The Invisible Man (2020)

Two weeks after escaping the high-security home of her abusive, controlling, husband, Cecilla (Elisabeth Moss) learns he has killed himself.

However, as strange things start to happen in her life, she begins to suspect that the genius optics entrepreneur has actually faked his own death and really found a way to turn himself invisible!

This is something he had taunted her with in the past, saying then he could always keep an eye on her.

Has he done this? Or has he just got it into her head that he could do this? One final mind-game from beyond the grave...

Of course,  we, the audience, know that - given the title of the movie - Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) has somehow achieved his devious ambition, although Cecilla's friends and family refuse to accept her wild claims and we see her grasp on sanity slowly slipping away.

Written and directed by horror veteran Leigh Whannell, Universal's new spin on The Invisible Man is the terrifying sci-fi horror that could relaunch its aborted "Dark Universe", where Tom Cruise's The Mummy failed so spectacularly.

Sure, there are a couple of moments that stretch credibility, like Cecilla's cop friend, James Lanier (Leverage's Aldis Hodge), being allowed to sit in on her interrogation when she is framed for murder, and Cecilla finding Adrian's mobile phone, complete with incriminating pictures, and not sharing it with anyone.

But overall, this is a near-perfect masterpiece of escalating tension, psychological horror, and the terrifying possibilities of weird science.

The film was off to a good start with its leads. Elisabeth Moss and Aldis Hodge are excellent in everything I've seen them do, but Whannell brings an attention to detail (barring minor hiccups mentioned above) that escalate the creep factor to near-breaking point.

He wisely avoids a lot of 'floating objects held by invisible person' gimmicks, and instead, generally goes, at least initially, for subtler, more disturbing, effects that you might not even catch first time round.

I'm sure I missed some things.

The other clever aspect of this iteration of the well-known HG Wells story is that it is told entirely from Cecilla's perspective; Griffin - the demented supervillain of the piece - is barely seen or heard until the final act.

As well as a straight forward horror movie, The Invisible Man also works as frightening portrait of an abusive relationship, highlighting the incredulity and disbelief that Cecilla's allegations about her "dead husband" are met with.

This carries right through to the final act, after a surprise twist that could be seen to put Cecilla in the clear actually makes her situation worse.

Engrossing and psychologically disturbing, The Invisible Man is an impressive, contemporary, take on a classic sci-fi story, and well worth two hours of your time.

Pet Sematary (2019)

Overworked Boston ER doctor Louis Creed wants to spend more time with his family.

So he gets a job at a university and moves, with his wife, Rachel (Amy Seimetz), eight-year-old daughter Ellie (Jeté Laurence), toddler Gage (Hugo Lavoie/Lucas Lavoie), and Church the cat, to rural Maine.

In the woodlands at the end of their garden they discover the local "pet sematary", which is doing roaring business with the road that passes by the front of their property being a popular route for high-speed commercial haulage.

This is rather awkward as Rachel has problems explaining the concept of death to Ellie, as she blames herself for the death of her disabled sister.

Unfortunately, Church is run over by a lorry within days of the family moving in.

Friendly neighbour Jud (John Lithgow) shows Louis to a place beyond the 'pet sematary', deeper in the woods, where they bury the cat.

And the next day Church returns.

However, Louis quickly discovers it hasn't come back as the friendly family pet they remember.

As Jud - who had a similar experience with his family dog when he was younger - says: "Sometimes dead is better."

But then, on Ellie's ninth birthday, tragedy strikes the family and Louis is driven to an act that will their change their family forever.

Released digitally in the UK this week, Pet Sematary is, of course, not only an adaptation of the famous Stephen King novel, but a remake of the 1986 movie.

This new version, directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, from a screenplay by Jeff Buhler of Matt Greenberg's story based on King's novel(!), certainly tightens up some of the messy storytelling of the original (such as limiting the ghostly presence of Victor Pascow to, largely, a disembodied voice, while Rachel's visions of her sister are most definitely disturbed nightmares).

But there's still the central issue of why Jud would ever share his knowledge of the place where the dead can be brought back in the first place, because - as we saw in the first iteration of this cinematic tale - there's not a single jot of proof that these resurrections ever have a happy ending.

While I liked the Derry road sign Easter Egg, I felt that the potential "folk horror" aspect of the rural tale, as suggested by the children's parade to the 'pet sematary' (a striking element of the trailers and featured on the poster above), was a missed opportunity.

It turns out that the pet funeral procession was never utilised again; in truth the main characters don't even really interact with it.

Beyond letting the Creeds know about the cemetery at the end of their garden (which they could have found anyway), it serves simply as an excuse to give Ellie a scary mask for the final act.

Kudos though to young Jeté Laurence who turns in a terrifying performance at the climax of the movie - for instance, her conversation with her father, when he puts her to bed after her bath, is genuinely chilling.

And while it's the sort of ending I usually appreciate, I was unsure of the need for the nihilistic turn the story took in its closing scenes (unless that's the direction the original novel took).

I guess it's to show the dangers of bringing humans back from the dead, instead of just animals.

And potentially setting up a more apocalyptic, zombie-style, sequel...

Pet Sematary (1986)

Before the latest adaptation of Stephen King's Pet Sematary hit cinemas in 2019, I thought I'd remind myself of the original from 1989, another veteran of the VHS years that I'm pretty sure I haven't seen for decades.

And, to be honest, while well made, it doesn't feel as though it has stood the test of time.

In a nutshell, a man is told - and witnesses with his own eyes - that if he does something, something bad will happen.

He does the something and the something bad happens.

Hilarity ensues.

A doctor, Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff), wife Rachel (Denise Crosby), and two young kids, Ellie (Blaze Berdahl) and Gage (Miko Hughes) move into a country house beside a road frequented by fast-moving lorries.

Thanks to friendly neighbour Jud Crandall (The Munsters' Fred Gwynne), they soon learn that in the woods behind their house is an old pet cemetery, where local pets killed on the road are buried.

However, while his family are away at Thanksgiving, Louis has to deal with the death of his daughter's beloved cat, Church, and so Jud leads him to an area way beyond the cemetery, a cursed Indian burial ground (because, America) that can supposedly bring creatures buried in it back to life.

But they come back "wrong".

Turns out the only time someone tried it with a human being, they turned into a flesh-eating zombie, so that's never been tried again.

Only, some time later, little Gage gets mown down on the busy road, and Louis kind of flips out (understandably), steals his corpse from the proper graveyard, and takes him up to the old Indian burial ground.

Naturally, the Gage that returns isn't Louis's beloved toddler... but a human Chucky doll intent on murder and mayhem.

Although working from a Stephen King screenplay, Pet Sematary has a whole host of problems, not least of which is that the central conceit - even if we accept that in this supernatural verisimilitude that the Indian burial ground has the power of resurrection - there are no anecdotes, not a single one, where using it has worked out for the best.

There is not a single iota of evidence to suggest that it brings someone back as anything except a soulless ghoul.

And yet, Jud still dangles it in front of Louis as a way to avoid having to teach his daughter about the fragility of feline life.

Then, on top of that, we have the kitchen sink approach to the story: there's an American Werewolf In London-style friendly ghost looking out for the family (Brad Greenquist); Ellie has very accurate and unambiguous prophetic dreams (which may be, but possibly aren't, connected to the appearance of the ghost); Rachel is haunted by her dead sister; when Gage returns from the dead he has the power to create very vivid illusions (something the earlier zombie in the film most certainly didn't have); in the denouement there's meaningful shots of clocks showing midnight - but time has never been mentioned as a factor in this process.

Even, stepping back from the surfeit of supernatural elements, towards the end of the movie a house burns down right at the side of the main road, but - even though considerable time passes afterwards - no fire engines or police cars ever show up to investigate.

I don't know if explanations were cut, or they were simply considered superfluous, but Pet Sematary feels - although it clearly wasn't, with Stephen King's direct involvement in the script - like a child making up a story as he goes along ("And then this happened, and then this, and you wouldn't believe what happened next...").

I'm hoping the remake corrects this jumbled storytelling and delivers a more cohesive narrative.

I get that the idea of a cursed burial ground that can bring people back from the dead is very creepy and that Pet Sematary is a tale about a man driven by grief to do something stupid and dangerous, but it's more contrived than convincing.

TALES FROM THE VAULT: Fantastic Four #183 (1977)

Fantastic Four #183 caught my eye because of its dynamic, quartered, cover that promised "this one has it all" and the fact that that reminded me of my beloved, and pivotal, Fantastic Four #17 (the story that hooked me on superheroes) that shares a similar cover design.

And did the issue deliver on its proud cover boast?

It sure did.

Opening with Sue (the Invisible Woman... 'Girl' at the time) being flung out of a window of the Baxter Building by a creature called The Brute (in actual fact an aternate Reed Richards from a 'counter-Earth'), only to be saved by the alien Impossible Man, Tigra, and Thundra.

The alien gets bored and wanders off, leaving the women to head back into the Baxter Building - only to discover The Brute has turned the building's defences against them.

Meanwhile, our Reed Richards is trapped in the Negative Zone, with The Thing, The Human Torch, and a powerless Annihilus - with whom they strike up an uneasy alliance.

Annihilus has lost his Cosmic Control Rod to the Mad Thinker's Super-Android, which he salvaged after it was abandoned in the Zone by the FF.

The rod has transformed the android into a powerful, sentient, entity that follows a call from the Mad Thinker to return to the Baxter Building and help the deranged scientist steal all Richards' super-scientific gizmos.

An everyday sight on the streets of 1970's New York City

Annihilus offers the heroes use of his spaceship, to escape the Negative Zone, in return for their liberating his Cosmic Control Rod from the android thief back in our reality.

There is simply so much going on in this one comic, in terms of character development and continuity, as well as breathless action, all steered masterfully by Bill Mantlo's script and the flowing art of Sal Buscema and Joe Sinnott.

It really brings it home how much padding there is in a lot of mainstream comics these days, with narrative decompression being used as an excuse for panels puffed out with a half-dozen word balloons, and a general trend to "write for the trades".

Fantastic Four #183 is classic, old school, Marvel: high action, deep world building, pacing to make your head spin, extreme excitement, and powerful pathos.

The ending delivers a beautiful double-whammy with Reed standing firm on honouring his pledge to Annihilus, and the emotional decision by the 'alternate Reed', that prompts Sue to declare:

"Then similarities bridge worlds, my darling... for he did what you would have done had your positions been reversed."

If only more superhero comics were written with such panache these days.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Dad's Army

Dad's Dad's Army - miniatures painted by a friend in Sevenoaks as a present for my dad

Dad's Lance-Corporal Jones and his famous butcher's van

When I was growing up, Dad's Army was a hugely popular show in our household, both mum and dad having been kids during the war, and dad later serving - courtesy of National Service - in the Royal Corps of Signals.

Knowing his love for the show, over the years, I got dad a number of Dad's Army themed gifts, which, when he died, I inherited and have loving cared for since.

The documentary for the show's 50th anniversary in 2018, hosted by Pointless's Alexander Armstrong, also got me thinking about a series of articles I read as a child - in my father's collection of Airfix annuals - about staging Hitler's aborted invasion of Britain (aka Operation Sealion) as a wargame.

This was my first introduction to the idea of wargames and, although I never pursued it further (instead being drawn to the Battle of Waterloo with my giant Airfix box set of soldiers and the Wild West with my larger Britains toy soliders), it stuck with me ever since.

Selection of pages from the original series of articles in the Airfix magazine

However, the Saluting Dad's Army documentary briefly reignited my childhood fascination with Operation Sealion and wargaming a "what if..." Nazi invasion of the UK.

I immediately started trawling through the Warlord Games' website - knowing they had the licence for official Dad's Army miniatures - and was dreaming about creating my own miniature Home Guard regiment to fend off the German invaders.

Official Dad's Army miniatures from Warlord Games

My flights of fantasy even embraced the idea of creating a scale replica of Walmington-on-Sea for the Home Guard to defend, but thankfully that's as far as my wild ambitions went, and I didn't pull the trigger on any miniatures or terrain (it quickly dawned on me that my scenery building skills weren't anywhere near good enough to build a 1940's town that I would be happy with).

The Sadness (2021)

After a year of combating a pandemic with relatively benign, cold-like, symptoms, the frustrated populace of Taiwan - many considering the virus a hoax perpetuated by the government or big business - finally lets its guard down.

This is when the Alvin virus spontaneously mutates into a rabies-like plague, unleashing its victims' inner demons.

As random acts of violence begin to break out across the city, the streets of Taipei escalate into an orgy of brutality and depravity, as those infected are driven by their most primitive desires to commit the most extreme acts of cruelty and depravity they can imagine.

A young couple, Jim (Berant Zhu) and Kat (Regina Lei), find themselves separated in the chaos.

Kat was taking the underground to work when the rioting began, while Jim was getting his morning coffee at a local café.

Trapped between the trigger-happy authorities and tidal waves of ordinary people transformed into psychotic killers, as personified by the lecherous businessman (Tzu-Chiang Wang) who stalks Kat,  The Sadness follows Jim and Kat on their separate odysseys, as they attempt to survive and reunite.

A strikingly memorable 99-minute movie, The Sadness is the first feature film of Canadian writer/director Rob Jabbaz, who works out of Taiwan, and, if nothing else, signals the arrival of a major new horror talent on the scene.

It needs to be stated up front that this is not a film for the overly sensitive, easily triggered, or faint of heart, as it very quickly descends into epic Grand Guignol, with spraying blood and viscera decorating many a scene.

The early subway sequence is simultaneously over-the-top and terrifyingly real in its depiction of human ferocity in a confined space that you may never want to travel on a tube train again. 

The Sadness is George Romero's 1973 film The Crazies cranked up way past 11, with its pseudo-zombie infected retaining their intelligence and ability to communicate but with no filters, no restraint holding them back.

Like something from a Clive Barker splatterpunk opera, the plot of The Sadness is about those grim, dark thoughts we all experience upon occasion - but would never act upon - being made manifest.

The mutated Alvin virus eliminates those social contracts of human civilization, allowing the most evil and sadistic part of a person's id to take the driving seat.

With Jabbaz's commitment to the verisimilitude of the plague he has created at the heart of The Sadness, sexual violence is threatened (often) and suggested throughout the film, but never graphically shown.

The harrowing nature of the horror is heightened from more mainstream zombie outings because the fast-moving infected can still talk, issuing vulgar taunts and gross threats of their intentions.

These plant disturbing images in the viewer's mind which never manifest on camera, but help accentuate what we do see: the boundary-challenging display of dismembered, often cannibalised, bodies, severed limbs, torn flesh etc

The titular "sadness" is both from the realisation that the infected know what they are doing, but can't stop themselves (which is why some of them are seen crying before or after their attacks), and also the psychological effect this scenario has on those not yet affected by the virus.

As the gorefest snowballs, the uninfected are pushed to shocking acts of violence in self-defence, so that eventually it's difficult to differentiate between the infected and uninfected.

Some of the manic momentum of The Sadness is lost towards the end of the second act, during a key scene that (necessarily) exposits the backstory of the virus and how it works, before the story turns inwards for its conclusion, bringing the drama down to a very intimate level.

It gradually becomes clear, as the movie enters its third act, that we are not heading towards a happy ending, rather something far more nihilistic that borrows a trick from a particularly famous zombie movie (just styling it differently).

As infection/zombie tales go, The Sadness is not so much a film of be enjoyed, as it is an experience.

What you make of that experience depends on your intestinal fortitude and willingness to watch a brilliantly shot survival horror film set against a bleak, misanthropic, backdrop of disgusting cruelty being perpetrated by the worst of humanity.

However, The Sadness isn't simply a bloodbath of mindless violence (although there is rather a lot of that), the script also cleverly addresses - very topically -  the seemingly modern phenomena of social media-fuelled paranoia and politicised truth that surrounds wide-spread emergencies, such as pandemics. 

Be prepared to be challenged.

Evil Toons (1992)

Despite Rachel calling this the "worst film" she'd ever seen when she wandered into a screening back in 2011, the schlockfest that is Evil Toons has a special place in my heart.

Not only did I review it for our local paper when it was first released on VHS, but it even merited a mention in my university dissertation about the role of women in trash cinema... and also features an all-too brief cameo by the wonderful Michelle Bauer (star of the infamous Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers).

A horror-comedy - with a ridiculously large quota of unclad flesh on display and OTT sound effects - this is the simple story of a gaggle of attractive young ladies (students at Lovecraft's Miskatonic University if you listen carefully!) hired to clean-up an abandoned mansion and who accidentally release a demonic "cartoon" from an ancient tome.

The demon quickly kills one of the girls, possesses her - topless - form... and hilarity ensues.

Evil Toons is beer-and-pizza, braindead, slapstick, low-brow entertainment at its finest with a plot that doesn't really make sense used as a flimsy excuse to dress attractive women in flimsy outfits and have them running around for an hour-and-a-half.

This is not the sort of film you watch by accident, the DVD cover alone should tell you what to expect, so there's no excuse for coming away from Evil Toons disappointed.

A true masterpiece of harmless nonsense from Fred Olen Ray, with deliriously silly performances from Dick Miller (including a great in-joke where his character is watching an old Dick Miller movie) and David Carradine.

And, of course, Rachel has walked in on many far worse movies than this in subsequent years.

Scream VI (2023)

It's a year after the last Ghostface rampage in Woodsboro and the "Core Four" - Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) and the twins, Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding) - now find themselves in New York.

While the latter three are in college, at Blackmore University, Sam is doing menial jobs to cover the rent while she keeps an eye on her sister.

The film kicks off with an extended cold open, featuring cameos from Ready or Not's Samara Weaving and Tony Revolori, from the recent Spider-Man movies, again subverting the classic Scream opening with what is just the beginning of a trail of obfuscation and misdirection.

Ghostface has come to New York and states - on the phone - upfront that he's targeting Sam "for what she did" and anyone, such as her sister and friends, who gets in the way.

Sam is already persona non grata because of internet conspiracy theories that she in fact orchestrated the attacks in Woodsboro - because of her heritage - and then framed the actual killers.

This is all part of Scream VI's evolution of the central theme that it's now no longer 'enough' to 'simply' kill a person, you also have to kill their reputation as well.

As bodies start to inevitably mount up, Mindy declares to the group that they are not in a sequel, they're now part of a franchise and thus the rules have changed again, meaning everyone is fair game. 

As with the previous film, Scream VI presents us with a broad collection of potential murderers and victims, including legacy characters such as Hayden Panettiere's Kirby Reed, from Scream 4 (now an FBI agent) and fresh meat, including Sam's "secret" boyfriend, Danny Brackett (Josh Segarra, who you might recognise from playing the excellent Pug in She-Hulk, Attorney at Law, or Adrian Chase in Arrow).

Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) returns, of course, and even the ghost of Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) pops up a couple of times.

Thankfully, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are back as directors, working with a script, again, by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, which really helps ensure that Scream VI feels like an organic continuation of the previous instalment in the horrific murder-mystery franchise.

Whereas I posited the idea that 2022's Scream would have provided a satisfying conclusion to the overarching story, Scream VI now leaves the door well and truly open for a continuation of the saga of the Ghostface killings.

I would hope though that should another entry be made it would be under the auspices of the same team responsible for these last two Scream movies.

But now it's officially a franchise, who knows what direction the story will go in? 

And I must add the point that Marvel movies have broken me: I now scroll through the credits of every film I watch to see if there's a post-credit scene, and I have to say the one snuck on the end of Scream VI is perfect.

Scream (2022)

Kicking off with an inventive reworking of the classic Scream opening (girl home alone, answers phone, ends up talking to stranger etc). the fifth entry in the franchise proclaims its creativity loudly but not smugly.

Full of meta-commentary on the nature of "requels" (films that aren't straight-forward sequels, but aren't complete reboots either, mixing in legacy characters with a crop of core characters), the self-awareness of the Scream franchise, and toxic fandom, 2022's Scream is a knowing thrill ride from start to finish (even its bland name gets a ribbing).

After Tara Carpenter (Jenna 'Wednesday' Ortega) is attacked by a new Ghostface, her estranged sister, Sam (Melissa Barrera) races back to Woodsboro with boyfriend Richie (The Boys' Jack Quaid).

It turns out most of Tara's friends have some kind of connection to the original attacks - as orchestrated by Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) - making them all potential suspects and potential victims.

As bodies start to mount up in a new wave of ultraviolence, Sam and Richie turn to retired deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette) for assistance.

Initially reluctant, it ultimately doesn't take much to persuade Dewey that his job is to protect the imperilled next generation of Woodsboro.

The murders continue, attracting the attention of Dewey's ex-lover news reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and eventually even drawing professional 'final girl' Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) back home, reuniting the original surviving protagonists of the franchise.

Taking place 25 years after the original murders, it's not just technology that's moved on (and this certainly plays a role in the story) but so have special effects: several of the attacks are far more graphic and squirm-inducing than anything we've witnessed before in these films.

Scream is not a film for the squeamish or hemophobics.

Usually, I like a monster in my horror flicks, or some kind of supernatural aspect, but quality human antagonists - such as the ever-changing Ghostface - are able to pique my interest thanks to the elegance of James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick's screenplay, blending Scooby-Doo mystery with adrenaline-hyped action.

I thought I'd sussed out who the killer was early on, but the smart script continually wrong-footed me, proving my guess totally wrong as the film entered its blood-soaked final act, and making the eventual revelation of Ghostface's identity - and motivations - all the more satisfying.

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who gave us the wonderful Ready or Not, Scream is laden with Easter Eggs - including tributes to the late Wes Craven - and references to other horror movies and franchises, smartly woven into the metatextual observations about these films and the people who watch them, while still being a full-on shocking slasher picture.

I was slightly underwhelmed by 2011's Scream 4, but I still can't believe it took me so long to get round to watching this 'new' offering... because it turns out that it's probably my favourite entry in the franchise since Wes Craven's peerless original.

Scream - aka Scream 5 - is the perfect wrap-up for the franchise, which makes Scream 6's impending arrival on home video in the UK all the more intriguing, especially with its non-Woodsboro setting.

The Origin Story Of The Friendly, Neighbourhood Comic Book Store

Shopping for Superman guides viewers through a 50-year journey revealing the origin story of their friendly neighborhood comic shops and the people fighting to keep their doors open.

Since it began, the retail comics industry has contracted by over 75% with more shops closing every month.

After five years of diminished sales, a global pandemic, and the digitization of retail shopping dominating most markets, Shopping for Superman asks the question, “Can our local comic shops be saved?”

Shopping for Superman does more than explain the history of retail comic book shops. Its underlying narrative reveals how shops directly influenced comic book publishing to cultivate some of the most daring and controversial materials ever committed to print.

Through the evolution of comics, bolstered by shop owners, local communities gained access to safe spaces for individuals having a crisis of identity, a place that promoted literacy and critical thinking in areas where those things are scarce.

Audiences will see, first-hand, just how necessary their support will be in keeping these shops open and available for future generations.

Shopping For Superman will soon be popping up at festivals and conventions with the idea of obtaining a wider distribution.

I, for one, can't wait to see it (presumably on a disc that I can add to my collection of comic book-related documentaries) over here in the UK.

Scream 4 (2011)

Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is back in Woodsboro, to promote her new self-help book, on the anniversary of the original Woodsboro murders... and surprise, surprise it all starts up again.

Our other old favourites are back as well Deputy - now Sheriff - Dewey (David Arquette) and wife Gale (Courtney Cox), who is feeling at loose end as she struggles with the life of a sedentary fiction writer.

The new 'Ghostface' killer in town is trying to 'remake' the original Scream (or in the context of the movie, Stab) and while it does have some interesting - some heavy-handed - things to say about the changing face of horror movies, celebrity culture etc there's no escaping the feeling that maybe all concerned should stop flogging this horse. I think it's long dead.

At the start of the movie there are suggestions of marital strife between Dewey and Gale, but this never really develops and while, in a roundabout way, this might be a motive for his new deputy Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton) - who has an obvious crush on him and was a student with Sidney - to be Ghostface, this emotional sub-plot kinda trails off.

There's the usual shocks and twists, celebrity cameos and hot young things for the chopping block (particularly pleasant to see Heroes' Hayden Panettiere as sexy horror fan Kirby, even with an unflattering hairdo) and at least fifty percent of the game is trying to guess the identity of the killer.

It may claim "new decade, new rules" but series creator Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven still won't take that final step and create their own rules - possibly, once and for all, killing off the indestructible Sidney.

Scream 4 is (perhaps overly) self-aware and post-modern, but also a solid, fun slasher movie in its own right, with a clever ending that doesn't quite capture the genius and originality of the first film in the franchise.

Split (2016)

Split is a strange film. Like its central character, it has multiple personalities. It begins as a Hitchcockian kidnap thriller, but very quickly starts to seed its narrative with suggestions of something more, something much more "superhero (or in this case 'supervillain') adjacent".

I've been burnt way too often by M. Night Shyamalan movies that I now tend to avoid them on principle, life being too short for repeated unnecessary disappointment or frustration.

Which is why I'd originally planned to give Split a wide berth, until it was revealed that Shymalan was working on a sequel to one of his superb early movies, the inventive superhero origin tale Unbreakable. However, this new film - Glass - was also going to be a sequel to Split.

Well, that I was it. I now had to see Split. And I'm glad I did... even if just for the final few seconds.

Three young students (Anya Taylor-Joy, Jessica Sula, and Haley Lu Richardson) are kidnapped and held prisoner by Kevin (James McAvoy), a man with 23 distinct personalities, each with its own voice, strengths, and weaknesses.

Gradually, the young girls learn that they are being prepared as sacrifices for a 24th personality - called The Beast - which is due to manifest soon.

Just shy of two hours in duration, there's no escaping the fact that Split is a patchy affair.

Possibly my total immersion was hobbled by the "Shyamalan Factor", I was always looking for that bonus plot twist (Is this real? Are the girl's real? Is his psychiatrist real? Is this is all a figment of one of the girls' imaginations?), when it's actually played pretty straight.

All the kidnapees are quite resourceful, but the Final Girl is clearly set up to be Taylor-Joy's outsider, Casey Cooke, as we learn more about the roots of her resourcefulness in flashbacks to hunting trips in her youth with her father and creepy uncle.

There's a lot of the claustrophobic horror of Silence Of The Lambs here, as well as moments that reminded me of Hannibal, but McAvoy's Kevin is drawn from the world of comic book science (like David Dunn) rather than the real world verisimilitude of Hannibal Lecter.

However, given that McAvoy is obviously the star of the feature, I found Casey's story dissatisfyingly unresolved, unless I missed a key point somewhere, particularly in respect to her vile uncle (Brad William Henke).

With the impending release of Glass, which unites the two movies, Split is the supervillain origin story to Unbreakable's superhero story, but it doesn't come across as a self-contained work.

Where the Bruce Willis movie feels like a self-contained work, Split feels like chapter of a longer story.

This makes me wonder if Casey is poised to return in Glass, tying up the loose threads of her story, along with Bruce Willis' David Dunn and James McAvoy's Kevin Crumb?

Unbreakable (2000)

Upfront, I have to lay my cards on the table and confess that I am not a big fan of the works of M. Night Shyamalan.

Sixth Sense was very good, but rather a one-trick pony signalling the writer/director's obsession with trying to be the new Hitchcock, rather than develop a unique style of his own. Signs was one of the most ridiculous films I'd ever seen and The Village wasn't much better (I never bothered with the Lady In The Water).

I think he puts too much emphasis on the "twist" rather than the story that leads to the twist. It's like he's saying "look how clever I am" and challenging his audience to second guess him, so you spend the entire film trying to guess the twist and not concentrating on the story.

Thankfully, Unbreakable isn't like that. I understand it was originally intended as the first part of a trilogy, but poor box office meant the studio put the kibosh on any sequels (perhaps people were just looking for a rehash of Sixth Sense!)

While still obviously Hitchcockian, Unbreakable does feature a kind of twist in the final scene but it is more akin to a standard plot revelation and therefore isn't all that the film is about.

Viewed in 2007 the film is almost a dry run, a pilot episode, for Heroes with its tale of an ordinary Joe (Bruce Willis as security guard David Dunn), who survives a train wreck and slowly - thanks to pestering from a strange art gallery owner and comic book obsessive Elijah Price (Samuel L Jackson) - begins to realise that he has "superpowers".

Certainly the best written of Shymalan's portfolio - the scene where David, having rescued some children from a murderer, silently reveals his "secret identity" to his son is incredible - yet the ending still seems slightly rushed, although on reflection it's growing on me.

The parallels between Dunn's developing realisation of his destiny and his troubled personal life are a particular gem - he can't find satisfaction in the latter until he accepts the former, however insane it sounds in a real world context.

The comic book nut, and budding storyteller, in me would like to see Shymalan and Willis revisit the story of David Dunn at some stage, let us know what happened in the "next issue", as it were.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Let's Get Spiritual

The Hall of Harmony and Peace at Yonghe Temple, Beijing. Picture: Yinan Chen

 
Continuing my recollections of the highlights of my visit to China (to visit Paul) in 2002, I will never forget my visit to the Yonghe Lamasery in Beijing.

Paul had gone to work, so I took a taxi into the temple, little realising that I was turning up in the middle of a major Buddhist new season festival, a kind of exorcism of evil spirits.

There was an hour of dancing by monks in freaky masks, in front of the chief Lama and his posse.

Then everyone paraded through the temple to the main gate, where there was more banging of drums and cymbals, and stuff got burnt (which I couldn't see). 

Then everyone paraded back to the main arena, had a team huddle and threw 'gifts of the gods' (ie. food) out into the crowd.

STAMPEDE TIME!

I got a peanut, then an old Chinese woman offered me a little orange, which I thanked her for.

After this people seemed to disperse, so I started to wander the temple grounds, and found the last temple, which holds a giant Buddha, where all the monks - and the locals - were praying.

All the other Westerners had vanished by now.

The monks were handing out sacred yogurt, which people were either storing in jam jars or rubbing into their hands and faces. I decided to go for the hand/face option with my dollop!

Outside of the temple I watched more Chinese saying their prayers and lighting joss sticks.

It was all very moving, and one more illustration of why the Buddhists have the coolest religion.  

Thoroughbreds (2017)

Estranged childhood friends Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Amanda (Olivia Cooke) reunite in suburban Connecticut when Amanda's mum hires Lily to tutor her troubled daughter.

Emotionally-stunted Amanda is awaiting trial for animal cruelty, but Lily has her own secrets.

The two girls bond over Lily's contempt for her brusque stepfather, Mark (Paul Sparks), and they come up with a scheme to kill him.

The young women approach local hustler Tim (Star Trek's Anton Yelchin) to do the deed while both girls are away (Lily on a spa weekend with her mother, Amanda in therapy).

Of course, things don't go according to plan, and eventually Lily and Amanda have to take matters into their own hands.

Written and directed by Cory Finley, Thoroughbreds is an amazing piece of cinema. For a work heavy with gorgeously-mannered dialogue it whips along faster than a speeding bullet, belying its mere 88-minute duration to feel almost like a short.

Of course, much credit must go to its two flawless, charismatic leads - Split's Anya Taylor-Joy and Bates Motel's Olivia Cooke - who make this theatrically intimate, deliciously dark, character study look effortless.

Kudos also to the late, lamented, Anton Yelchin in his final film before his tragic death at way too early an age.

This trio of young talent would make the film worth the price of admission alone, but Finley's script is also tight and layered, without a wasted word or gesture.

It's an examination of friendship and sacrifice seen through a dark mirror, a twisted tale about guarded, emotionally-distant young women finding purpose in life.

One slight word of warning (the sort of thing that in a sane world wouldn't be necessary) is that in some places Thoroughbreds has been marketed as a comedy - it's not. Some of the banter between the leads is naturally witty, but overall I wouldn't even call this a dark comedy.

It's an indie drama centring on pitch-perfect performances from incredible actors.

The Secret Of Marrowbone (2017)

Escaping their abusive father in England, a young family using the name Marrowbone relocates to America, to start their lives afresh in the mother's isolated childhood home - which has been unoccupied for 30 years.

Soon after arriving, the children - Jack (George MacKay), Billy (Stranger Things' Charlie Heaton), Jane (Mia Goth), and Sam (Matthew Stagg) - meet Allie (Anya Taylor-Joy), who lives on a neighbouring farm, and a firm friendship is forged over the summer.

Unfortunately, after the summer, the mother falls ill, and having told the children to stay secluded until Jack turns 21 (to avoid being separated by the authorities), she dies.

The Marrowbone family cuts itself off from the nearby town, and Jack now only gets to see Allie infrequently, when he leaves the home to buy supplies or to steal precious moments with his beloved.

However, the family's skeevy lawyer, Tom Porter (Kyle Soller), who also has the hots for Allie, senses something is afoot at the Marrowbone house and, driven by his desire to woo Allie (despite her making it clear he's barking up the wrong tree), pries into the mysterious family's life... with disastrous consequences.

Having failed to make it to the cinema at the weekend to get my required dose of Anya Taylor-Joy goodness in Glass, I turned to this seemingly overlooked psychological horror-cum-family drama from the other year.

Thematically it reminded me strongly of Ian McEwan's 1978 novel The Cement Garden - which has had a lasting impact on me since I read it about three decades ago - with its similar focus on an adultless family living in hyperreal isolation, with elements of Psycho and Lovecraftian horror (but not the cosmic monsters and weird cults kind) mixed in for good measure.

Although set in the late '60s (the 1969 Moon landing is being shown on a TV in a store in town), the Marrowbone kids are carving out a very Waltons-esque existence of tatty dungarees and Spartan living conditions.

For two-thirds of the movie, Marrowbone feels like an enormous Gothic tease, eschewing jump-scares entirely in favour of continually heightening its atmosphere and tension, building - seemingly -  to a climax that never comes, suggesting ghosts and weirdness when none are truly evident.

That is, until the plot twists unravel thick and fast at the turning point that throws us headlong into the final act.

To be honest, if you've watched enough movies in your life, the revelations aren't that original, which is probably why this film hasn't received the interest it perhaps deserves.

However, they are handled deftly by writer/director Sergio G Sánchez, who brings out top-notch performances from all of his cast.

As with many clever films, once you know the "secret" of Marrowbone there's a strong urge to watch the film again to see how it all works.

And that can't be a bad thing.

The New Mutants (2020)

After a mysterious event wipes out her reservation, young Native American mutant Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt) wakes up in a secure medical facility.

The strange and isolated hospital's only member of staff, Dr Reyes (Alice Braga) explains to Dani that she, and four fellow metahumans, are being held there so they can come to terms with controlling their nascent superpowers.

The other residents are lycanthropic Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams), abrasive sorceress Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), explosive speedster Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton), and surly hot-head Roberto da Costa (Henry Zaga).

There are no fences around the facility, instead it is encased in an energy dome that is seemingly generated by Dr Reyes.

The whole set-up feels a bit odd, but the youngsters believe that the tight-lipped doctor is training them on behalf of Professor X and that they are being groomed to become future X-Men.

However, the group soon find themselves plagued by manifestations of their nightmares and worst fears, a combination - given their barely controlled mutant abilities - that is clearly a recipe for disaster. 

I had rather hoped that The New Mutants' long-delayed, and much dissected, storied journey to release was purely down to its misfortune of "falling between the cracks" during the Disney buy-out of Fox.

I imagined it was an unfortunate culture clash between the end of Fox's X-Men franchise and the larger (Disney-owned) Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But, honestly, writer-director Josh Boone's film is a mess. It's not that the movie - finally released in the UK on Blu-Ray this week - is bad per se, it's just weak and lacking a certain je ne sais quoi.

Except for the money splashed on screen for the climactic showdown, The New Mutants feels like a TV pilot. However, of course, The Gifted did it first... and undeniably better.

Although it's difficult to get truly invested in the underdeveloped characters and their ill-defined superpowers, there are no weak links in the very small cast, even if Henry Zaga's Roberto barely registers in the greater scheme of things.

They all do the best they can with very underwhelming material.

Visually, The New Mutants has some impressive moments - although most of these were already known from the trailers - but, ultimately, most don't amount to anything. They feel like shots that were created just to sell the movie, not advance the plot in any fashion.

The simplistic storyline sets up a shadowy, omniscient antagonist and then, come the final, big showdown, that all gets swept aside as the mutants battle against the runaway power of one of their own.

It's also established unequivocally that all the protagonists have killed people, either accidentally, or in Illyana's case, deliberately, with their powers, because they can't really control them, so why are we supposed to feel happy at the inevitable denouement that sees them walking free from captivity?

Sure, if you want to take this seriously, they shouldn't be imprisoned, but they need some kind of supervision.

A final shot of the X-Men's Blackbird landing outside the medical facility would have sufficed.

Coming in at around 90-minutes, The New Mutants is an easy watch, and doesn't drag, but it's not particularly satisfying or rewarding.

Probably purely for the presence of Anya Taylor-Joy, I'd been hoping for a hidden gem that was so good the Marvel Universe couldn't ignore it and would have to, somehow, weave its characters into Kevin Feige's MCU plans going forward.

Instead, The New Mutants is best (and easily) forgotten.

The Northman (2022)

Having witnessed the murder of his father, King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke), by his uncle, Fjölnir (Claes Bang), the young Viking prince, Amleth (Oscar Novak), rows away pledging vengeance.

Years later the princeling has grown up to be a mighty berserker (Alexander Skarsgård) in the Land of The Rus.

After a raid, Amleth is visited by a mysterious seeress (Björk) who reminds him of his Fate to slay his uncle and free his mother, Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), from Fjölnir's clutches.

Amleth learns that Fjölnir has been usurped and now lives as a chieftain in Iceland, so he stows away on a boat of captive slaves, disguising himself as part of the cargo.

On the boat to Iceland he meets and befriends Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy).

Arriving at Fjölnir's homestead, at the foot of a mighty volcano, Amleth passes himself off as 'just another slave', but is soon guided mystically to a cave where he receives another vision.

This one sends him to retrieve the magical Night Blade, which will be the instrument of his vengeance.

Working with Olga, Amleth then begins in earnest his campaign against the man who slew his father.

Inspired by historical Viking sagas, directed by Robert Eggers (of The Witch and The Lighthouse), and with such a phenomenal cast (including my favourite, Anya Taylor-Joy), The Northman should have been a shoo-in to take my "film of the year" crown (as I have seen it declared by several of my geeky peers).

But there's something not quite right about the flow of the core narrative.

Amleth's quest is such a stop-start affair that the choppy pacing at the heart of the film is really jarring.

There's so much to love about this movie - it features an actual magic sword, for crying out loud - that the patchy, and rather bloated, middle third is such a disappointment.

Speaking as an armchair director, I'm pretty sure The Northman would have benefitted from tightening its two hour 17 minute running time by a good 20 minutes.

Conversely, the ending is superb, tackling head-on central themes of many Viking stories (namely, fate and revenge) in a setting more than reminiscent of the climax of Revenge of The Sith.

Eggers, from a script he co-wrote with Icelandic author Sjón, deftly handles the magic-realism of the Nordic acceptance of everyday sorcery as he weaves a tale only slightly more grounded than The Green Knight.

Alexander Skarsgård has already proved himself as a great physical actor in shows like True Blood and movies such as The Legend of Tarzan.

Here he is outstanding as Amleth, a Scandinavian Conan the Barbarian, from moments of brutal aggression to when he's employing his stealth and cunning to get the better of Fjölnir's men, his presence dominates every scene he is in.

The Conan vibe is most front-and-centre in the scene where Amleth obtains the Night Blade, which strongly echoes Conan's retrieval of the Atlantean sword in 1982's Conan The Barbarian.

With its powerful lead and its atmospheric use of the landscape and mise-en-scène, The Northman is this close to brilliance that it's hugely disappointing that the juddering middle act comes dangerously close to derailing the whole thing.

The script reaches a point where it could have gone either way, and Eggers' cannily pulls out a twist that - for me - saved the film and strengthened the theme beautifully.

In the end, I enjoyed The Northman (more than I thought I would when I was about halfway through), but I was expecting better from this cast and crew.

The Menu (2022)

Obnoxious foodie Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and his companion, Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), join 10 other guests for a once-in-a-lifetime meal "experience" at Hawthorn, an exclusive restaurant on a small island in America's Pacific Northwest.

Notoriously eccentric, reclusive, globally celebrated Chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) has prepared a lavish tasting menu for his special guests. 

With Tyler and Margot on the trip to the island are three "power eaters", yuppie businessmen Bryce (Rob Yang), Soren (Arturo Castro) and Dave (Mark St Cyr); an older wealthy couple and repeat clients, Anne and Richard (Judith Light and Reed Birney); renowned restaurant critic Lillian Bloom (Janet McTeer) and her obsequious magazine editor Ted (Paul Adelstein); and a fading middle-aged movie star (John Leguizamo) with his assistant Felicity (Aimee Carrero). 

From the get-go, Seth Reiss and Will Tracy's script for The Menu, perfectly directed by Mark Mylod, is a cutting satire of pretentious attitudes to food consumption, with Margot being the only character that doesn't really buy in to the ambience of Hawthorn.

As each course is served up, the situation gets weirder and darker - not only for the guests, but the staff - and, rather cheekily, the grimmer things become, the funnier the film gets.

Kudos, in particular, to maître d' Elsa (Hong Chau), whose constant deadpan expression only helps accentuate her pithy barbs and snarky double entendres.

It soon becomes clear to the visitors, isolated on the island until the ferry returns to transport them back to the mainland after the meal, that the dining "experience" is more of a hostage situation, with overtones of a death cult.

Amidst rising tension, secrets are revealed and the reasons each guest was invited are laid bare, accompanied by shocking consequences that have been orchestrated by Slowik as part of his grand design. 

As the mental sparring partners at the heart of the story, Ralph Fiennes is terrifying as the insane, sadomasochistic overlord of the restaurant and Anya Taylor-Joy continues to demonstrate why she is one of the greatest actors of her generation.

While there are shades of The Hunt and Midsommar in The Menu's commentary on class and culture, it crafts something quite unique in its constant ability to surprise while still retaining a convincing air of realism to the increasingly gonzo occurrences at Hawthorn. 

This is a dish of weird fiction served with great glee, where it's not necessary to understand single morsel to get the shock, horror, and point of The Menu.

PROJECT 60: PIVOT!!!

My parents' copy of A Pictorial History of The Wild West, which I treasure to this day

Honestly, it should come as no great surprise to anyone that in the last few weeks I've dramatically pivoted on my choices for my PROJECT 60 (geeky things I want to have up and running by the time I turn 60 in late 2026).

If you've been paying attention you'll already be aware that my much-talked fantasy heartbreaker/Frankengame is dead and my RPG focus is wholly upon my recently launched Villains & Vigilantes campaign for the Tuesday Knights: Knight City.

While superhero RPGs - primarily V&V - weren't the first I played as a youngling, they were the first where I felt we had the makings of a long-running campaign, thanks to the sterling work of my old chum, Steve (elder brother of fellow Tuesday Knight founding member, Pete).

I've ensured that there are traces of those original games evident in our current setting, Knight City, and some of the rules tweaks I've employed are based upon changes that Steve created four decades ago.

However, it's not just the roleplaying side of PROJECT 60 that has been flipped. While I'm still intrigued by the 16th Century Border Reivers of Scotland and am very happy with the painted figures I have, and large library of reference material, there was always something niggling at the back of my mind.

One of things that had drawn me to gaming the lawless shenanigans of the Border Reivers had been my perception that this was the closest we had gotten to the American Wild West on our island.

But then, if I was so inspired by the Wild West... why wasn't I gaming the Wild West?

One of my techniques for corralling my spiralling thoughts has always been the principle of returning to square one, remembering what first caught my attention.

And this reminded me that, when I was about six or seven, armed with a bag of plastic cowboy and Indian 'army men' figures, and some cool, clip-together Old West buildings and fences, the very first "wargame" I wrote for myself centred on lawless, Frontier gunfighters.

Years before I even heard of roleplaying games, this was a skirmish game where each figure represented a single gunfighter, and they all had access to certain skills, with "tests" being resolved with a combination of normal six-sided dice and "average" dice (my first exposure to 'non-standard' dice... I was hooked from an early age, thanks to the vintage wargames shop on The Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells). 

My interest in the Old West can be traced to my parents' copy of The Pictorial History of the Wild West, a battered, well-read, hypnotically-illustrated, "true account of the bad men, desperadoes, rustlers and outlaws of the Old West - and the men who fought them to establish law and order."

Young me could frequently be found pawing through this tome, marvelling at the period photographs and losing myself in the stories of Billy The Kid, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday et al. 

Since then, I've always had a penchant for Westerns, and - at the climax of my three-year Scriptwriting for Film and TV course at Bournemouth University - I even wrote a Western film script, inspired by true events, for my final assignment.

During my great roleplaying interregnum - the extensive period of reading, but never playing, RPGs between the end of our old superhero play-by-post game and then the launch of the Tuesday Knights - one of the games that I was really hooked on was Shane Hensley's first stab at Deadlands, the pre-Savage Worlds iteration of his Weird West setting.

I didn't fully grok the overly-complex rules system but I absolutely loved the backstory and the writing of the atmospheric 'fluff' of the setting. 

While, I guess, these might appear quite 'old school' to modern sensibilities, the rules books, supplements and box sets of that original Deadlands remain, in my eyes, some of the greatest RPG material ever produced.

What all this reminiscing has led to - after doing my due diligence and watching a lot of YouTube reviews and 'actual play' videos - is my investment in Great Escape Games' highly lauded Dead Man's Hand Redux.

This is a well-supported game, from a popular company, that most definitely has legs and scratches my itch for a skirmish game even better than the Border Reivers.

Like I said, the Border Reivers project remains ongoing, but it's on the backburner for the moment, while I dig into Dead Man's Hand Redux, turn my hand to painting the plastic buildings (boy, this takes me back to my childhood), and get the miniatures professionally painted.

With the plastic miniatures you get in the starter box, you're able to design your own gang and I already have ideas to base mine on Timmy The Flea and The Hole-In-The-Head gang, if my primitive modelling skills are up the task!

Skinamarink (2022)

Experimental, arthouse horror Skinamarink is the kind of film to be experienced rather than necessarily followed as you would a more traditional movie.

Named after a nonsense playground chant from North America, the plot of this Canadian film - written and directed by Kyle Edward Ball - revolves around the travails of two seemingly abandoned young children, four-year-old Kevin (Lucas Paul) and his sister, six-year-old Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault).

The kids wake up in the middle of the night to discover all the windows and doors leading out of their home have disappeared, along with their father (Ross Paul) and mother (Jaime Hill).

Kevin and Kaylee decamp to the lounge and turn on the television to watch cartoons while they play with their toys.

Soon, though, they realise they are not alone in the house, and a strange, disembodied, voice starts speaking to them and making demands of them.

When Kaylee tries to challenge the omnipotent entity, she is punished, and it is left to her younger brother to wander through the 'haunted house' alone.

Shot almost entirely at a low angle, so that we are either taking the point-of-view of one of the young protagonists or simply seeing events unravel from their level, the disorientating film demands our attention from the moment it begins.

We barely glimpse the children - the adults we see even less - and it's usually just legs and feet, while the dialogue is a mixture of often mumbled, naturalistic, delivery and - when it's too quiet to properly make out - subtitles.

The only sounds we hear are diegetic, so there are long periods of near-silence where - if you've surrendered yourself to the movie experience - you start to subsume sounds from your own environment, until you can't tell what's happening in the movie and what's in the room with you.

Objects appear and disappear, one of the televised cartoons gets stuck in a loop, and eventually we see flashes of shapes and figures in the shadows, toys and video cassettes stuck to walls and the ceiling, blood splatters across the TV screen etc 

Lighting is also minimal, often coming just from the flickering of the TV screen or a child's torch,.

Combined with the faux retro patina of the film, and its 1995 setting, all these tricks give the film the aura of a proto-found footage/video nasty mixed with dream logic and early David Lynch stylings. 

Ball's obsession with the TV screen and the way objects flicker in and out of existence scream David Lynch and it wouldn't take much, if you were so inclined, to headcanon this slice of disturbing weirdness into the world of Twin Peaks.

If demons and the supernatural were real, I can't help believing that an actual encounter with a paranormal entity might be something akin to the experience of watching this movie: intense, unsettling, confusing, baffling, bewildering, and ultimately beyond our comprehension. 

There is no "stunt man in rubber suit" or slick CGI monster serving up jump scares. In a very Lovecraftian way, at its core, Skinamarink is clearly "something man was not meant to know". 

Nothing that happens is overtly explained, meaning Skinamarink is the ultimate montage movie; it is up to us to assemble our version of what's going on from the succession of images and sounds that Ball provides us with.

Depending on the personal baggage and preconceptions you bring to Skinamarink, it's either a terrifyingly immersive and psychological descent into a child's nightmare encounter with a demon or 105 minutes of laughably pretentious bullshit. Your mileage will vary.

Personally, I'm glad I watched this peculiar work of mad genius as I've never seen anything quite like it before, but I have no great desire to see it again in a hurry.

I was hooked by it as it played but the concentration required to fully absorb Skinamarink was rather draining.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Ain't No Party Like A Great Wall Party!

All Along The Watchtower: Paul and yours truly getting ready to par-tey!

Paul worked as a sub-editor for The China Daily in Beijing for a year  and in March, 2002, I flew out to visit him for three weeks.

That time was chosen because his birthday falls then, and he and his colleagues on the paper had arranged a unique birthday experience which will never be repeated (for one reason, the Chinese authorities have now ruled it illegal).

We camped out overnight on a little known part of The Great Wall!

The album cover pose - note Lori's hair seems to have a life of its own!

It took us an hour and half to get to "base camp" from  Paul's flat in Beijing (45 minutes by bus and 45 minutes in a haggled minibus). Base camp turned out to be a tin shack seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

It was about 8pm and pitch dark. The owner of the shack woke up to cook us some noodles and, aided by the minimal light from the shack, Paul pointed out to me, across a valley, THE WALL, rising straight up the mountain opposite.

And it's BIG. The word "Great" doesn't do it justice.

The noodle lady let us rest for a while in her hut, which consisted of a bed (which we sat on), a table, an array of food, and postcards. She lived there with her daughter, making money catering to travellers who come to this less touristy part of the wall.

This section of the wall hadn't been rebuilt - which also meant it was devoid of souvenir salesmen - and was really only suitable for hardcore, adventurous types (ie. not me!)

The first part of the walk was across the top of a dam, with water lapping at one side and, well, nothing on the other. At the time I thought it might be a gentle slope down to some fields or something...

Hours later, on the way back in broad daylight, I discovered it really was down to nothing. Well, about 1,000ft of nothing then a rocky base. Straight down. And that was ignoring the crosswinds that had whipped up over night (but I'm getting ahead of myself).

The actual climb started with a gentle zig-zag to a metal ladder that got us onto the wall. Then a steeper climb - with nothing on either side - to the first watchtower.

The towers are basically shells with four walls and a lot of windows. At first I was content to stop there - as were a couple of Paul's friends - but the rest of the party assured us that the next watchtower was even better.

So, after a 20-minute, breath-regaining, rest we set off again... on the ascent of fear!

Yes, there was a rubbly path of sorts, and yes, on some parts there were even elements of wall on either side, but you could tell you were going a long way up - and practically vertically!

Morning: It's Bloody Freezing!

 I have never been happier to collapse into a ruined monument than when I made it to the next watchtower. This one had more inner walls and a wooden ladder to a parapet (which, once I was drunk enough to overcome my fear of heights thanks to a combination of absinthe, cheap beer and Southern Comfort, I was soon scuttling up and down like a monkey).

We set up the CD player, broke out the drink and a got a fire going. Very quickly the party moved from the ground floor to the parapet, where much dancing and silliness was done by all - under the influence of alcohol and the ignorance offered by pitch darkness.

We crashed about 4am and woke less than three hours later in a deep freeze. I'd always thought I was pretty good with the cold, but this was unbelievable; especially when combined with the aforementioned cross winds.

Then Paul suggested I look at the view. I stuck my head out of the doorway we had come in and swore very loudly. The path looked like an almost straight drop down to the reservoir... which was a looooong way below us!

Thankfully, Paul was on hand to help me back down, because, in all seriousness, I just don't think I could have made it back on my own. The descent was terrifying enough for someone who suffers with vertigo (thank God we went up at night), but then the walk across the dam - which was about three foot wide - in the wind, with a massive rucksack on my back, nearly saw me letting the side down.

However, fear element aside, this was one of the most awesome experiences of my life. Come on, how many people can say they've partied the night away on The Great Wall Of China?

One last look back...

Ready Or Not (2019)

On her wedding night new bride Grace (Samara Weaving) discovers that her wealthy in-laws have some very strange traditions, including insisting that all new members of the family play a randomly chosen game before they be accepted in.

The Le Domas family have made their jealously-guarded fortune through the sale and manufacture of games since the Civil War, when family tradition claims their ancestor struck a deal with a supernaturally powerful entity by the name of Mr Le Bail.

But this deal comes with certain demands.

The wedding night game chosen for Grace is "hide-and-seek"... but with a brutal twist. As she goes off to hide in the family mansion, her new family are tooling up with guns, crossbows, battle axes etc with the idea of eventually ritually sacrificing her to their "mysterious benefactor".

Written by Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy, and directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Ready or Not is a beautifully trimmed to the bone thriller, devoid of tedious build up to the inevitable carnage, instead pretty much hitting the ground running after a handful of snappy, establishing scenes.

We know next to nothing about Grace going into this, except that she was raised in foster homes, and we root for her simply because she is protagonist, trapped with an insane family of devil-worshippers.

The tight script runs the gamut from dark, dark humour to near-torture porn moments of graphic gore, but is always breathlessly propelling the story forward.

Don't look for depth or hidden meaning here, Ready or Not is a fun, simple, action-packed horror thriller, and a great way to spend an hour-and-a-half, as long as you are okay with Deadpool-levels of casual violence.

There's no real effort made to conceal the nature of the pact that Le Domas family believe is the secret to their success, with its Angel Heart style of chosen alias for the possible Big Bad of the piece.

Prey (2022)

Set in 1719 on America's Northern Great Plains, Prey follows eager young Comanche warrior Naru (Legion's Amber Midthunder), who struggles for acceptance by the male warriors in her tribe, despite her formidable tracking and herbal medicine skills.

Even her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) can't fully acknowledge her prowess.

However, when she spots a fiery "thunderbird" in the skies, she takes it as a sign that it's time for her "kuhtaamia", a coming-of-age ritual where you hunt something that can also hunt you.

When an enigmatic creature, presumed to be a lion or a bear, threatens her community, Naru goes off on her own to prove herself.

Only, it turns out that the big beastie in the woods is actually an alien Yautja (Dane DiLiegro) aka a Predator, who has come to Earth for some sport.

Escaping the alien killing machine, Naru and Taabe fall into the hands of a veritable army of brutish French fur trappers.

Even tooled-up with (admittedly primitive) rifles and pistols, the French prove to be little more than target practice for the heavy-armed, high-tech alien as it cuts a bloody swathe through their numbers on its hunt for more challenging prey.

Rhythmically paced, with no time for padding or slack, Prey is a lean, stripped back to basics, entry into the Predator franchise.

Taking place several hundred years before Arnie faced a Predator in Central America, this prequel engages a willing audience from its opening sequences - introducing us to the Comanche way of life - through to its kinetic, blood-soaked final act.

On one hand, it's a slow burn as the diametrically opposed hunters - human and alien - work towards their eventual confrontation, but on the other the film is beautifully and dramatically composed, making great use of the Canadian wilderness in which it was shot.

Assisted by her (thankfully) indestructible canine companion, Amber Midthunder is a charismatic action lead, although her Naru segues a bit too comfortably from hunting animals and fighting the Predator to out-and-out murdering Frenchmen.

Writer-director Dan Trachtenberg's script, co-written with Patrick Aison, does a great job of foreshadowing important elements that will eventually contribute to Naru's inevitable victory over the seemingly indestructible Yautja.

In the latter half of the 99-minute movie, however, it does tend to lean too heavily on emulating the original 1987 Predator and having Taabe actually say "if it bleeds, we can kill it" is a real cringe moment in an otherwise solid script.

What I'd like to see now is more of these "historical Predators": how about one set a hundred or so years later in the Wild West, or feudal Japan (Yautja vs samurai and ninja), or Medieval Europe (as depicted in the Kickstarter-funded Predator: Dark Ages, back in 2015), or during The Battle of The Somme (or some other grim First World War setting), or Victorian London, or the Stone Age?

The possibilities are endless. Although, if humanity wins every time you have to wonder why the Predators keep coming back!