Posts by Tom Fallows

Even from the opening image of John D. Hancock's slice of 1970s horror-melancholia it becomes apparent that this is film where things won't be seen clearly. A woman, hidden in silhouette, sits in a boat steadily drifting away from the shore. The morning mist distorts our view, while the orange sunrise adds an unreality to the scene - as if this is something dreamed. To further muddy the cognitive waters, we are introduced to this place by Jessica, who in a whispery internal monologue confesses that she is unsure of what is real and what is not. And as she is our only guide, inviting us to see the world through her eyes, we too begin to question what we see. Let's Scare Jessica to Death is a film about insanity, but what makes it so astounding is that it doesn't ask us to study madness, but rather to share in it.(read more...)

By the time of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires in 1974 Hammer Studios was dying. Thanks to the vérité horrors of films like Night of the Living Dead (1968), their unique brand of Gothic chills seemed archaic - as dusty as one of Dracula's cobwebbed tombs. Indeed, Golden Vampires would mark the last appearance of their erstwhile Count and Hammer would soon after stagger into the graveyard of television and, finally, oblivion. Golden Vampires is filled with the kind of desperation akin to someone in their death throes and the assimilation of Kung Fu (then all the rage) reeks of a company all out of ideas. But despite this Golden Vampires actually has a lot to offer. In fact, it is one of Hammer's best films of the 1970s and remains a fitting send off for one of the giants of British Cinema.(read more...)

Director Richard Franklin has openly confessed that his Road Games is an "Alfred Hitchcock derivative." Replacing Jimmy Stewart's apartment view in Rear Window with the fly-splattered windscreen of an 8-wheel truck, Road Games hurtles into a world of obsession, mistaken identity and psycho killers as if the master himself were in the passenger seat. But the sheer unhinged energy Franklin injects into the narrative make this more than just a simple pastiche. This is Hitchcock at 80mph and it doesn't let up for a second.(read more...)