Quick Reviews

Director: Norman J. Warren
Certification: 18
Reviewed: 23/11/05

A low budget British horror that has no plot, rhyme or reason for the numerous murders. A witch gets burnt at the stake and curses those involved, everything else just ambles from this point on, from one death scene to the next, that's it. None of the actors could act to save their lives, so you can guess what happens to most of them can't you? Yes it really is a Terror!

Director: Michael Mann
Certification: 18
Reviewed: 09/10/06
Also Known As: Violent Streets (U.K.)

Frank (James Caan) is a professional thief specialising in big league cash and diamond jobs. He has a dream of early retirement living the good life, so when an offer of a big score comes his way from mob boss Leo (Robert Prosky) he realises it's too good pass up. There's one problem though, Leo has other ideas.

Director: John Carpenter
Certification: 18
Reviewed: 18/04/05
Also Known As: John Carpenter's The Thing (U.S.A.)

In the frozen wilderness of the Antarctic, a United States research team encounter an alien that perfectly mimics any living thing by assimilating its victims. It becomes apparent that they must destroy the creature at all costs before it takes over the world, but who is The Thing? Horror-meister, John Carpenter directs a wonderfully gruesome tale staring Kurt Russell.

Director: George Lucas
Certification: 15
Reviewed: 25/09/05
Also Known As: THX-1138 (U.S.A.)

The central character THX 1138 (Robert Duval) lives in a society where the inhabitants are drugged to be docile, they are watched constantly by surveillance cameras, their actions are scrutinised for any deviation from the state's idea of conformity. THX 1138 and female roommate LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie) rebel against the system by not taking the state's enforced drugs and making love and so are pursued by the authorities police robots.

Director: Tobe Hooper
Certification: 18
Reviewed: 14/01/07

The plot is pretty superfluous, but anyway here goes. Newlywed couple Nell and Steven Barrows move into an old apartment building where the occupants have the habit of disappearing. When a new acquaintance that lives in the block disappears Nell takes it upon herself to find out the mystery and ends up with more than she bargained for.

This movie should have stuck to building the tension and proceeding with a story rather than opting for gore for the sake of gore and tiresome slasher movie clichés. There are some amazing plot holes here too, who cares about script contrivances when you can cover the mess with butchery? My god what is that smell? Yes that's right it's a nasty, mean-spirited, stinker. There's something here to keep gore-hounds happy which is all it's about really. Mr Hooper it looks like the toolbox is empty.

Director: William Boyd
Certification: 15
Reviewed: 05/12/05
Also Known As: La Tranchée (France)

Again a standard TV drama pretends to be a feature film and fails. Not for one moment did I feel this was a First World War trench and that the actors were soldiers making ready to go 'over the top', other than Daniel Craig who played the Sergeant very well indeed. Supposedly this was set during The Battle of the Somme, 1916 but it just looked like a rather clean (for a WWI trench) studio set with moody lighting. The mix and match stereotypical national cast was a mistake as were the amount of f-words and many other things, that were, I'm sure, historically inaccurate. The Trench was mildly entertaining and slightly thought provoking but on the whole handled badly.