*contains spoilers So you think self-isolation is driving you crazy? The film Repulsion (1965) begins with the sight of a woman’s eye as the credits appear along with the heartbeat-like sound of a drum. Actress Catherine Deneuve (1943-) is staring into space at work, detached from her surroundings as a manicurist in a private room…
Read more The Isolation and Madness of Roman Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy
*contains spoilers What came next for Girdler was his first hit, the blaxploitation classic Abby (1974). Made with a budget of $400,000, more funky music greets the opening of this The Exorcist (1973) rip-off which made millions at the box-office in its first couple of weeks of release. Girdler noticed when The Exorcist was being…
Read more The Rip-Off Cult of Director William Girdler (Part Two)
*contains spoilers Director William Girdler (1947-78 helicopter crash) made only nine features in his career which spanned the 1970s. Most are considered rubbish by the critics. But when you look at what Girdler did with so little money, you can’t be anything but impressed. Born in Jefferson County, Kentucky in 1947 from one of the…
Read more The Rip-Off Cult of Director William Girdler (Part One)
*contains spoilers and confronting images Enter at your own risk! The movie Lords of Chaos (2018) was released a couple of years after a conversation I had with a Christian friend. I told him, when we were talking about heavy metal music, that I heard there was a Scandinavian black metal band that went around…
*contains spoilers The screenplay for the cult end of the world movie The Omega Man (1971) is based on writer Richard Matheson’s (1926-2013) novel from 1954 – I Am Legend – a title which younger people may recognise. There have been three official adaptations of this novel and these are The Last Man on Earth…
*contains spoilers Lest we forget the Snowtown murders, otherwise known as the bodies in the barrels case which was turned into a South Australian film in 2011. My cousin was a witness at the trial and an uncle who was on the police force said when the cops discovered the barrels in the old Snowtown…
Read more The Demons of Horror Director Ursula Dabrowsky and Others (Part Two)
*contains spoilers Adelaide director Ursula Dabrowsky (no info) has made two modest but vastly entertaining horror movies and they are entitled Family Demons (2009) and Inner Demon (2014). Family Demon is presented in the strangest of narratives – like the crime or crimes in the movie, they too are strange – physically and psychically. And…
Read more The Demons of Horror Director Ursula Dabrowsky and Others (Part One)
*contains spoilers Hollywood did, however, give Tallulah financial independence and she left with $200,000 and a resolve to return to the stage. It would be a decade before she made another film. She opened on Broadway to rapturous applause in Forsaking All Others. Joan Crawford would star in the film version a year or so…
*contains spoilers Stage and screen actress Tallulah Bankhead (1902-68 pneumonia) was never a fully-fledged movie star, but she left, at least, a few interesting performances on celluloid. Tallulah was more of a force of nature, a personality, witty and bisexual, she was a woman who liked to talk and talk. “I’ve just spent an hour…
*contains spoilers Two rather well-known celebrities of their day “disappeared” for a short time within around six months of each other back in the 1920s, and in the 1970s within a few years of one another a couple of interesting movies resulted about each disappearance. The first is The Disappearance of Aimee (1976 tv movie)…
Read more The Disappearances of Aimee Semple McPherson and Agatha Christie
