Based on a combination of a stolen pornographic novel and a short story account of an incident from the 1968 Detroit riots, in which a group of Black militants kidnapped a white woman. ‘Hot Summer in the City’ is an aggressive 40 page blacksploitation rape flick brought to life in horrifyingly intense detail. The Director and Writer Gail Palmer claims that at the time she wrote the film, she was unaware of what exactly ‘rape’ was, and that this film was intended to be seen more as a graphic portrayal of ‘raveshing’ shown alongside vivid social commentary on the race riots occuring around the time the film takes place.
I dont know how much I believe that, Given the fact that everyone crewing this film more or less only agreed to take part in it if they could be anonymously credited. and that most of the cast wernt exactly ‘thrilled’ about it either. But despite its unsettling and grimey feeling and premise. Theres something rough about this film that makes it kind of an engrossing watch.
The plots simple, the films set in 1967 and a young white couple who are saving themselves for marriage have just arrived home from a date. Debbie (our white blonde virgin for this film) expresses some sadness as her fathers recently passed away. However on leaving her date and heading into her home, she finds her mother in a three way with her friends dad and the neighbour. Shocked, she runs out of the house distraught, only to get cat called by a car full of black guys. When she doesnt respond to the calls, or offers of prostitution, they chase her down, bundle her into a car, rape her, and drive her back to their cabin.
Once their, she assumes the role of the cabins housewife, cooking, cleaning and pouring drinks, and the guys take turns on her throughout the runtime. The guys are plotting some kind of disturbance or riot, but things get a bit complex when the leader of the gang ‘Duke’s’ partner, turns up and finds out that him and his friends have been passing Debbie around for kicks. leading to tensions rising and BIG confrontations, especially when Duke begins to actually develop feelings for Debbie.
And…Im really struggling to find my feelings on this one, its a film that doesnt exactly paint black people in a great light, directed by a white female director who seemingly at that time didnt have a whole lot of worldly lived experiences…or if she did, she’s denying she did now.
On its face value, I kind of have to call this what it is, a racist and unpleasent film in which all Black guys are rapist thugs who do nothing but beat people, drink, act aggressive and vulgar and hump anything that moves. But its that pure unrelenting nastiness that is probably the one thing that makes it stand out the most. Its a grubby little movie, that made me feel unsettled for having watched it…it’s kind of like ‘I spit on Your Grave’ if the big twist was that the victim eventually kind of got ‘into’ the molestation.
The script only being 40 pages long, some scenes do drag quite a bit. theres an extended scene of the guys playing cards, which is a good character defining sequence, but it went on without cuts a bit longer than I personally would have liked. The first act feels elongated and a bit awkward, leading to a stubby 2nd act that doesnt really feel like it shifts up in pace and action, it rides that one tone and gear right up until we hit an even stubbier 3rd act that ends…well, it ends about as well as this film could have ended honestly.
I’ll give the film this, it gives its characters some complexities and depth, and despite the short runtime, it manages to make those characters feel more intricate than most. the pacing may be slow, but the film does have some interesting moments that pull an audience in. the tones pretty bleak, but there is a slight camp streak running through this that just adds a little light to this very dark piece. its not a particularly ‘deep’ film…but its dealing with ‘deep’ themes in a ‘sledgehammer’ way that even for the time must have been controversial. In that sense, its abhorrent. but kind of mesmorising too.
On the direction front, its minimalist. there was one camera and one camera man and Gail talked through the scenes with the cast and handled some of the lighting. Gail herself said she didnt really feel like a director was on set, but if anyone *would* have a directing credit, it’d probably be her…and that about checks out, as scenes arnt exactly eye popping. a lot of it is setting a camera up level with a table or a bed and then just guiding the cast through the scene in a mid wide, occasionally cutting to a close up. its ‘functional’.
Where the direction does step up quite a bit however, is the rape scenes themselves. Which feature slow motion (which was quite novel for the time) and some very interesting sequence building with actually quite impressive cinematography in places. onluy matched by some fairly solid editing. Including at least a couple of instances where the guys go to rape Debbie again, and they use quick cuts of the last rape to illustrate Debbies rushing thoughts as she realises whats about to happen again…Im not saying its right, but I am saying that was a pretty creative way to handle it.
I think my issue here is that the sex scenes themselves are catered to the male gaze…which is kind of irredeemable given these are rape scenes. Theses scenes arent shot to show that whats happening is a bad thing, they’re shot as if this is a deeply erotic thing to do…and its WEIRD…
Performance wise, its dry…VERY dry. The black guys on set basically had to script edit in real time because Gail wasnt very good at writing dialogue for black actors. But even with that being the case, the guys mumble through their lines, to the point I had to watch with subtitles to make out what was being said, and Debbie and her partner have almost no dialogue, but what dialogue they DID have was basically BEYOND poorly delivered. they struggled to remember their lines and regularly had to read from cue cards…but they deliver their lines like it was the first time they’d even seen them…its not great.
Bizarrely, the soundtrack for this film is a 60’s jukebox windup featuring ‘The Beach Boys’, ‘The Shangri-las’, ‘The Lovin Spoonful’ and many MANY more…Did they get the appropriate licenses for these tracks? HELL NO…and I dont think i’ve been more unsettled than seeing a woman squirm as a gang of guys run a train on her to ‘Good Vibrations’. It pops in and out of the film. But the timings on it are at least pretty okay…so that kind of works in the films favour.
‘Hot Summer in the City’ is a shocker of a picture. I can believe naivity to a point, but there are some moments in this where I cant believe anything other than they wanted to make a movie to shock, horrify and sensationalise. It’s warped and unique take is abhorrent, but at the same time, I cant say I disliked this movie. the blacksploitation elements were compelling, the 2nd-3rd act ‘love story’ elements between Duke and Debbie were surreal to say the least and some of the cine in the sex scenes were striking and really quite powerful.
This one absolutely wont be for everyone, I’d say if you didnt like ‘I Spit on your Grave’ for being too rape-centric…you REALLY wont like this one, but if Rape/Revenge films are your jam, you may actually kind of get on with this one.
Do you want a slasher movie that somehow has a film budget, but an SOV Sensibility? Well; ‘The Last Slumber Party’ is the movie for you! This, somewhat generic, late 80s slasher piece pretty much gives you the absolute barest minimums you need in order to enjoy a slasher pic. But with the added bonus of some surrealist arty horror moments thrown in for good measure!
The plots…Well; the plots about as generic as it gets really, 3 girls are looking to let their hair down by hosting a slumber party at one of the girls parents house. the father of the house happens to also be a doctor working on a psych ward, and wouldnt you believe it! One of their more ‘Out there’ patients has escaped the ward dressed in scrubs and armed with a particularly sharp scalpel! And to confuse things a bit! There are ALSO 3 horny jocks ambling about looking to crash the slumber party for good times and beers, even though the girls are on STRICT instructions to have NO beer and NO BOYS!
And what follows is about 50 minutes of girls idling around a small mansion in states of undress, while the dudebros randomly break in and out of the house to get fresh and the killer slowly makes his way to the house, picking off a few people along the way. with the remaining 20 or so minutes of the film being the main reason to check this one out. Some pretty decent kills, and artsy dream sequences that just about help pull this film up out of the dregs into something half decent and worth your time.
Dont be fooled, the script for this really isnt anything special, outside of the dream sequences, this is a heavily padded feature where we spend more time watching the girls dancing in the kitchen and wandering around the house than we get ACTUAL plot setting…maybe with some more atmospheric lighting or even a jumpscare or two things could have been a bit different. But its just a hell of a lot of walking and exposition. intersperced with an ultra low body count on the ‘slasher’ front.
The dialogue feels drawn out and overcomplicated, presumably again, to help pad the runtime. The characters are all ultra generic stereotypes of the genre…Basically if you’ve ever caught a slasher film, your likely WAY too familiar with these character tropes…and thats kind of dissapointing, because while I know these kinds of characters are a given, its really more what you do with them that makes them work to their full potential, rather than just putting the tropes in the scenario and watching it play out.
Throw in a somewhat underwhelming ending and an act structuring that just seems to get stuck at one pace for the full runtime, and youve got yourself a horror movie thats solely flying by the tone and vibes its putting out on a script level…and thats about it.
I will say, this feels a bit like a Horror comedy in places, and when its being more light hearted, it really lands the punches well. But this one kind of reminded me of ‘Nightmare Sisters’…But not as sharp or well constructed…and I didnt like ‘Nightmare Sisters’…So when im saying your the poor man to that…thats not great.
On every other front, its the bare minimum…the directions flat, predictable and kind of lifeless, barring the arty moments where it does get a *bit* of a bump in quality…But not enough to really fully win me over. Cast directions fairly flat and lifeless too, this is the kind of movie where you can tell the cast and film makers were excited to say ‘Fuck’ on screen, because the cast deliver their ‘F-bombs’ with a pointedness that can only come from someone being a bit *Too* excited to swear on screen…their physical presences are limited purely to scripted instructions and their dialogue deliveries are largely D.O.A.
The cine is largely bland, mostly locked off shots in mid or close up. theres no dynamics in the setup for this one, and while I will say its pretty decent on the B-roll, there are moments where they clearly forgot to shoot coverage, because the edit will just flat out hard cut away from some scenes with no transitionary shot creating a very jarring experience. Compositions and lighting are uninspired. theres maybe a half dozen half decent shots in this thing…But otherwise its very utilitatrian in its approach, which felt a bit clinical to me…Not helped at all by the fact that the killer for the film isnt really particularly engaging or interesting to shoot, its a guy in a surgical mask…they never reveal what he looks like under it, and given large chunks of the film take place in the hospital, it just kind of all blurs together.
Performances, as mentioned are flat, even the kills lack any kind of siginificant animation or ‘Depth’ to them…people just die in this film and noone really gives it any kind of attention. they just move on, theres no mourning, no sense that we should even really care these characters are gone, and that combined with the fact that the characters themselves just arnt given that much depth or characterization, leaves the whole thing feeling quite underwhelming.
Oh! and the soundtracks kind of D.O.A as well, a handful of tracks largely at the beginning and end of the film. and very little in the way of incidental music. Most of the film plays out to dead air or ‘on set’ audio…its quite dissapointing.
‘The Last Slumber Party’ has its moments, and it doesnt really do anything so horrendously that I could call it ‘Bad’ inherently…but it didnt do anything to really wow me or win me over either. It’s a true neutral. Definitely not main feature fodder, but it could play well as an appitizer, or the middle part of a triple feature bill…clocking in at just over 70 minutes. if your looking for a slasher and your in a hurry, this’ll give you everything you need in compressed form…but not everything you want…nor everything at a breathable pace.
I’d wanted to pick up ‘Children of the Damned’ for a couple of years, ever since catching ‘Village of the Damned’ a while ago and wondering how they’d handle a sequel to that film. Being honest, it feels almost like it writes itself, given the last film ends with the children being blown to pieces and the ‘alien’ element of the kids seemingly freed into a coporial form to escape the village and explore the wider world. It could have prompted an interesting sequel dealing with rebirth, revenge and an aliens view on the darker side of humanity.
But ‘Children of the Damned’ isnt really that…in fact, its kind of forgettable…Or at the very least doesnt seem to pack the atmospheric punch that ‘Village’ had in spades.
So the films kind of more of a sideways sequel to ‘Village’ than anything else. essentially the film doesnt really acknowledge the last film in any capacity, a lot of the ‘origin’ plot points have been airlocked, and barring a single line from one of the children about how they’ve ‘Died before’ Im pretty sure this thing has just lifted the idea of ‘psychic killer alien children’ from ‘Village’ and implanted it into this films world.
The plot opens with a group of scientists testing the mental agility of some children, one of the kids ‘Paul’ isnt just significantly quicker at completing the puzzles, he’s able to solve puzzles that the other kids cant even comprehend. On seeing Pauls genius, the staff really want more information about his circumstance. But his mothers cagey on details around Paul, his father or his birth. and after a bizarre accident befalls Pauls Mother, she confides in them that she was a virgin at the time of Pauls birth, there was no father, and shes known since the birth that something wasnt quite right with him.
The scientists continue their testing, visitng various embassys where similar stories and children emerge. All the while Paul is under the care of his distant aunt, who doesnt really know much about whats going on. She takes Paul being a kid for granted. and when the scientists become keen to take Paul in for further observations. He hypnotises his aunt, travels to each of the embassys to collect the other ‘gifted’ children and the lot of them hold up in an abandoned cathedral. All the while the scientists slowly begin to piece together that Paul and the other kids are somehow all linked together, that they have mind control powers, and that they may not even be of this earth! And when word spreads about the supernatural children, the embassys work quickly to mobalize a military response to the children, considering them a threat to humanity. Even though our scientists seem confident that isnt really the case.
Essentially, this felt like a bit of a letdown after ‘Village’ on pretty much every level.
The script doesnt command the same level of atmosphere as ‘Village’ the first entry felt like a bit of a hybrid of a Nigel Neil script crossed with ‘The Twilight Zone’ there was a real sense of atmosphere, forboding…the unknown!. This film feels more like a moral tale, that underplays the unknown and plays things almost like a 50s ‘atom age’ picture. The first film had genuinely unpleasent moments of horror. This film? the kids barely get to use their supernatural powers, and when they do, its mainly hypnosis or telecommunication. Which sucks. its dull!
This could have been a pretty easy win. Set the film in a smaller rural village, have the spirits of the children from the last film ‘possess’ the bodies of random children from this smaller, less developed village and have them slowly hypnotise and manipulate this small community into paranoid brutalists murdering each other because they dont know whos ‘possessed’ and who isnt. Instead? we get a plodding thriller with horror elements thats essentially an anti-nuclear war picture. that doesnt have the courage of its convictions to BE an anti nuclear war film till the last 20-30 minutes or so.
The pacing is slow and plodding, this is a dialogue heavy film that feels like it has to spoon feed you every. single. plot detail, not matter how big or small…its dragging its heels for the most part and as such a LOT of the more interesting or unique moments that made the first film so engaging…are just missing from this. Put it this way, this is the kind of movie where you can just…flat out leave for 10 minutes, and if you come back, you either wont have missed anything, or one of the characters will do you a 3 minute long recap of everything thats just happened. At that point, I kind of wonder what the point of engaging with the media is.
The characters are all pretty dull, the children in the last film had a unique look and identity, as a hive mind it meant there was a lot of opportunity to play that up and create an unsettling look and feel…But here? thats relegated, all the kids purposfully look different (for the cold war messaging) and they really dont play that much on the supernatural element, the ‘eye glowing’ effects that felt fairly regular in the first, get wheeled out a couple of times MAX in this one. and we dont really get any kind of set pieces apart from the VERY VERY end of the film. and thats not caused by the children.
I will say they handle the act structuring fairly well, the film does have a few fun moments in the plotting and the ending is fairly bombastic…But it kind of lacks the power of the originals ending. that film ended with a defeated ‘bittersweet’ sacrifice. This films ending is trigger by some berk accidentally dropping a screwdriver onto a wire, that completes a circuit by mistake…it feels less refined as a work is what im saying.
Direction wise, its kind of unremarkable too. Not bad by any stretch, but it feels smaller, everythings handled in close ups or mid wides, we’ve shifted from a countryside village to a city…and that location change really harms the films looks and feels. the grungy city vibe helps make things feel more ‘cop drama’ esq…but the village location helped add to the sense of helplessness, the feeling that all of this was happening beyond the realms of city community and safety. As such, this film looks and feels more like a kitchen sink drama, than a supernatural scifi horror sequel. and its just kind of beige for it.
Theres some interesting scene setups dotted throughout, and given this is a studio pic, I wasnt really expecting anything to be inherently BAD int he direction…but it is kind of just ‘going through the motions’ for lack of a better descriptive.
The cines much the same, theres some nice lighting moments here and there, the edits tight enough, special effects are a bit lacking…but shots are well composed for the most part…theres just…no sense of adventurousness…the first film had TONS of interesting or unique moments that really helped lift it up. this? this just feels like some guys filming what they think will work…its ‘safe’, and overly ‘safe’ at that.
throw in a kind of unremarkable soundtrack to boot, and you have a really quite dissapointing follow up. I cannot stress how much potential, and how easy it would have been to have made a sequel to that original film that managed to keep the atmosphere and build on the lore…and they seem to have shelved that idea in favour of cramming ‘The Children’ into a shelved 50’s cold war thriller script whether they fitted in or not.
Would I rewatch this one again? maybe?…I guess? Like I say, it wasnt BAD inherently or anything…But if I want that kind of ‘quatermass and the pit’ style sci-fi horror…This film isnt the one to provide it. I’d say if you saw ‘Village’ and liked it, maybe check this one out…but temper your expectations…if you havent seen ‘village’ your not missing out.
2024 was almost certainly an ‘event’ year for me personally, one where I kind of put my hobbies and enjoyments on hold for 12 months in order to do a bit of ‘personal growth and development’. It was one of those years where 10 years progress was done in 12 months, and Im hoping (FINALLY) after 2 years of life changing significant events, that i’ll be able to (FINALLY) settle back into the nice, comfortable life I was leading pretty much right up to the start of 2023…How likely that is to happen however has yet to be seen ultimately.
Im sure many folks are bored BEYOND death about me talking about me and my partner buying our first house this year. I fully promise that the next couple of blogs on this site will basically be the end of it. But that has kind of been my year. 4-6 months of paperwork and trying to keep the momentum up, followed by 4-6 months of heavy renovation work, moving, re-moving, re-re-moving and finally unpacking and getting set up. And even now, as of Jan 4th 2025 we’re still not FULLY done…We’re basically just unpacked and set up enough that we can start to lead a normal day to day life without feeling like we’re on a building site or living out of boxes. But we still have a bit of a journey to go.
I mention this because its had a detrimental impact on my movie watching this year on multiple levels. For one, its meant i’ve had to make all my youtube content up front (basically all the videos you watched this year, barring collabs were written, recorded, edited and uploaded between December 2023 and April 2024, With the last video going up around July time). So I’ve kind of been out of the loop this year on that front. But the other knock on is that during the actual process of home buying and DIY-ing, i’ve been WAY too busy and consumed with getting the place habitable to even THINK of cracking open new movies. Meaning my year in film basically reads:
January – June: A few New movies mixed in with some firm favourites
July – November: Barely ANY movie watching, and if there was any it was nostalgia heavy favourites to try and keep my brain on side.
December: A rushed mixture of trying to cram in as many new movies as I could on top of as many christmas movies as I could, While ALSO doing MEGA late christmas planning because I ran out of time and money.
Its been. A. Year. But certainly a rewarding and enriching one!
And now its 2025! And im ready to let the rubber ACTUALLY hit the road, im delighted to be back and keen to get started on making new videos, hanging on streams with folks and getting back into the swing of things. But before I can really TRUELY get started…Its become a bit of an annual tradition round these parts to look back over the last 12 months and spotlight the films that I caught for the first time last year and shine a light on them to highlight just how awesome they really were!
This years list was a little easier than most years, as there wasnt *as* many to choose from, but I still had a good time shortlisting 20 films out of the many new titles I did watch and then whittling them down to a top 10. As always, these films are in no particular order. These are just 10 films I caught for the first time last year, that I think you’ll really get a kick out of if you choose to check them out! So without further ado!
Pufnstuff:
Prior to 2024 I had only a very limited knowledge of the works of Sid and Marty Krofft. Other than show titles, I hadnt really seen any of their work and had you asked me my opinion on them before last year, I’d have probably just written them off as wannabes who jumped on the psychedelic movement of the 60s and then spent the rest of their careers riding the coat-tails of Jim Henson.
But then this year, I saw Pufnstuf. And well, i’ve never really quite been the same since.
This, VIVID. Offering landed at just the right moment when I needed some surrealist hyper colourful silliness without the sneer, and it quickly won me over without much of a fight.
The plot of ‘Pufnstuf’ in and of itself is a bit surreal telling the tale of a lad who finds a magic talking flute and moments later a fully functional talking boat that takes him to a strange island full of felt folk who are just happy to have new visitors. This is all short lived however when the film introduces Witchipoo, a local witch to the island whos spotted the magic flute and wants it to allow her to do exceptional magic AND to show off at the annual Witches convention.
The relentless happiness, and bizarre imagery this film conjures up across its runtime left my jaw firmly on the floor at multiple points, and when I showed the folks on my discord page the movie, they too were equally beside themselves with laughter and confusion as to what the hell they were actually even watching…But in a good way, not a confused ‘call the police way’.
With solid direction, fun and interesting characters, the BIZARRE plot, vivid and creative script and set choices, a superb cast and memorable music numbers. ‘Pufnstuf’ may actually be one of the few films on this list that I could really solidly recommend to just about anyone with even a passing interest in surreal and strange cinema. Put it this way, Im not ranking these films on this list. But if I were, ‘pufnstuf’ would be a top 3 contender no doubt about it.
Hey Folks! It’s intermission time mixtape!:
I’ve been on a bit of a journey with boutique labels over the last decade or so, when I first got into active collecting back at the turn of the 2010s, it was ‘Arrow Video’ that acted as a gateway to strange and surreal cinema and opened up a whole world of film to me. Around 2018/2019 however, I began to notice that more and more ‘mainstream’ titles were entering their release schedules and the types of films that had previously been the backbone of the company (The Beast Within, City of the Living Dead, Inferno etc…) were increasingly becoming rarer to see on the slate, eventually sometime around 2019, Vinegar Syndrome made their international shipping options MUCH more palatable, and I became a devout Vyn-Sin connoisseur. For a good 4-5 years I bought pretty much anything they’d put out, I went through their back catalogue and tried to mop up as much as I could.
And while I CERTAINLY wont be throwing stones here, they’re good people. I have to say that, while those 4-5 years were good…by the end of last year, I was kind of tapped out.
I’d basically bought everything I was interested in, the stuff I didnt already own, but wanted, was skyrocketing in price due to VS’s ‘once they’re gone, they’re gone’ way of distributing films. They too have slowly been releasing more and more ‘upper end’ studio pictures (show girls, roadhouse, The Tenant) and that combined with there just, not being as many titles released that im fully interested in owning, and the fact that they seem insistent now in releasing the majority of their titles in 4k (at 4k prices) has meant i’ve spent a lot of the year drumming my fingers with Vinegar syndrome, hoping that their next month of releases has maybe ONE film i’d actually be interested in, and could afford once it hit sale prices…and then being somewhat disappointed when that didnt happen…2024 in that regard has been a bit of a washout.
But, while Vinegar Syndrome have kind of been off my radar this year, AGFA (American Genre Film Archive) have, for the last 3-4 years now, slowly been warming up to becoming my new favourite boutique label. The organisation, which heavily promotes the preservation and proliferation of VERY deep cut productions, has been on a bit of a roll in recent years with barely a month going by where they havent released SOMETHING that i’ve absolutely fallen in love with.
In recent years, they’ve tackled the works of Barry J. Gillis, re-released two Ed Wood classics, astounded with movies like ‘Final Flesh’ and ‘Video Diary of a Lost Girl’ and slowly, but surely, their library has basically become my film collection.
Probably the most exciting news to come from them over recent years has been their increasing closeness with ‘Something Weird Video’ a similar preservation company that started in the late 80s and ran through most of the 90s, 00’s and 10’s before becoming an archive and resource streaming service as of 2025. Something weird is responsible for saving a frankly obscene number of movies from falling quite literally into non existence. Films like ‘She Freak’, ‘Bat Pussy’ and ‘The Curious Dr. Hump’ would either only exist in incredibly rough prints, or not exist at all if it wasn’t for the work of ‘Something Weird’. And 2024 would see the release of what I frankly considered a ‘grail’ offering up until now.
‘Hey Folks! It’s Intermission time’ was a series of curated compilations from ‘Something Weird’ totalling 6 volumes of cinema intermission trailers, usually the stuff trying to convince you to go spend money at the snack bar, or general notes from the theater themselves, either welcoming you to the theater, offering friendly advise of services the cinema offered, telling you of upcoming events, or trying to help raise money for charity.
They’re quirky, interesting little remnants of a by-gone age. With most screens in the UK at least now having highly polished, mass distributed pre film screens. I find it fascinating to see just how home grown and unique a lot of these little trails, that were widely seen as disposable, ended up being.
Which brings me to the ‘Hey Folks! Its Intermission Time Mixtape’ the main feature on a set released this year from AGFA that upscales, restores and re-releases all 6 volumes of Something Weirds original compilation series. But also offers a unique remix of some of the more memorable and interesting intermission trails, turning it into a mind melting 70-80 minutes of psychedelic and trippy re-editing that I feel offers an entirely new viewing experience to these decades old stings. AGFA have been doing remixes like this for likely coming up to a decade at this point, their ‘Horror trailer show’ and ‘Cult of AGFA’ releases, not to mention their ‘Special Christmas Special’ all showcase some superb editing and its clear they have a talented and creatively minded team fronting these ventures.
‘Hey Folks’ is another fantastic entry in this style of presentation. And Frankly this was likely my ‘Bluray of the year’ honestly. Given thats a year that ALSO included another grail of mine ‘The Dragon Lives Again’ FINALLY getting a correct aspect ratio release for the first time ever. Thats an incredible feat. a set I personally think is an essential, if you havent checked out ‘Hey Folks! Its Intermission time’ absolutely take some time to fix that! Its a great set, and it makes an even greater gift!
Last House on Dead End Street:
An unexpected entry on my list this year, I came so close to NOT seeing this film, its actually quite bizarre. So, I had heard of ‘Last House on Dead End Street’ over the years as being a particularly gruesome picture that, most notably, Vinegar Syndrome had been working on remastering for a number of years. I figured i’d likely check it out when they put out the cleaned up version, until one night while doing some research for ‘The After Dark Collection: Volume 2’ (Coming 2025) I landed on a reddit thread discussing Vinegar Syndromes ‘Adult’ movie releases, and found out that *apparently* hidden in the menus for their release of ‘Corruption’ was a ‘grindhouse’ style HD scan of ‘Last House on Dead End Street’ and just by chance, I had only recently VIEWED my copy of ‘Corruption’…So! I popped it into my player, messed around with it for a bit, and *boom* I had a copy of ‘Last House on Dead End Street’ in my hands.
And I really wasnt disappointed with this one. as billed, its a particularly unpleasant, seedy and graphic depiction of psychopathy, and the rawness in the performances and actions (given its about making snuff films) left a long lasting impression on me. Reading in to the behind the scenes on it only made me despair even harder as I read of the struggles the writer/director had to even GET the film out to the public. Not to mention the fact that, by the time it actually DID get a wider showing, he had NO idea it was even happening. Its…got a BTS thats somehow even crazier than the film itself honestly.
I think if this DID have a wider release in good quality, it would likely be held in a much higher and respected regard. As it stands, all I can personally say is. It is NOT for the squeamish, but if you enjoy films like ‘Bloodsucking Freaks’ or ‘The Sinful Dwarf’ you will almost certainly love ‘Last House on Dead End Street’.
Hundreds of Beavers:
At the complete opposite side of the spectrum from ‘Last House on Dead End Steet’ we have the indie darling of the year, and a personal favourite of this years movie crop ‘Hundreds of Beavers’. A film that got recommended to me AT LEAST a dozen times within the first couple months of it doing the indie circuit. So much so that ‘friend of the show’ Triv of Trivial Theater, managed to cop a screener, and essentially pulled me out of the reno work to make it clear that this WASNT something I should sit out on. And damnit if she was absolutely right.
The plot follows a fur trapper attempting to collect ‘hundreds of beavers’ to sell the pelts of in order to win the heart and hand of a merchants daughter, the whole film is shot and framed like a kind of hybrid between Fleisher era animation and a ‘Loony Tunes’ short. With PLENTY of references back to Buster Keaton, The Stooges, The Marx Bros and many more silent movie icons.
Its clearly a labour of love, it looks fantastic, astoundingly so given the budget, its brimming with creative slapstick ideas, and barring a couple of moments that are a *smidge* (and I mean a *smidge*) more ‘adult’ oriented, this could easily be a family movie. I’ve kind of made it my mission this year whenever anyones asked me for recent film recommendations to send them over to this one.
Its got a good heart, a good soul. And I like that its playful and not afraid to be self aware without trying to be openly controversial. I had a real good time with this one, and could happily recommend it.
Xanadu:
If theres 2 things that ‘Xanadu’ is known for, its the frankly stonking soundtrack by ‘ELO’, and its for being the butt of pretty much every late night comedy show from 1987 till about 2003. ‘Xanadu’ was and still kind of is seen widely as a laughing stock of a movie. But this year, someone I very much respect, Frank Conniff made a lengthy twitter/bluesky post essentially admitting that, after years of using it as the aforementioned butt of several jokes through the 90s, he still hadn’t actually *seen* ‘Xanadu’ and recently decided to change that…And to his shock and horror it actually wasn’t a cringe worthy terrible musical, it was maybe a bit overlong, but he actually really liked it. Issuing something of a public apology for dunking on it for all these years.
Well; that was enough interest raised for me to go out and grab a bluray copy of the movie to see ‘whats what’. And What WAS what is that ‘Xanadu’ IS in fact a quite fun little 80s musical. Is it ‘Grease’ memorable? Absolutely not. But its a charming and warm little musical about never giving up on your dream and realising that you don’t have to be young to still go after what you really want in life.
Obviously, the ELO soundtrack IS what makes the movie fantastic, but it cant be overstated just how good Gene Kelly is in this, playing a weary property developer who yearns to return to a simpler life playing in a big band, when life was less complicated and he had something to strive for.
The film does get a little tangled up in trying to make Olivia Newton John the personification of ‘your dreams’. But I find that musicals largely trade on vibe, and a few mixed metaphors and some 2nd act pacing issues arnt going to come between me and this campy and funky little movie having a fun time.
‘Xanadu’ wont be for everyone, I know that. But I honestly would say, if you do enjoy musical cinema and have been put off by years of people dunking on this one, without ACTUALLY having watched this. I’d say give it a go, you may be genuinely surprised…At the very worst, you’ll have still listened to a pretty awesome ELO score.
Cecil B. Demented:
The Number of John Waters films I have yet to watch is slowly becoming a dwindling pool. I had seen almost all of his earlier works, but his later works are a little scattershot to come by in the UK. I had been hoping to wait for ‘Cecil B. Demented’ to get a proper Bluray release in the UK. But Criterion have now been quiet for a couple of years on that front, and it looks like Kino Lobar are picking up the slack on 90s ‘Waters’ movies…So I threw in the towel on waiting this year and just decided to hit it up on Tubi. And I absolutely loved it.
Im less enamoured with Waters ‘studio’ era. Basically everything after ‘Hairspray’ to me feels a bit forced and self referential. Cry Baby didnt really move me, Serial Mom is a much loved fan favourite, but left me cold. And Pecker just felt too safe for me. But Cecil B. Demented has a rogue twinkle in its eye that suggests to me theirs life in the old dog yet.
A film largely attacking BOTH the mainstream studio system and ‘puritan’ indie film makers who go WELL above taste and decency for their art. I feel like this was a return to form for Waters work, that would continue into his next production ‘A Dirty Shame’.
What we have here is a film that pushes the boundaries of studio cinema more than his previous studio works, but doesnt go AS far as his early films (Female Trouble, Pink Flamingos, Multiple Maniacs’ and it manages to hit a nice compromise of being a clear, concise and well structured picture, that equally has a tenacious ‘daring’ quality to it. The feeling of the old Waters pictures where anything could happen, and sometimes it actually DOES!
I really enjoyed seeing this one for the first time this year, I would highly recommend it to any Waters fans who maybe jumped off at ‘Polyester’ or felt like he lost his bite a bit post ‘Hairspray’ as I really do think this and ‘Dirty Shame’ were steps in the right direction. And with rumblings that a new John Waters film could be just around the corner. I sincerely hope it continues on this trend!
Oh…and on the off chance someone from Criterion is reading this, don’t leave us hanging, PLEASE for the love of GOD release ‘Desperate Living’. You cant just release all of John waters early work and leave out the film bridging ‘Female Trouble’ to ‘Polyester’ I NEED more high definition Mink Stole rants in my life thank you very much!
Batman 1966:
I imagine some will be surprised that, until this year i’d never seen the 1966 ‘Batman’ movie. Indeed, I myself felt some shame at having not gotten to it sooner, given that I love the original TV series and had a great respect for Adam West.
But sometimes, things just don’t line up properly, sometimes there just isnt a good bat-time or a solid enough bat-place to fit a movie in. But this year, I made it a point (having been invited to talk about it on ‘Friend of the show’ Jon Norths podcast) to FINALLY crack it open. And I had an absolute blast with it.
Honestly, I don’t have a lot to say about it, its a feature length take on the TV series, it feels like a long TV episode with a slightly bigger budget and thats about it. It absolutely should have done EXACTLY what it did do, it looks great, sounds great and the extra funds really help take things to the next level. Having all the classic villains from the TV series appear as the baddies in the theatrical outing is a great ‘raising of the stakes’ and the 60s campy silliness is still here in full force delivering an end product that hilarious, charming and just an utter delight to sit through. If you’ve never seen ‘Batman ‘66’ this is a great starting point, and if you enjoyed the TV series, but havent seen the film. You really need to fix that.
Beetlejuice:
Another one im sure will surprise some people, but again. Sometimes things don’t align when you think they *should* have, and instead align at the strangest times. I had seen the beetlejuice TV series MANY moons ago. But I’d just never got around to the movie. But, with ‘Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice’ going down a storm at the box office, my partner was horrified to learn i’d not seen the original and made me watch it pretty much as soon as she found out.
And it was great fun! Barring a slightly rushed ending I thought this was another creative powerhouse, delivering surreal visuals and fantastic performances one after another after another. I came away very pleasantly surprised, and while im sure the vast majority of you have already seen ‘Beetlejuice’ as someone who hadnt, it really endeared me to the concept…Though, it did make me wonder why their was such pressure for a sequel for all those years, given the film ends pretty conclusively…I dunno!, in either case I really enjoyed this one. Its probably the most well known film I saw for the first time this year and i’m going to have to try and dig out the sequel relatively soon!
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl:
One of the more unexpected offerings of the year, I had no idea that Aardman had been working on a new ‘Wallace & Gromit’ film, letalone that it was another ‘feature’ outing for the pair, but! On Christmas day, the BBC released ‘Vengence Most Fowl’ a sequel to ‘The Wrong Trousers’ that sees that rogue criminal ‘Feathers McGraw’ trying once again to steal precious gems, AND trying to get revenge on the popular pair who put him away!
Meanwhile Wallace is back in debt, and, as a way to try and get out of it, has built the worlds first ‘Smart Gnome’ a little gardening fellow who’ll do any job, no matter how big or small. It all goes wrong as you can imagine! But it was a nice idea while it lasted!
I LOVED this special, it was probably my second favourite broadcast of the day (outside of the Gavin & Stacy finale) While I don’t *quite* think they match or surpass the complexity of animation seen in ‘The Wrong Trousers’ The film is still genuinely funny has the warmth and familiarity that makes the ‘Wallace & Gromit’ films so enjoyable and was a definite improvement over their last outing 2008s ‘A Matter of Loaf and Death’.
The comedy was superb, with several gut busting laughs throughout, the animation is still superb and the character have some nice set pieces that tie the whole thing together, including some excellent celebrity voice cameos from Peter Kay, Reese Shearsmith and Diane Morgan. A christmas highlight. If your looking for laughs and something a bit light hearted, you cant go wrong with this.
Singing in the Rain:
With only 2 hours to go before the year officially ended, I had watched 299 films, and to finish the year off AND claim my 300th film watch, I decided to take a look at a film that ‘Siskel & Ebert’ literally COULD NOT shut up about through most of their ‘Holiday Gift Guide’ specials.
‘Singing in the Rain’ has often been cited as ‘the greatest musical ever made’ I honestly wouldn’t go that far. But what you have here is a genuinely sincere, surprisingly self aware for 1952 and warm ‘smile’ of a movie that documents the cinematic shift from silent era productions to ‘talkies’ in 1929.
Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds are a tour d’force here, without them the film would have fallen flat I feel, with them, its a match made in heaven. And even though Kellys behaviour off screen was horrific to say the least. It cant be denied that this film oozes charm and joy, and I defy anyone to watch this without cracking *at least* a smirk once or twice throughout.
With some astounding and colourful visuals on hand, a whole host of iconic and culturally significant musical numbers and some of the most complex and tightest dance routines you’ll likely ever see. ‘Singing in the rain’ was a fabulous way to see the old year out and ring the new one in. I’ll almost certainly try and poach a physical media copy at my next convenience and if you havent got around to this one yet, all I can say is, it definitely needs bumping up your list. A great script, razor cine and direction, killer performances and a bloody ASTOUNDING score.
I also only realised the next day after watching this, that as of 2025 all works from 1929 (when this film was set) are now in the public domain. Making it a particularly poigniant watch!
And! That was my top 10 of 2024! Not a particularly controversial list…But then, they rarely are! I hope you decide to look into some of these as I had an absolute blast watching them, and as i ease back into more regular ‘new film’ watching. I can only hope that this year is as kind to me with astounding features as I hope it will be for you.
A little bit late; but better late than never! here is the comedy dining expeirence commentary for House! the arty poppy horror movie that time forgot. Im extremely grateful that this movies picked up more of a cult following over the last few years because it deserves as many eyes on it as is physically possible!
Anyway; theres not much to say about this one! its me and my partner in crime and cohost Ben rambling while slightly tipsy over a trippy arty horror film. enjoy!
Well! that’s it! Halloween 2019 done and dusted! and here we find the final part of our month on Vampire movies! I had a lot of trouble choosing which 80’s movie was “SO” definitively 80’s and a vampire movie…I could have done “Fright night” but I’ve only ever seen it twice and both times I watched it I got so absolutely fed up and bored of it that I couldnt bare to both sit through it again, nor end a plesent month on vampires with a film I was going to slag off (I will talk about it in the future though…dont worry about that!)
The Lost Boys was the other strong contender for this one but I felt it was too late 80’s for this kind of thing…it’s a good film (Of what i’ve seen of it) but it missed to many crucial elements of the early 80’s to make it an all incompassing feature. “Vamp” by contrast is 80’s to it’s marrow. it has the dark and brooding styalisation that would come to plague the late 80’s but it also has the charming and heavily art driven style that the early 80’s neuwave brought to the scene…add to that that it’s painfully self aware and a bit of a screwball comedy at times and I truely think this is probably the best all encapsulation of an 80’s vampire movie…it pleases neither side of the 80’s movie experience but it covers both.
I enjoyed this movie…and I really hope you guys do too! Happy halloween! and till next year! Unpleasent dreams 😉
(There are tons of variations of the “Lips” Vamp poster…but I think this one kind of covers everything you need to know about the movie…)
Another Halloween’s upon us ladies and gents and once again I get to dig out some of the archives most terrifying creations to display for your entertainment and viewing pleasure. I’ve been trying to decide on a format for these halloween specials and I think for the time being at least that im going to do a year on a theme and a year on a series of halloween-esq movies…mainly because there are a lot of good halloween movies that dont necissarily fit into a theme. But also; there are loads of films that i’d love to talk about which I think if I link them while discussing their themes it creates a bit of “a history of” vibe…which I always encourage because it allows me to go deeper into the movies than I probably would…
naturally just doing 5 random halloween films every year would be a bit boring and wouldnt quite cover the depth I would like to cover. Equally if I did 5 themed films every year. I’d probably grow quite bored of the format. So this is a good happy medium…at least for the time being. by this logic next year will be a random assortment again.
Nosferatu isnt a film that i’d pick up regularly. it’s a good movie. But as I mention in the review I just dont really get on with Silent cinema all that much…I can appreciate it’s form and acknowlege that it is a item of it’s time. But I do struggle with quite a few of them and I find that finding good silent movies is quite a challenge. Because of this; It was a bit of a struggle to get this years theme well and truely under way. But Im glad I rewatched this movie as it really allowed me to get to the origins of the Vampire Mythology quickly and gloriously.
This is the start of a 5 part series on the history of Vampire movies from 1922 to 1986. You might wonder why it’s such an oddly specific timeframe. but those 64 years really do define such a massive evolutionary leap. that I think it should prove quite an interesting trip. I’ve already decided that a 2nd part will need to happen at some point (If nothing else just to cover the movies from 1987 to whenever I decide to go through all this again)
In the mean time I hope you enjoy the start of this series and I look forward to seeing it develop over the next few weeks!
(I love this poster…Im about 99% sure this isnt the original theatrical poster…if it even had an original theatrical poster…but there’s just something so unsettling about this one.)
Ugh…Dont make me promote this film more than I already have done! it’s just terrible! (In my opinion) The only thing I can really add is that while I knew there was a sequel (and I have already had offers from people willing to supply me with a copy of V/H/S 2 purely for the sake of doing another one of these) I didnt realise there were another 2 sequels (well…1 sequel and 1 spin offf) out there now also.
It’ll be a cold day in hell before I go back to these movies. I described it in the comments section to one viewer as “Needing to work up the volition for it” Im not an angry reviewer. I dont do things like the Cinema Snob or the AVGN or the Nostalgia critic. And I dont enjoy putting myself through movies I know Im very likely to dislike. I’m always open to giving fresh movies I think i’ll dislike a chance because there is reasonable odds that It might change my mind (At which point im happy to sing it’s praise from the rafters) but movies like V/H/S have already established themselves in my mind as spineless and cheap. So why would I want to see more of that?.
I know in my heart of hearts I will talk about V/H/S 2 at some point…I just hope it’s as long a time as physically possible.
(I will say this though. Had the film been any good it’s poster would have been terrifically complimentary.)
Well, earlier this year my partner in crime Ben informed me that he was relocating to my home town! meaning previously our efforts of meeting up twice a year, recording 3-4 commentaries and winging it, could now be improved to once a month if not even more frequently! So I took him up on the offer! and so for the Halloween season we sat down and watched the “WNUF Halloween special” a film that is very close to my heart.
As mentioned multiple times (I will stop eventually!) the director currently has plans for a sequel and is currently fundraising here! and I highly recommend checking it out as it should be great fun!
This films one thats still as entertaining to me now as when I first found it nearly 5 years ago and I hope you guys enjoy it as much as we did!
I count myself exceedingly lucky that I have been able to see a film like “The WNUF Halloween Special” these kinds of films typically fall through the cracks of cinema history and I cannot stress enough how hard it is to find films like these, especially when you live in the UK.
The WNUF halloween special is no exception. as it stood up until recently the only way to get your hands on a copy of this film if you were UK based and wernt lucky enough to swipe up a copy of this when they were first selling them on DVD and VHS was to spend a frankly extortionate amount importing a very pricy NTSC only VHS or Region 1 DVD from the states, then forking out again for a player to play said expensive Tape/Disc and due to the cultish nature of this movie if you didnt pick a copy up during the initial US sales drive, there was literally no other way to get your hands on this film.
Well…there was illegal torrenting. Which unfortunately was the route I had to take in order to see this simply due to the complications listed above. While it probably wont bring much comfort to the Director/Producer. Chris. I would be honoured to help dub and distribute this tape across european terratories. PAL users have been neglected of a film like this for too long and if I can help from my little dubbing station here in the UK then please get in touch. I’d love to try and help you out in spreading this frankly amazing piece of cinema.
There is no European release of this film. and with a Sequel coming up on the horizon hopefully in a couple of years. I really hope that this one gets the worldwide release it really quite frankly deserves.
(This bloody poster…jesus its gorgeously done. Serious Kudos to whoever designed it. They’re a Master of the craft clearly)
TYTD Reviews 