THE DOUBLE (1971)

Directed by Romolo Guerrieri, Italy. Giovanni is married to Lucia but also has the hots for his milfish mother-in-law Nora. However, his infatuation with his wife’s mum is tested when he finds a corpse in her apartment. This is a bit like another giallo I’ve reviewed, THE SEX CALL; the vast amount of its running time is simply a long, drawn-out setting up of a situation which really only becomes apparent around the seventy minute mark (of an eighty-eight minute movie). The return is, in other words, just not worth the investment. The main things going for the film are two absolutely beautiful women: Ewa Aulin as Lucia and Lucia Bose as Nora. 2/5.

TALES OF HALLOWEEN (2015)

Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, Axelle Carolyn, Adam Gierasch, Andrew Kasch, Neil Marshall, Lucky McKee, Mike Mendez, Dave Parker, Ryan Schifrin, John Skipp, and Paul Solet, U.S.A. Horror anthologies have made a welcome return over recent years. I loved the V/H/S series, the ALL HALLOWS’ EVE movies and GHOST STORIES. However, TALES OF HALLOWEEN is certainly not going to end up on my favourites list. Each of its ten segments is the work of a different director, and there are some big names here. Unfortunately, too many of the tales here are weak and some are simply embarrassing failures marked by the dreaded “comedy horror” stain. The positive thing is that, with ten parts, none of them last too long. Still, pretty dismal. 2/5.

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (2009)

Directed by Ti West, U.S.A. Here’s a ten minute film stretched out to ninety. Slow burners are fine, but for too much of this movie about the babysitting job from hell, there’s simply not enough going on. This might have been a nice little short or a segment in an anthology, but as it stands there’s just not enough material here. The consequence is that we get far too much build-up laboriously establishing why, for example, main character Samantha needs a babysitting job, when this could have been made clear in just a few well-crafted lines of dialogue. A good eighties atmosphere, but overall a disappointment. 2/5.

THE HEXECUTIONERS (2015)

Directed by Jesse Thomas Cook, Canada. Painfully bad excreta about two female employees of a euthanasia firm who travel to an isolated house to put the owner out of his misery. Things get complicated when it turns out the customer is a cultist whose death needs to be accompanied by a weird ritual. There’s a decent scenario in here somewhere but unfortunately the finished product is a confused, tedious, poorly-realised mess. The wobbly screenplay is made even worse by laughably cryptic dialogue delivered by a mumbling cast. We hear all the time about how difficult it is to make movies nowadays, but when you watch junk like this, you have to wonder. 1/5.

THIRTEEN EERIE (2013)

Directed by Lowell Dean, Canada. Uninteresting horror film about a group of budding forensic investigators who journey to an abandoned prison as part of their training. Inexplicably, grey-skinned zombies are soon scurrying around and taking bites out of various characters. The prison location is completely wasted as most of the action takes place in sheds and woods, while the roaring, flesh-eating zombies have a ho-hum air of familiarity about them. The cardboard-like characters behave precisely as you’d expect them to in a shoddy horror movie. There’s absolutely nothing new here and the whole thing just disappears under the weight of its own mediocrity. I won’t remember a thing about this tomorrow. 2/5.

SUCCUBUS (1968)

Directed by Jesus Franco, W. Germany. A nightclub performer has dreams of murder which are linked in some mysterious way to different men in her life. Watching this engendered ambivalent feelings. Sometimes, it seemed strangely beautiful in its relentless stream of bizarre imagery and its sheer nonsensicality. But, on the other hand, it sometimes just seemed a vacantly pretentious exercise in eking out a three page script into a feature length film. One thing is pretty certain: this is Franco at his most stylish and at his most indifferent to storytelling. Every single shot looks carefully conceived and framed, and there’s not a zoom into a woman’s crotch anywhere. 3/5.

NIGHTMARE AT NOON (1988)

Directed by Nico Mastorakis, U.S.A. Awesome action trash from the eighties! This is one of those great movies where you sense that every cent of the budget is up there on the screen: explosions, helicopter chases, flame throwers, car crashes, and a green-faced George Kennedy! Ken Griffiths (Wings Hauser) and wife Cheri (Kimberly Beck, in a cool skimpy outfit) have to team up with tough drifter Reilly (Bo Hopkins) when contaminated water turns the citizens of a small town into homicidal maniacs. George Kennedy’s the sheriff and his lovely daughter (the adorable Kimberly Ross) is the deputy. Fantastic all-American locations and a wonderful eighties vibe. 5/5.

THE FIRE RAISERS (1934)

Directed by Michael Powell, U.K. I love films from the thirties and I love director Michael Powell but, by God, this was insufferable nonsense. Leslie Banks (a certain contender for one of the worst actors ever) stars as Jim Bronton, a “very attractive” chap (apparently) who’s mixed up with insurance, fires, and arson. I couldn’t really tell what was going on most of the time, if I’m honest. The “fast” dialogue (incompetently modeled on the American Pre-Codes) is simply embarrassing and the whole thing is suffused with a ghastly Englishness (by which I suppose I mean a sort of frightful affectation combined with a perpetuation of class stereotypes). Dreadful. 2/5.

THIRTY ONE (2016)

Directed by Rob Zombie, U.K./U.S.A. It’s 1976, and a vanload of carnies are kidnapped and forced to fight for their lives in a game of death. Chainsaw-wielding clowns, homicidal dwarf Nazis, and Malcolm McDowell in a horror version of THE RUNNING MAN. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well unfortunately, it’s not. This step backwards for Rob Zombie is like spending a hundred minutes with a hyperactive seven year-old screaming “look at me, look at me!” I’m the exact target audience for this, so it’s not that I don’t get what Zombie was trying to achieve, but this is a movie both badly conceived and badly executed. 2/5.