Month: September 2023

THE SADNESS. (2021) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

THE SADNESS. (2021) DIRECTED BY ROB JABBAZ.

STARRING BERANT ZHU, REGINA LEI AND TZU-CHIANG WANG.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This is one of those outbreak, pandemic-epidemic, zombie apocalypse, contagion-type movies in which a load of people get infected by something horrible and they pass it on to other unfortunate folks by biting them or somehow getting their bodily fluids all over them.

It probably goes a bit farther than, say, TRAIN TO BUSAN and ALIVE, in terms of the unbelievable amount of blood and gore on offer. Some folks will say it’s better because of that. I acknowledge that this is an excellent pandemic and zombie apocalypse movie, even though the blood and guts was way too much for my delicate stomach.

My favourite films in this genre include OUTBREAK with Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo, CONTAGION, in which the annoying Gwyneth Paltrow dies of the yucky, goopy infection (see what I did there?) within the first ten minutes and CONTAINMENT, a brilliant film contained mostly within an apartment building. None of these are over-the-top with their gore and probably concentrate more on plot and character development than on people chomping on severed limbs.

RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR, SHAUN OF THE DEAD and AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS are also well worth a look and, if you’d like to watch a thoughtful movie about the AIDS epidemic in America in the early ’80s with hardly any gore in it at all, I highly recommend AND THE BAND PLAYED ON.

Anyway, THE SADNESS is set in Tai-pei, the capital of Taiwan, in modern times. It’s just another typical day in the lives of attractive young couple, Jim and Kat. Or, at least, it starts out that way. Jim takes Kat to her subway ride on his scooter, but on his way home he realises that an outbreak of the most horrific and inexplicable violence has broken out in his neighbourhood.

He gets home as fast as he can, only to lose two fingers to his next-door neighbour, Mr. Lin, who has run amok with a pair of garden shears. With his remaining digits, Jim texts Kat to say that she’s to stay put, he’ll come and get her on the scooter because everyone everywhere’s gone batshit crazy.

On the crowded subway, Kat is having a much worse time. After being sexually harassed by a middle-aged businessman, she watches, horrified, as another man on the train goes mad and starts stabbing everyone in sight and rolling around the place in their blood. The randy businessman takes out a young girl’s eye with his umbrella- well, when in Rome- and a bloodbath ensues.

Kat and the now one-eyed girl manage to escape from the subway and hurry to a nearby hospital, where the doctors can presumably treat the eye trauma. But some zombified types break into the hospital and kill and rape the male and female cop respectively. Yes, rape and sexual assault are a part of the repertoires of the infected peoples now. Some viewers weren’t too keen on this aspect of the outbreak, but it’s here and that’s it, get used to it, lol.

To Kat’s absolute horror, Mr. Businessman has followed her to the hospital and stalks her through it as she runs in terror. I’m going to rape you to death, he promises her with a bloody grin, and, because he’s just violated his first victim’s empty eye-socket (yuck, yuck and treble yuck!), Kat is very much inclined to believe him.

I’m not even telling you the half of what happens here in terms of blood and guts; there was so much of it that I actually forgot a lot of it, and also, I’m sure you’d rather be left alone to find things out for yourself without a load of spoilers.

The film’s not for the faint-hearted though, remember that. They probably handed sick bags out with the price of admission at the theatrical release of the film in Taiwan back in 2021. I believe some cinema-goers even became cinema-leavers after the first few gruesome scenes.

But do the attractive Jim and the beautiful Kat ever re-unite after the worst apocalyptic episode ever to hit Tai-pei? (I’m guessing.) Does the disgusting Mr. Businessman survive to rape again? And does he actually manage to get his todger in the right opening this time, the silly sausage? Eyes aren’t for f*cking, silly, eyes are for seeing with! Lord bless us and save us, haven’t you never not been to no school no-how?

Who’s been messing with the babies in Maternity, by the way? Does the world ever return to normal again, or has it witnessed too much to be allowed to continue its existence? Watch it and see, folks, but for gawd’s sake wear a mask. You need one even just to watch this.    

BLUE BLOOD. (1973) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

BLUE BLOOD. (1973) WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ANDREW SINCLAIR.

BASED ON ‘THE CARRY-COT’ BY ALEXANDER THYNN, 7TH MARQUESS OF BATH.

STARRING OLIVER REED, DEREK JACOBI, FIONA LEWIS, ANNA GAEL AND MEG WYNN OWEN.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This is a very strange little horror film, with lots of plot-holes and unfinished bits and loose threads all over the place, but it’s atmospheric and quaint and old and stars Oliver Reed, one of Britain’s most written about and talked about actors and certainly one of her most deliciously desirable leading men.

He plays Tom, the sinister, heavily moustached butler of the Swanbrook Estate, the most fabulous stately home and grounds you’ll ever see. He has nothing but contempt for his so-called master, a lustful popinjay of an aristocratic twat-slash-twit called Gregory.

Gregory ‘swans’ (see what I did there?) around the estate having sex by turn with his exotic mistress Carlotta and his lovely wife Lily, a singer. (How her smash hit, ‘Nanny Parks,’ didn’t make it into the Top Twenty of the day is both a mystery AND a crying shame…!)

Gregory dresses and acts like it’s the bleedin’ eighteen-hundreds but it’s actually modern times. Well, if the 1970s could ever be called modern times…! He hires a strange German nanny called Beate Krug for his two children, a boy and a girl, because his singer wife is away touring, and he tries to bed her too (Beate) when he gets a free moment, but she turns him down because, as I said, she’s a bit strange. We never really know her deal. Is she evil? Possessed? Mentally unstable? All three? What…?

One thing we do know is that Tom the butler, more charismatic, stronger-willed and more single-minded than the weak-willed and decadent Gregory, has plans to take over the house from his wimpy, loins-led master. He works some kind of black magic on the three women, Carlotta, Lily and Beate, giving them visions of the bloody sacrifice of Gregory and Lily’s son, Edgar, to a Satanic deity.

When the children are found bruised all over, Beate is dismissed from service. Okay… When it’s Gregory’s turn to have the desperate, demonic visions, his mind cannot withstand the notion of Tom sacrificing dear sweet Edgar, a privileged little shit, to the Devil. It duly collapses (Gregory’s mind), leaving a rather smug Tom to dress in his master’s togs and take over as lord of the manor and the top dog of Swanbrook.

Lily, Gregory’s wife, reacts with unflattering swiftness to the new world order. Talk about if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. That’s basically all that happens in the film. There’s some female frontal nudity, but not really any sex as such, and not so much as a single solitary glimpse of the magnificent chest and proud buttocks of Oliver Reed. Well…!

Some gorgeous wild animals can be seen roaming the grounds, because Longleat House, the stately home in the film and home to the Marquesses of Bath, once had a Zoo there, as far as I know. It might even still exist. And here’s another interesting fact for you, my dears.

Anna Gael, the stage name of the beautiful, dark-haired actress who plays Carlotta, was married at the time she made the film to Alexander Thynne, Marquess of Bath, who penned the work ‘The Carry-Cot’ on which the film is based. Imagine being married to the Marquess of Bath! I’d lounge under trees all day reading books and eating Viscount biccies. Lol, Viscount biccies. How frightfully posh.

The beefy Oliver Reed is grossly under-used in the film. The Satanic ‘visions,’ coloured in a demonic red, could have been fleshed out and made into a full scene, instead of just occasional flashes of crimson madness.

And of course, more sex and nudity would have ramped up the excitement a bit overall. But it is what it is, peeps, a quaint little cinematic memory from a very quaint but damnably sexy cinematic era. It’s streaming now on Netflix, so go, go, go! What are you waiting for? A handwritten, gilt-edged invitation from the Marquess of bleedin’ Bath…? We should all be so lucky…

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO. (2021) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO. (2021) DIRECTED AND CO-PRODUCED BY EDGAR WRIGHT. STORY BY EDGAR WRIGHT.

STARRING THOMASIN MCKENZIE, ANYA TAYLOR-JOY, RITA TUSHINGHAM, TERENCE STAMP, PAULINE MCLYNN, DIANA RIGG AND MATT SMITH.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

The first hour of this time-travel fantasy psychological horror film, streaming now on Netflix, had me absolutely captivated in a way I wasn’t expecting. Even if the second hour disappointed slightly, it’s still a really good, psychedelic watch that I wouldn’t have missed for anything.

It’s about a young country girl called Eloise ‘Ellie’ Turner who adores fashion and is thrilled to bits when she is offered a place at the London College of Fashion. Her maternal grandmother, Peggy, with whom she lives, is delighted as well, even though she’ll miss her favourite grandchild when Ellie goes off to London.

What’s really neat and clever about this is that, back in 1972, Rita Tushingham, the actress who plays Granny Peggy, starred in a Hammer film called STRAIGHT ON TIL MORNING, in which she portrayed Brenda, a young woman who leaves her mum’s council house in Liverpool to go and live in Swinging London- is London still swinging in 1972? I think it is!- in order to find a man who’ll give her a baby.

London is like a new world to the naïve little homebody, and I love watching Brenda try to navigate its social niceties and whatnot. Plus, Peter, the bloke she eventually shacks up with, is just truly gorgeous and a vision in blonde hair and floppy shirts. He was played by the actor Shane Briant, famous for his parts in four Hammer movies, who sadly passed away in 2021.

Back to LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, and Granny Peggy is a tad concerned about Little Ellie going off to the Big Smoke on her own. Ellie is a ‘sensitive,’ you see, a sort of psychic who sometimes sees her dead mum in the mirror. Yikes…!

Ellie’s mum took her own life so you can’t really blame Granny Peggy for worrying about the feisty little Ellie’s mental health. If Peggy knew what Ellie’s going to be getting up to in the big city, she’d cough up her dentures and die of shock…

It’s important to say here that Ellie is obsessed with the music and fashion of the Swinging ‘Sixties. You know, Mary Quant and her fabulous mini-skirts, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the sexual revolution, the anti-nuclear movement?

Shopping in the King’s Road, Carnaby Street, Kensington? Being ‘groovy’ and ‘with it’ because you’re young and hip and laughing at anyone over thirty-five for being ‘past it…?’ And let’s not forget ‘avin’ a lorra lorra laughs with Cilla Black, the lady crooner with the belter of a voice.

And what about Radio Caroline, the Kinks and the Small Faces and the abolition of National Service for young men, who consequently now had a lot more time for spirited high jinks with liberated wimmins?

The Kray Twins and Barbara Windsor and Diana Dors and Dusty Springfield, Christine Keeler and the Profumo Affair? You got it, baby. Them’s the Swinging Sixties, and our girl Ellie is one of those peeps who wishes she’d been born into a different time and place, i.e., London in the Swinging ‘Sixties…

When Ellie settles herself into her new digs, rented from her ancient landlady, the mysterious Mrs. Collins, her sleep brings the strangest dreams. They bring her back to- guess where?- London in the- guess when?- ‘Swinging Sixties, where she witnesses a stunningly beautiful blonde girl called Sandie (played by Anya Taylor-Joy of THE WITCH fame in the sexiest little pink dress) audition for a singing job in one of the big clubs of the day.

Sandie has been promised by the handsome smooth-talking Londoner Jack that fame and fortune will be hers if she’ll only stick with him. Ellie, who is able to see and hear all of this through the magic of, well, magic, I think, and a little bit of foresight as well, is thrilled at first to be privy to a private glimpse into Sandie’s seemingly perfect life.

But Sandie’s dream life turns sour very, very quickly, and soon the traumatised Ellie is terrified of going to sleep in case the ghouls in Sandie’s life cross over into her own existence to terrorise and hurt her. Whoops, too late…!

The last half hour of the movie gets a bit messy, but overall, I absolutely bloody loved it and it made me think fondly of the Swinging Sixties myself, though I wasn’t actually born when they were at their Swingiest, lol. I’m more of a ‘Seventies chick anyway, with my penchant for world peace, free love and long-haired hippy types. Men, that is. Haha.

Irish actress Pauline McLynn (Mrs. Doyle from FATHER TED) is really good as the kind-hearted but no-nonsense landlady in the pub where little Ellie supposedly works, but in which, in reality, she hasn’t so much as pulled a single pint. Sack the lazy article, sack her, I say, sack that so-called barmaid!

Also, genuine ‘Sixties relic Terence Stamp, who dated actress Julie Christie and supermodel Jean Shrimpton and who once shared a house with Michael Caine in Wimpole Street in London, is here too as sleazy retired copper Lindsey, giving a nice authentic flavouring to the whole thing.

By the way, director Edgar Wright was responsible for making the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy of films, otherwise known as SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004), HOT FUZZ (2007) and WORLD’S END (2013), so LAST NIGHT IN SOHO must have been a bit of a change in direction for him. Anyway, that’s it, the film has my seal of approval, so over and out for now.    

DEAD OF NIGHT. (1945) AN ANTHOLOGY HORROR FILM REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

DEAD OF NIGHT. (1945)

THE SEGMENTS DIRECTED BY BASIL DEARDEN (X2), ALBERTO CAVALCANTI (X2), ROBERT HAMER (X1) AND CHARLES CRICHTON (X1).

STARRING MERVYN JOHNS, ROLAND CULVER, GOOGIE WITHERS, SALLY ANN HOWES, MICHAEL REDGRAVE, FREDERICK VALK AND MILES MALLESON.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

‘Just room for one inside, sir…’

DEAD OF NIGHT is a famously rare, black-and-white supernatural horror film. It’s also an anthology, omnibus or portmanteau film, a film featuring four or five stories all contained within the overarching or framing plot. It’s not exactly the first anthology film ever made, but it’s probably the most famous of the earliest ones, if you get me.

It certainly had a profound effect on the film-makers and movies that came later. Amicus Productions in particular made a few excellent portmanteau horror films in the ‘Seventies (TALES FROM THE CRYPT, THE VAULT OF HORROR, THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD), featuring iconic actors such as Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Ingrid Pitt, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Massey and his sister Anna Massey, Terry-Thomas, Joan Collins and Patrick Magee, among others. Stellar cast, what…?

The making of horror films was forbidden during World War Two, probably in case it had a negative effect on the collective mindset. Films like comedies and musicals and rousingly patriotic action adventure movies were preferred instead, often featuring such well-loved stars as Vera Lynn and George ‘I’m leaning on a lamp-post’ Formby.

But meat, I mean, horror, was back on the menu, boys, just as soon as Hitler packed it in, called it a day, chucked in the towel or whatever you want to call it in the wee bunker beneath the Reich’s Chancellery…

In DEAD OF NIGHT, Mervyn Johns as the architect Walter Craig motors to a cottage in Kent on which he has been asked to do a refurb by Ronald Culver as Eliot Foley, the owner. When Craig arrives, he realises that he has seen Foley and the assembled guests before in a dream, strangely enough. He also has a strong premonition that something horrible is going to happen to him/them later.

The other guests, including a psychiatrist called Dr. van Straaten, try to comfort the worried little architect by telling him tales of the supernatural in which they’ve personally played parts. Why they’d think this would cheer him up is anyone’s guess, lol, but, in any event, this is what they do, bless their buttons.

One young man, a racing car driver, relates how a strange vision involving a hearse driven by Hammer actor Miles Malleson saves him from taking a trip on a bus doomed to crash. Though short, this story is a good ‘un and is based on a much-adapted short horror story called THE BUS CONDUCTOR by English writer E.F. Benson.

A young woman called Sally, played by Sally Ann Howes who would go on to play the character of Truly Scrumptious in CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG two decades later, reveals how she once encountered at a Christmas party the ghost of a little boy who, in life, was murdered by his sister. Eeuw. It’s enough to curdle the cream on yer puddin’.

I don’t like THE GOLFER’S STORY because it’s about- you’ve guessed it- golf, but THE HAUNTED MIRROR is a wonderfully creepy tale about a chap who receives a beautiful old mirror from his girlfriend. When he looks in it, however, which after all is what a mirror is intended for, the picture he expects is not the picture he sees…

The final story is an example of an early ‘the ventriloquist’s dummy has a mind of its own and is evil’ tale. Remember those GOOSEBUMPS ‘Night of the Living Dummy’ stories? Here, a young ventriloquist called Maxwell Frere ends up like Norman Bates when the persona of ‘Mother’ has completely taken him over, although in Frere’s case, it’s his cheeky and slightly frightening dummy Hugo who’s living rent-free in his head…

The film overall clocks in at one hundred and three minutes, and none of the individual tales overstays its welcome… expect for the one about golf, lol. Well, I’m sorry but I just hate golf, okay? It’s the most boring sport in the world, next to racing car driving and snooker and swimming.

DEAD OF NIGHT is a much better watch. Try to watch it at night, if possible, to maximise the spookiness. And don’t forgot to brush your crowning glory in the mirror afterwards…  

QUICKSAND. (2023) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

QUICKSAND. (2023) DIRECTED BY ANDRES BELTRAN. WRITTEN BY MATT PITTS.
STARRING CAROLINA GAITAN, ALLAN HAWCO AND SEBASTIAN ENSLAVA.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This won’t be a long review because this survival horror-thriller film is one in which only a few things happen. We have a married American couple who are separating, called Sofia and Josh. Sofia seems to be the driving force behind the separation.

Certainly, she’s the most dominant person in the marriage. Josh is a bit wimpy and not good at standing up for himself, though I imagine it’d be pretty hard to stand up to a Gorgon like Sofia. She’s all like, bitch bitch bitch, all the livelong day. You’d swear no-one else ever had problems.

Anyway, Sofia used to be a doctor before she/they had kids, and, in the movie, her friend Marcus asks her to come to Colombia to deliver a presentation at a medical conference in.

Sofia is from Columbia, like Gloria in MODERN FAMILY, so she’s thrilled at the chance to re-visit her homeland. Remember when Gloria says: ‘I’m from Columbia; I know what a fake crime scene looks like!’ Lol.

Sofia is delighted to get this possible way back into the career she loved so much before she was knocked up and her dreams lay in tatters around her, ahem. She travels from America to Columbia- Bogota, to be precise- with her dopey husband Josh. The kids are staying home for this one.

They’re staying in a nice hotel in Bogota with Marcus, who doesn’t know that the couple are separating. How does he miss it? The way Sofia is freezing Josh out of it would be obvious to the Man in the Moon. She seems to loathe and detest him, and acts as if his very touch, his proximity, is distasteful to her. They’re certainly not about to have any hotel sex, that’s for sure.

Instead, the mad pair of them decide to go hiking in the Bogota wilderness, ignoring all the warnings about this self-same wilderness being a dangerous place to get lost in.

Sofia in essence replies, ‘Feck off! I’m Colombian, I’ll be fine, I know this place!’ Next thing you know, she’s up to her neck in quicksand. Josh sees her predicament and jumps in to save her. If only he’d read the pamphlet on quicksand, ‘That’s not how it works, asshole!’

Well, that’s basically it. If you like movies in which two heads just keep talking back and forth to each other the whole time, have I got a treat for you! The two peeps basically have no choice but to talk to each other while the quicksand has them in its grip.

They even start discussing their marital difficulties while they’re there. Well, they might as well, there’s nothing else for them to do. Until the hissing begins and something long and slithery begins to wind its insidious way to the trapped pair…

I like the snake, but he’s not in it for long enough for the film to qualify as a creature feature. Pity, that. The snake is the one character I’d have liked to see more of, and I think the treatment he receives in the movie is shoddy, I say, damned shoddy.

That’s literally all there is to say about QUICKSAND, both the film AND the icky substance that sucks you down into it the more you struggle. It’s the first movie I’ve seen where quicksand is the main villain, and not just a little sidekick who nearly swallows two black slaves and a ‘hundred-dollar handcart’ in BLAZING SADDLES (1974)…!

I liked the film, but it gets real old real quick, so it might be just a one-time watch. Make up your own mind, though. QUICKSAND is currently streaming on Shudder. I used to love Shudder, but we’ve had so many darn technical problems with it (films not loading, etc.) that we’ve had to unsubscribe from it. Yes, I’m full of the joys today, friends. Enjoy the film, and take it handy.

(PS, Wow, the review above contains exactly 666 words, which means, and I’ve worked this out in minute detail with my charts and crystal ball, that the Anti-Christ will be born to a woman with letters of the alphabet in her name who currently lives somewhere on one of the continents of the world with a partner of a certain age and sex and a pet with four furry legs.

The devil child will be born either in the day or night of a month with four weeks in it, in a year containing no more than twelve months. It will be of one sex or the other, it will have four working limbs and a head and require oxygen, nutrition and H2O to exist. It will pass through the ages of childhood, the teen-age years, adulthood, middle age and old age.

It will speak and read words in the language of his or her family, it will walk on its legs or travel by car, bus, train, boat or aeroplane to the places where his or her presence is required, and it will work for an employer in a place of employment where he or she will exchange labour for pay in the form of a currency. It will spend its leisure time in pursuit of a typical or atypical activity and will marry and mate with a person of similar or opposing gender.

That’s about as specific as I can be for now, but I reckon that that’s more than enough info on the little devil to help us identify him or her when the time comes, I’ll keep ye posted!) Â