DARK FLOORS (2008)

Directed by Pete Riski and Alan Smithee (which should tell you plenty…), Finland/Iceland. A group of people get trapped in a hospital and experience strange time anomalies while being hunted by a bunch of demons. Here’s a movie I went into blind, so to speak. It’s been made to look American (hence those shaky accents from the international cast), but in fact hails from Finland, the nation of Moomins, saunas, and Angry Birds. Oh… and Lordi, the Eurovision-winning rock band who dress up like monsters. That’s relevant here, because Lordi actually play the demons in this movie. If I’d known that before, I may very well not have watched it. There’s a couple of intriguing ideas here, but mostly DARK FLOORS just comes across as a cultural oddity. And what a superlatively crap title. 2/5.

RUSH (1983)

Directed by Tonino Ricci, Italy. More postnuke action shenanigans from Italy! Bruno Minniti (or “Conrad Nichols,” if you prefer) stars as Rush, a tough drifter captured by the evil forces of mad warlord Yor (Gordon Mitchell). Yor has an imprisoned workforce who all seem to crouch around tending plants. I’m not sure the screenplay is quite up to scratch here, but that doesn’t really matter because the greased-up Minniti ensures the energy quotient makes up for it. Pretty much the entire second half of the movie is one long action sequence (although fussy viewers may notice a certain cheapjack quality to it all). 3/5.

WALKOVER (1965)

Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland. Strange isn’t it, how the avant garde dates so horribly? Here’s a really dreadful example of Polish New Wave cinema from the director who would later make DEEP END (1970) and THE SHOUT (1978). WALKOVER is seventy four minutes of pointlessness about a young man (played by Skolimowski himself) who meets up with a woman and later is involved in a boxing match. It’s a nicely photographed but, ultimately, excruciatingly bland mish-mash of New Wave tropes. Online, you can find the usual pseudish (and embarrassing) attempts to give this meaningless film meaning. I suppose the senseless has always been mistaken for the cryptically significant. 1/5.

A COMPLICATED GIRL (1969)

Directed by Damiano Damiani, Italy. Alberto (Jean Sorel) meets up with the titular Claudia (Catherine Spaak) after he accidentally listens in to a private phone conversation she’s having. Claudia’s complicated alright, mainly because of her tangled relationship with her stepmother Greta (Florinda Bolkan), a woman Claudia wants to both murder and go to bed with. This is an intriguing sex drama with gialloish undertones and a wonderfully evocative atmosphere of perversion and desire. The ending isn’t much cop, but as a whole this is so compelling that the final few minutes didn’t especially feel like a let down. Definitely worth a look. 4/5.

THE CROOKED MAN (2016)

Directed by Jesse Holland, U.S.A. Unintentionally hilarious horror from the mavens at Syfy. The Crooked Man is a demon summoned when twelve year-old Olivia recites a nursery rhyme at a slumber party. Murder ensues and now, years later, the monster’s back to claim the lives of everyone involved. Despite the presence of a creepy (if somewhat familiar-looking) villain, this movie is let down badly by inept acting and a screenplay written by a moron. Dire moments include: the idea of going to the funeral of someone who delivered a pizza to you six years ago, a character’s ability to pinpoint a location simply by being told it has “two large rocks and a giant pine tree,” and dialogue like “that house was not there a minute ago.” I could go on. 2/5.

CLASS OF 1999 (1990)

Directed by Mark L. Lester, U.S.A. In 1999, large parts of America’s cities have been designated “free fire zones,” where gangs control the streets and the police are non-existent. Kennedy High School is in the middle of Seattle’s free fire zone and desperate headmaster Malcolm McDowell has called in business firm Megatech and its android teachers. Unfortunately, the robots (one of which is blaxploitation legend Pam Grier) get a taste for killing and it’s up to the gangs to fight back against the metal monsters. This is fantastic, trashy, all-action entertainment from director Lester, whose earlier film CLASS OF 1984 (1982) is similarly fabulous. Highly recommended. 5/5.

THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X. (1958)

Directed by Gilbert Gunn, U.K. Assorted scientific types and government bigwigs talk and talk and talk about the mysterious side effects of secret experiments involving magnetism being conducted deep in the English countryside. Forrest Tucker is the American “star” shoehorned into the cast list in the forlorn hope that Stateside audiences would show some interest. He makes for an unconvincingly tweedy lab assistant. Viewers who resist the urge to give up on this are rewarded with a few scenes of back-projected insects terrifying some women, but to call this a giant bug movie is like describing JAWS as a drama about a policeman on a small island. 2/5.

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.