies. The local Sheriff (Michael Papajohn) ends up racing to protect the people in his local community, but the real solution can only be found in the blessed weaponry wielded by a woman named Yin (Boni Yanagisawa).

The only film, to date, directed by Robert Grasmere, Flying Monkeys is almost absolutely awful in every single respect, save for the fact that they got Monroe just before her star-making turns in some great genre movies a year or so later (and when I say star-making . . . I am referring to how she is viewed by fans of those movies who immediately adopted her as a new potential scream queen). This is also the only film to be written by Silvero Gouris, which is a situation I hope doesn't change any time soon. Flying Monkeys could have been a silly distraction, either a simple and fun creature feature or something with a tone to put it firmly in the comedy horror camp. It instead tries to play everything fairly straight, and is all the worse for it.

Where to begin? I started to think that the people involved with this didn't really know what they were doing when they decided to have an elderly character deliver a line of dialogue most famously spoken by Matthew McConaughey in Dazed & Confused. It shows that this was written by someone more interested in fitting in a small reference than creating some convincing characters to be caught up in the winged primate peril. Having said that, at least it is one memorable line. It just happens to be lifted from a much better movie.

Monroe remains likeable enough in the lead role, and Ventresca isn't terrible as the father who cannot do right for doing wrong, but there aren't many others who help to make the material more bearable. Yanagisawa is particularly poor, I'm sorry to say, but Papajohn isn't very good either, and their performance levels are equalled by Electra Avellan, Tyler Forrest, Zac Waggener, and others. Christopher Matthew Cook, billed as Matt Cook, manages to do well enough, playing the unscrupulous animal trader who unwittingly sells the killer beast to Ventresca's character.

You could say that this is on a par with so many other movies of this type. It's not though. I've watched, and enjoyed, many other films like this. I've accepted the varying quality of the acting, I've had fun with the terrible CGI, and I've known that they were a packaged product that I chose to consume. Flying Monkeys lacks a sense of fun, or some kind of self-awareness. Which means that none of the moments feel as enjoyable and entertaining as they should, even the main "punchline" delivered by Monroe, a line that should have been celebrated for how wonderful and terrible it is, but just ends up making you roll your eyes and groan instead.

Or maybe I am just annoyed that there still hasn't been a killer monkey movie titled The Apes Of Wrath.

3/10

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Shudder Saturday: Jakob's Wife (2021)

Barbara Crampton plays Anne Fedder, a woman who is married to Pastor Jakob Fedder (Larry Fessenden). Their marriage seems a bit stale, I think it's fair to say, and Anne has settled into a role that leaves her a bit (or a lot?) less satisfied than she should be. But that changes when she is bitten by a creature (Bonnie Aarons, working under a very impressive make up job). Anne may need to drink blood from others now, but she also has a confidence and aura that has been missing for many years. That changes her marriage, and not necessarily all for the worse.

Directed by Travis Stevens (who also helmed the very enjoyable The Girl On The Third Floor), and co-written by Stevens with Kathy Charles and Mark Steensland, Jakob's Wife is yet another fun film in a sub-genre that everyone assumes is dead until a fresh approach is presented. There are numerous elements and moments here that feel lifted from past vampire movies (e.g. how often have we seen someone be bitten and then try to satisfy their new urges with raw meat/blood from a butcher shop?), but the material is given a nice twist when the focus shifts to the state of the marriage between Anne and Jakob, using the bite itself as a metaphor for any big change made by a spouse that reinvigorates their mind and spirit.

It helps that the leads here are Crampton and Fessenden, with the former a particular boost to the production, considering I have been convinced for some time now that she has at least one bath full of blood a week to maintain her victory over the passage of time affecting us all. Crampton is fine while playing the more timid version of Anne, but she gets to have way more fun as her character blossoms. Fessenden is excellent, his character putting the pieces of a puzzle together while he wrestles with his conscience over the best way to move forward. Aarons gets to be the Nosferatu of this tale, and her physical presence is genuinely spooky and impressive. Nyisha Bell is a young woman who goes AWOL early on, and she does well in her role, and there's decent support from Sarah Lind and Mark Kelly, as well as a fun small turn from Robert Rusler.

Although never a film you would mistake for a mainstream studio horror movie, and I am not noting that here as any negative, Jakob's Wife is very well made throughout, from the visuals to the unintrusive score, by Tara Busch. There may be nothing here that stands out as being absolutely brilliant, aside from the core cast, but the script and direction are full of nice little touches, the pacing is pretty perfect, and the ending is deliciously dark and satisfying. What you have here is a good film that manages, thanks to the way it never once drops in quality, to become ever so slightly great. It's also interesting and fun enough to warrant more than one viewing, and I can easily see it becoming a film that some horror movie fans will choose to champion for the next few years. If it doesn't get the attention it deserves. So you can get ahead of the curve by giving it that attention now.

8/10

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Snake Eyes (2021)

AKA Snake Eyes: G. I. Joe Origins.

Directed by Robert Schwentke, who very possibly thinks it a minor miracle every time he is handed another film project, and written by Joe Shrapnel, Anna Waterhouse, and Evan Spiliotopoulos (the first two having worked together on many films before this one), Snake Eyes isn't a film with many signs of greatness from the list of names who worked on it. But it's a lead role for Henry Golding, and another film giving some screentime to Samara Weaving, so I decided to give it a go. 

It's not good.

It's not really that bad either. It's just there, not as much fun as the first live action G.I. Joe movie, but a bit better than the second one (which was weighed down by the presence of a somnambulistic Bruce Willis, who actually appears in dictionaries now right beside the definition of somnambulism). Annoyingly, this had potential. Some key characters are cast well, others not so much, and I'd love to see Golding get a vehicle that takes him to the superstar level he deserves. This isn't that.

Golding plays Snake Eyes, of course, a young man out to avenge the death of his father. He'll do anything to find his father's killer, and that journey places him alongside a powerful clan that includes Tommy (Andrew Koji), Akiko (Haruka Abe), Sen (Eri Ishida), and a powerful jewel which is desired by the dangerous Kenta (Takehiro Hira). Snake Eyes is tested a number of times, in challenges that involve characters played by Iko Uwais and Peter Mensah, and the second half of the film also brings in familiar characters such as the Baroness (Úrsula Corberó) and Scarlett (Samara Weaving).

There’s some stuff to like here. Golding being the main highlight, but also Abe, Ishida, Uwais, and Weaving. That’s a good selection of players. Unfortunately, they are alongside Koji, who drags down almost every scene he is in, saddled with a character who has to do little more than look brooding and wait to take on the name that fans of this property will know is coming. 

The action isn’t terribly done, but you wouldn’t always know that when the editing gets in the way of it. Whether out of necessity, to cover up some limitations from cast members, or due to a misjudged idea of stylisation, the editing gets in the way of most of the energetic set-pieces. It is far from the worst we have seen in this kind of fare, but this material was crying out for more fixed camera shots that could highlight the fluidity and speed of the fighters. 

The other disappointing main element here is the lack of wit. People may not want their action films to be overfilled with humour, but being too serious throughout feels just as bad, especially when you’re presenting a film developed from a toy line. The only person who gets to really have fun is Weaving, which then makes it feel as if she has wandered in from another movie. 

I know that I will end up watching this again, and probably owning it at some point, but that is more to do with my completist approach to movies. I wouldn’t really recommend it to many other people though, unless you are as big a fan of Golding as I am (which you should be). Maybe next time he will get a better script, or better director, or maybe he needs a better agent.

6/10

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Queen Of The Blues (1979)

It’s been a while since I continued my journey through the filmography of British adult superstar Mary Millington, but Queen Of The Blues makes me think that the best of her outings are already behind me. Because this is quite a terrible film, with a premise even slimmer than any of the previous vehicles planned around an appearance by Millington.

A pair of brothers are helped by an uncle to own a new business enterprise, that business enterprise being a lucrative adult entertainment bar. The fact that the bar also has appearances from the Queen Of The Blues (Millington) makes it an even more appealing business prospect, which brings it to the attention of a major crook, who sends some henchmen (Felicia Bowness and Milton Reid) to gain ownership of the club.

Once again delivered by writer George Evans and director Willy Roe, Queen Of The Blues barely has enough content contained within it to qualify as a movie. What you get feels more like a terrible documentary that simply allows you to experience a typical evening as an audience member in this kind of venue in 1970s Britain. There are lots of dull patches, some terrible humour from a compere who simply gets in the way of the attractive women, and then some unerotic nudity.

If you like Millington then you at least get to see her as the star attraction she is, at one point, but there’s very little else here to recommend this. Bowness and Reid are relatively fun in their small roles, being the best cast members used in the slim plot, and Ballard Berkeley is enjoyable in the couple of scenes that feature his character, Uncle Fred. Rosemary England is the other name that may be of interest to connoisseurs of this kind of entertainment, but that’s where all interest ends.

There’s not much else to say about this. It is what it is, and that happens to be more of a recreation of a night out in a particular type of venue than a decent movie experience. Millington was able to shine more in past roles, but she’s still the main reason for anyone to watch this. People who are unaware of her should stay far away from this, there’s no other reason for it to be of interest to you. 

2/10

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