The Ghoul: upper class comedy masquerading as horror
T Hayes Hunter, “The Ghoul” (1933) I had never heard of this film before and stumbled on it while looking for something else on Youtube. Boris…
Horror
Gibel’ Sensatsii / Loss of Feeling: good-looking film about robots and workers versus capitalists
Aleksandr Andriyevsky, “Gibel’ Sensatsii / Loss of Feeling” (1935) A very handsome-looking film made in 1935, “Gibel’ Sensatsii” is sometimes also known as “The Robots of…
Little Black Riding Hood / The Walls: two very different early shorts by Piotr Dumala
Piotr Dumala, “Little Black Riding Hood / Czarny Kapturek” (1983) Piotr Dumala, “The Walls / Sciany” (1988) Based on the familiar childhood story but rendered in…
Two comedy horror shorts by Martin Scorsese about self-destructive compulsions and obsessions
Martin Scorsese, “What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?” (1963) Martin Scorsese, “The Big Shave” (1967) Two hilarious short films from Martin…
Põrgu (Hell): good versus evil in homage to a 20th century Estonian surrealist artist
Rein Raamat, “Põrgu (Hell)” (1983) While watching “Wax or the Discovery of Television among the Bees”, I noticed that Thronoi the Bear who had uploaded this…
Multi-media Presentations, North American Films
Wax or the Discovery of Television among the Bees: a moral and political film under the visual overload
David Blair, “Wax or the Discovery of Television among the Bees” (1991) One of my favourite science fiction films since I first saw it in the…
The Birds (dir. Alfred Hitchcock): psychological study of sexual / cultural repression
Alfred Hitchcock, “The Birds” (1963) Based on a 1952 short story by English writer Daphne du Maurier – one of Hitchcock’s favourite sources for film plots…
Prophets of Science Fiction (Episode 1: Mary Shelley): conservative message about scientific responsibility delivered
Declan Whitebloom, “Prophets of Science Fiction (Episode 1: Mary Shelley)” (2011) This episode revolves around Mary Godwin-Shelley’s famous novel “Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus” and the…
Aragami: rather bland action bromance film about how appearances can’t be trusted
Ryuhei Kitamura, “Aragami” (2003) The Japan Foundation Office across the road from where I work put on a week’s worth of Japanese films during the April…
28 Weeks Later: film has more Swiss-cheese holes than the zombies make in their victims
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, “28 Weeks Later” (2007) On paper it looked like a good idea: a sequel to the original zombies-on-the-run flick “28 Days Later” by…