A Tale of Two Exorcists

After Paul Schrader had filmed Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist, the studio took it away from him - because his psychological horror was not the gore-fest they'd wanted - and handed over the reins to Cliffhanger's Renny Harlin.

The film underwent a major rewrite, some recasting and an almost total reshoot and emerged on the silver screen as Exorcist: The Beginning in 2004.

Schrader's version - although highly anticipated (this was the man who wrote Taxi Driver after all) went unseen until all the Exorcist films were released together on DVD in the early 2000s.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if the wait was worth it. Dominion is very rough round the edges, and while it builds slowly (like the original Exorcist - but totally devoid of the genuine fear that film still invokes after all these years) and the threat level is allowed to gradually develop as the madness of the demon Pazazu spreads out from its hiding place, nothing very substantial actually ever materialises.

And the "suddenly everything is better" ending is shameful.

Both films follow a young Father Merrin (Stellan Skarsgaard), who has left the church to pursue his passion for archaeology after a crisis of faith during the Second World War.

In 1947 East Africa he investigates a mysterious, perfectly preserved, buried church... and what lies beneath.

But where Dominion goes for discreet imagery and symbolism, Exorcist: The Beginning relies on in-your-face shocks and a gruesome body count. Merrin in this film is more a shotgun-wielding, babe-snogging, tomb-robbing Indiana Jones than the conflicted priest of the earlier iteration.

The film's main female character - a doctor - changes from the 'average/normal' looking woman of Dominion into the Swedish beauty of the second (as Harlin says in the 'making of' doc: "You don't go to the cinema to see everyday people").

The African natives, who play a smaller role in the The Beginning, have also learned to speak perfect English. The language-barrier was something that Schrader had used in his version to emphasise the differences and rising tensions between the locals and the British Army occupiers.

Pazuzu itself, once it appears, has also been transformed from a floating baldy guy into a gravely-voiced, Buffyesque, butt-kicking monster with direct visual lifts from the original (something sorely lacking in Schrader's version).

Harlin's film also cherrypicks from other horror classics, for instance we get the flys from The Amityville Horror and mad priests and menacing dogs (in this case, hyenas) from The Omen.

This is The Exorcist for the Nightmare on Elm Street/Friday 13th generation, who don't like their horror to test their brains too much; but 'sadly' it's still a more exciting movie than Schrader's insubstantial meditation on the nature of evil.

Robocop (2014)

Paul Verhoeven's 1987 Robocop is a timeless, satirical classic that really didn't need to be remade.

But Hollywood decided to anyway. Yet, instead of cranking all the dials up to 11 and going completely over-the-top, the filmmakers instead decided to dial it back to five, with a 12 Certificate in the UK, thus neutering the concept's dark, Grand Guignol, humour.

It's 2028 and America's largest manufacturer of military robots, Omnicorp, is forbidden by law from deploying its machines on the streets of America. Therefore it hits upon a canny workaround by transforming bomb victim Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman), a zealous police detective, into a part-human, part-machine cyborg aka Robocop.

The first half of this two-hour movie, directed by José Padilha and written by Joshua Zetume, concerns itself with Murphy's backstory and metamorphosis into Robocop, shepherded by scientist Dr Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) and head of Omnicorp Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton).

The latter part of the film is Murphy taking his crimefighting skills to the streets and gradually overcoming his programming to investigate his own 'murder' and the corruption of Omnicorp.

It's really this second half of the plot where things get messy, bordering on nonsensical, but - despite the feeling of a lot of missed opportunities - this latest iteration of Robocop is still a pretty decent action movie. If nothing else, it's certainly a better Judge Dredd film than Dredd.

Unfortunately, it's totally devoid of the camp charm and charismatic villains that the original '80s Robocop possessed in spades, and will always come up short in comparison. It pretends to be a smart, savvy retelling but actually rings hollow if you stop and think about it for too long (which isn't recommended).

Robocop (2014) also makes the massive mistake - as these unwanted remakes always seem to do - of referencing the original (e.g. "I'll buy that for a dollar" and "dead or alive, you're coming with me"), but doing it really clumsily and only succeeding in reminding us of just how well those catchphrases worked first time around.

Books, Books, As Far As The Eye Can See

The shelving is finished, but the "stocking up" remains a work in progress

The highlight of this week has been the magical appearance of my new bookcase. Paid for by Rachel and assembled by her dad, I absolutely love these new shelves to display my stuff on.

For about a year I've been planning for a new book case, but had only pictured it going half-way up the wall - with room for a framed picture above - but then Rachel and her dad said it would be feasible to build one up to the ceiling.

I'm so glad I followed their suggestion, as I think I was very incredibly optimistic over how much I could squeeze into a half-size bookcase!

What you see above is the current state of affairs, and I've promised everyone that I won't fill every single centimetre with weighty tomes (as this is on the first floor and nobody wants to see it drop through to the ground floor!).

Given my current disability, I am unable to reach the top shelves, so managed to persuade Rachel to help fill-up top (and bring boxes of previously hidden books up from the lounge).

The current make-up of my bookcase is a shelf for Westerns, one for Planet of The Apes, three for Judge Dredd -related products (I still need to get a stand for my old Lawgiver Mk2, which used to sit - in its packaging - in a glass cabinet in my original gamesroom in our old house), a couple for Robert E Howard and Conan books, one for Stephen King, one for Dune books (which is shared with a Star Wars Sith holocron), one for my Fantastic Four merch from the cinema, and then a display of Funko Pops along the top, bookended by cat statues painted to resemble my late parents' two cats: Cookie and Rover.

The cat figures were gifts I got my parents decades ago, when I was still working for the newspaper. There was someone at our head office who had access to a variety of blank statutes that he would then paint to resemble people's cats, based on photographs you supplied him.

I'm glad I finally have somewhere to display the pair properly.

Health-wise, it's been an up-and-down week. After a frustrating phone chat with my GP the other week (my doc didn't know why she was ringing, even though it was her who had asked me to book the call), Rachel and I were directed to a self-referral site for NHS physio.

We filled it in, but then a day or so later I got a call to say I had been rejected and was better off going to the falls clinic.

Through gritted teeth I explained I was already going through the falls clinic procedures and was looking for something to supplement that and, hopefully, develop my strength and stability further.

Later that evening I got a text to say I was now being referred and the following day I got an email containing the phone number to arrange my appointment. So, that's a job for this week.

Ten Disturbing Nuclear War Films You May Not Have Seen

Hollywood gave us Dr. Strangelove and The Terminator — but those aren't disturbing. The films that really rattled presidents, got banned by the BBC, and left audiences too shaken to speak? They were buried, censored, or forgotten. These are the nuclear war movies too disturbing for the mainstream, and you've probably never seen them.

Hellbender (2021)

Lonely teenager Izzy (Zelda Adams) lives in an isolated house on a wooded mountain with her mum (Toby Poser).

They have a fun life, foraging in the woods, making rock music as a White Stripes-like combo called H6llb6nd6r, painting, and homeschooling.

But Izzy wants to meet other kids of her own age.

She believes her mother is shielding her from people because she has an immune deficiency disease, but the audience very quickly learns that Izzy's mother is actually a powerful witch.

She's a Hellbender, a powerful demonic-witch that gains power from the fear coursing through the blood of their prey.

Stealing away from her mother's smothering protection, Izzy makes friends with some local teenagers, but when they are partying, she gets coerced into drinking a Tequila shot with a wriggling earthworm in it.

Consuming the flesh of a living creature triggers Izzy's latent Hellbender powers, causing her to freak out.

On one hand, her mother is pleased that Izzy has discovered her legacy, but now she has to teach her daughter how to marshal her powers responsibly.

Unfortunately, Izzy is drawn to the allure of power.

Hellbender is a small, but mighty, character study, written and directed by, and starring, the incredibly talented Adams family.

The character chemistry is real because Toby Poser, wife of director John Adams, is really the mother of Zelda Adams, while Zelda's sister Lulu plays the first friend Izzy makes, Amber. John also pops up on screen as Amber's uncle.

With the script credited to John, Zelda, and Toby, and the latter two listed as directors alongside John, the development of Hellbender was clearly an organic process.

But just because this is a family affair - and their band, H6llb6nd6r, provides the soundtrack to the movie - doesn't mean Hellbender is a low budget am dram debacle.

The film is a cracking, psychedelic, surreal, folk horror tale powered along by escalating tension and terror, splattered with buckets of blood, and inventive special effects.

Early on there are Carrie vibes to the proceedings, but while the inciting incident does involve Izzy's peers, this isn't your typical teen-centric splatterflick, instead concentrating primarily on the relationship between mother and daughter.

A coming-of-age story with a difference, in a very real sense we're seeing a "monster" movie from the perspective of the monster.

Great thought has clearly gone into developing the mythology of the Hellbenders, from the source of their powers, through their grisly blood-magic, to their method of reproduction.

Building to a magnificent climax, for me the film was slightly let down by its open-ended denouement, where I'd rather hoped for something more definitive.

But then again, that feeds into the concept of this being a creature feature told by the creatures.

With an 86-minute running time, and small cast, the pacing of Hellbender is perfect from the get-go to the icky finale.

With a traditional antagonist becoming the protagonist, and no real antagonists to worry about, and by staying laser-focused on its central characters, with no distracting sub-plots, the end result is a truly memorable experience. 

I cannot wait to see what this unique troupe of cast and crew conjure up next, because they clearly have an affinity with horror movies, and their familial trust allows them to push their stories in interesting directions.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: My Ink

If you saw me in the street, a slightly chubby pasty-faced square wearing a comic book-themed t-shirt and shorts, you probably wouldn't imagine that I was the sort of person to have a tattoo.

That said, these days they're a lot more commonplace than when I was growing up.

I remember I was watching a documentary on TV, with a work colleague (a fellow journalist), about tattooing, and I asked her if she'd ever considered getting one. Instead of answering, she simply rolled up her sleeve and showed me her tattoo. I can't remember what it was.

What I do remember was thinking that maybe I should get one then. I just had no idea of what.

Let's be clear, it wasn't Hunter S Thompson's fault that I got a tattoo, but he certainly influenced my choice of design.

It so happened, once I decided to get a tattoo, that I'd just read one of Hunter's collections of articles (it was either The Great Shark Hunt or Generation Of Swine) and in it was a piece about how, one day when he had nothing to write about, he convinced his assistant to get a tattoo of a black jaguar so he could write about that. I'm sure alcohol was probably involved as well.

I had no other idea, at the time, about what to get tattooed on my left arm and so went with a black jaguar as well.

Once I was in the tattoo parlour, in the chair, it turned out to be a lot less painful than I'd been expecting (from the moment the tattooist told me to relax), but that said - given my needle-phobia that has developed since my extended stay in hospital - I doubt I'll get another any time soon.

This all happened in the early '90s and I managed to keep my tat a secret from my parents until I was hospitalised ten years ago. At that point it wasn't a high priority to still keep it covered over in their presence.

And, I suppose given the circumstance of their discovery that their beloved son had permanently marked his body with an image of a black cat, they took it very well. All things considered!

I don't regret getting tattooed for an instant, even if it doesn't have any deep significance. It's part of me now. It was something I wanted to do at the time, I did it, and now it's done.

I certainly won't be applying to appear on Tattoo Fixers.

RoboCop (1987)

One of the (many) reasons the 1995 Judge Dredd movie landed so poorly was its heavy-handed attempt to shoehorn in 'wacky' humour in the style of 1987's Robocop.

The irony being, of course, that Robocop itself draws heavily on the original Judge Dredd comic strips from 2000AD for its own inspiration, resulting in some heavy ouroborosian feedback.

As with the 2000AD character. Robocop presents a brutal nightmare vision of the "future of law enforcement" in a satirical narrative that blends social commentary with high octane action and Grand Guignol levels of ultraviolence.

It's been years since I've watched this movie and I'd forgotten just how freaking cool it is.

Almost every line in Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner's script has major requotability factor, so many scenes and characters are iconic, and the whole affair is handled with deft delight by one by Hollywood's masters of movie mayhem, director Paul Verhoeven.

In the near-future, crime is running rampant in Detroit, so the city enters into a partnership with  mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) to run the police department.

OCP's secret plan is to eliminate crime from Old Detroit allowing it to be easily bulldozed and then replaced with a new development under their total control, Delta City.

ED-209 demonstration

OCP Senior President Dick Jones (Ronny Cox) also wants to supplant the police with his giant, militaristic ED-209 robots, but these prove dangerously unreliable, allowing upstart executive Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) to push ahead with his "robocop" scheme.

This cyborg project, however, requires the use of a recently dead police officer and so OCP has been manoeuvring suitable candidates into dangerous positions.

Enter fresh transfer to the Metro West precinct, the charming officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller).

On his first patrol with partner Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen), the pair are ambushed by the psychotic, bespectacled, gang lord Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith) and his cadre of disturbed goons.

Murphy is tortured by the thugs and finally shot in the head by Boddicker...

Only to wake up months later as the cyborg police officer codenamed Robocop, with a mission to clean up Old Detroit.

This, of course, means he ends up crossing the path of Boddicker's gang again, and the sight of them causes PTSD flashbacks in his programming and, ultimately, conflict with his corporate superiors. 

Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith)

Even after 36 years, Robocop is a timeless and enjoyable blend of early superhero flick and pure copaganda (the overworked and underequipped police force are shown to be as much the victims of the surge in violent crime as the innocent civilians of Detroit).

It's s a classic sci-fi adventure story about a square-jawed, downtrodden cop (who happens to be a superstrong robot man) exposing corruption at the highest level of a wicked corporation... while simultaneously taking on the city's most dangerous villains.

Murphy is Judge Dredd and Batman rolled into one, but leaning much further towards 2000AD's flagship character than DC Comics'.

Even though a fair bit of the contemporary technology on display - and the extrapolations of what "future tech" might look like from an 1987 perspective - could be seen as dated (I mean, look at the TV sets for one thing), for me, that just adds to the movie's enduring charm, accentuating the odd priorities of this imagined 21st Century environment.

IT Is Coming To TV...

IT: Welcome To Derry premieres 27 October on Sky.

Offseason (2021)

Marie (Doctor Sleep's Jocelin Donahue) is the daughter of late Hollywood actress Ava Aldrich (Melora Walters). When she learns of the vandalism of her mother's grave, she and partner George Darrow (Joe Swanberg) head towards the isolated island community where her mother is buried.

Arriving there, she is told by the creepy bridge operator (horror stalwart Richard Brake) that the island is about to close down for the winter, raising the sole bridge that connects it to the mainland until the worst of the weather has passed in the spring. 

Once on the island, Marie finds herself entangled in a disorientating labyrinth of strange goings-on, unhelpful locals, and general weirdness.

As all this is kicking off, Marie lets slip to George that, on her deathbed, her dementia-addled mother had told her a story of the island, that its original settlers had signed a pact with a demon to protect them from the bad weather that regularly lashes the place.

This being a horror flick, of course, you know that this isn't just the ravings of a sick old woman.

The problem with Offseason - from writer/director Mickey Keating -  is the major disconnect between the story, which is certainly solid although not wholly original, and what actually appears onscreen.

Ultimately, the movie is too enigmatic for its own good, hitting the audience with clichés when it could have devoted more time to drip-feeding us clues as to what's really go on.

It's a fine line between mystery and plot hole, and all too often what is meant to be the former actually feels like the latter.

On one hand, Offseason looks gorgeous (with its near-constant Silent Hill-style mists and attractive lead), but there are moments when we ought to be getting a better picture of what's going on, but instead it's hidden in shadow.

The dream-like atmosphere that follows Marie's wanderings around the near-deserted island community doesn't always work, as it often suggests that none of what's happening is real and thus has no real jeopardy.

A visual treat, the 83-minute Offseason owes an awful lot to HP Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth as well as the legendary black-and-white creepfest Carnival of Souls, but - despite that impressive DNA - the film still doesn't give us enough meat to really sink our teeth into.

There's definitely a great idea buried in there somewhere, but we don't get to see enough of it to really appreciate what I think Mickey Keating was shooting for.

Now You See Me... Again!

The Four Horsemen return along with a new generation of illusionists performing mind-melding twists, turns, surprises, and magic unlike anything ever captured on film.

I have to confess, I have a massive soft spot for this franchise, and so am delighted that the Four Horsemen are still in the magic business.

The Return of Dracula (1958)

Evading the European police, Count Dracula (Francis Lederer) kills Czech artist Bellac Gordal who is on his way to America to stay with his extended family.

Dracula assumes the artist's identity and turns up in the small, whitebread community of Carleton, California, to be met by Bellac's widowed cousin Cora Mayberry (Greta Granstedt), and her children, aspiring dress designer Rachel (Norma Eberhardt) and young Mickey (Jimmy Baird).

Their neighbour Rachel's boyfriend, the ill-mannered Tim (Ray Stricklyn), is also at the station to greet Bellac, and takes an instant to dislike to the charming European visitor.

You know with a manly heroic name like that, Tim's going to be Rachel's knight in shining armour, right?

Tim and Rachel... need I say more?

After he is moved into their spare room, the Mayberry's quickly learn that their European cousin is quite eccentric, keeping to himself, sleeping in, slipping out of the house unnoticed etc

When Mickey discovers his "beloved" kitten Nugget mutilated in an abandoned mineshaft in the hills, it becomes clear that Dracula is here to feed!

However, I'm not exactly sure how we're supposed to feel about the tearful Mickey at this point because he'd seen earlier that Nugget had fallen into a spike-filled pit trap in the mine... and just left him there, promising to come back the next day.

He did try to go back that evening, but was told it was getting too dark to be playing in an abandoned mineshaft. He never mentioned to anyone that that's where he'd seen Nugget!

So, I reckon Mickey is just as guilty as Dracula for the fate of his cat.

Bellac learns of a sickly blind girl, Jennie Blake (Virginia Vincent), that Rachel has been reading to at the parish house, where she helps out.

So Dracula pays Jennie a midnight call and gives her his trademark love bite.

The next day, Jennie is at death's door, and asking for Rachel.

Jennie just manages to rasp out a vague warning before dying.

Around the time of Jennie's funeral, the European police show up, initially in the form of private detective Mack Bryant (Charles Tannen), posing as an agent of the Department of Immigration.

He "wants to check Bellac's immigration paperwork" and manages to snap a sneaky picture of the Undercover Count with a spy-camera in his cigarette lighter.

Outside, he hands-off the film to professional Dracula hunter John Merriman (John Wengraf).

But Bryant's days are numbered. Heading to the train station, to wait for a train out of this kooky place, Bryant spots the supposedly dead Jennie on the other side of the railway tracks.

Lured over there, he is killed by a white German Shepherd dog (was this Dracula... or even Jennie, transformed into a killer dog?).

Undercover Dracula aka Cousin Bellac

Rachel is getting worried about Bellac, after having a nightmare in which he tried to hypnotise her into removing her crucifix (which she got from Jennie).

Then, while trying to find her cousin to convince him to come to a Halloween party at the parish house, she discovers a painting in his room, depicting her lying in a coffin. Why? Who knows, really?

Rachel telephones Tim, but is surprised by Bellac ... because he casts no reflection in the hall mirror and she didn't see him sneaking up behind her.

Tim turns up and whisks a slightly befuddled Rachel away to the Halloween party.

Meanwhile, in the graveyard, Merriman, a couple of random police officers, and local vicar Rev Dr Whitfield (Gage Clarke), discover that Jennie's coffin is empty, so wait for her return (I'm trying to resist using the term "stakeout", for reasons...).

She returns, they paralyse her in her coffin by placing a cross on her chest, there's a bit of a debate over whether she was actually buried alive, then Merriman drives an enormous stake through her heart.

Meanwhile, Rachel slips away from the Halloween party - before the winner of the costume contest is announced - and Tim follows her out to the abandoned mineshaft, where Dracula has set up camp.

Dracula tries to hypnotise Rachel into becoming his bride, but the staking of Jennie makes him weak at the knees and so Tim heroically (well, with a bit of effort) uses Rachel's crucifix to drive Dracula back into the spikey pit (see, foreshadowing!)

With a running time of 77-minutes, The Return of Dracula aka The Fantastic Disappearing Man is the very definition of a B-movie.

Clearly an unofficial sequel to both Bram Stoker's original book and Universal's Dracula franchise, it's not great (but also it's not that bad either), but it vanished from the public consciousness once Hammer's Horror of Dracula aka Dracula was released later the same year, and the iconic Christopher Lee became synonymous with The Count.

It's kind of a shame really because, despite the complete absence of any special effects, beyond the odd cloud of mist when a vampire manifests, Francis Lederer is quite a charismatic Dracula.

While fangless, he compensates with his Teddy Boy quiff.

As this was made in the 1950s, during The Cold War, there's a strong "beware outsiders" vibe to this piece, with All-American, rough-and-ready, Tim's instant distrust of the suave "foreigner" being proven right in the end.

The script, by Pat Fielder and directed by Paul Landres, is paper-thin, but still manages to wander all over the place, with the two - almost simultaneous - climatic showdowns happening with no established correlation, beyond Dracula's reaction to Jennie being staked miles away.

There was an odd moment in this black and white film, when Jennie was staked, a short, colour, shot of bright red blood bubbling up from an impaled corpse had been spliced into the action.

Checking IMDB, this was a deliberate tactic for the theatrical release of the movie, and was restored for cable TV when it was shown on Turner Classic Movies.

While there, I also learned while Lederer hated this making this film, he reprised the role of Count Dracula in a 1971 episode of Night Gallery, A Question of Fear/The Devil Is Not Mocked.

Had Christopher Lee not swept onto the scene, with his big swooshing cape, there's a possibility (albeit remote) that The Return of Dracula might have had a bigger impact on vampire culture, as - for all its shortcomings - there's a certain simple charm about it.

This Is The Way: May The 22nd (2026) Be With You!

The Raven (1963)

Having been turned into a raven by the leader of his order of magicians, Dr Adolphus Bedlo (Peter Lorre) convinces fellow sorcerer Dr Erasmus Craven (Vincent Price) to aid him in his revenge on Dr Scarabus (Boris Karloff) by letting slip that he saw Craven's dead wife Lenore (Hazel Court) at Scarabus's castle.

Accompanied by their children, Estelle Craven (Olive Sturgess) and Rexford Bedlo (Jack Nicholson), the two wizards take a hairy carriage ride to their foe's castle, only to find him warm and welcoming.

However, all is not as it seems, as Scarabus has orchestrated this meeting for his own devious ends.

Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem, The Raven, with a script by I Am Legend author Richard Matheson and directed by producer Roger Corman, I had high hopes for this horror-comedy, renowned in gaming circles as Gary Gygax's inspiration for a number of old school Dungeons & Dragons spells (such as 'magic missile').

Boy, was I disappointed.

I don't think it was simply a case of the humour not ageing well, more like the fact that the whole affair came across as rather infantile in its forced attempts at japery; so much so that I was constantly reminded of being dragged to see puerile pantomimes as a kid (and I loathe pantomimes).

The Raven just isn't as funny as it clearly likes to think it is and you could almost hear the ba dum tsh drum sting after every supposedly amusing piece of childish clowning.

The antagonism between the sorcerers comes to a head in a protracted, wordless duel pitting the powers of Craven against Scarabus.

Sadly, this sequence also failed to live up to expectations - partially because of the dated special effects but primarily because there was no sense of jeopardy as the whole thing was being played for cheap laughs.

Hamstrung by extreme silliness, The Raven is not one of Corman's best offerings and there are plenty of other far better horror-comedies or comedy-horrors out there to pass 83 minutes of your time with.

Farewell to The Forties

This weekend we made it to the last Salute to The '40s event at Chatham Historic Dockyard, a celebration of the Home Front during the Second World War.

Sadly, this popular event is being axed from the Dockyard's calendar because of declining visitor numbers, not that you would have known that from the heaving crowds this weekend.

This event has long been a highlight of Rachel's year and so we were determined to make it for this grand finale - even though I am currently only able to get about outdoors in a manual wheelchair, which my poor wife had to heroically push (and pull) across a variety of terrain.

As we've been discovering since I've lost the full use of my legs, the general public were lovely and offered helping hands as Rachel soldiered on across gravel, up and down kerbs (the smallest of which proved to be major obstacles to the narrow wheels of my chair), and even over sunken railway tracks!

In addition to the talented period music acts and fascinating living history demonstrations, the event also hosted children's entertainment (the bubble wrangler was superb), Charlie Chaplin on stilts (who made me want to visit a circus again), model trains, a plethora of period vehicles, and cute dogs... lots of cute dogs.

I guess it's true - like a lot of things - you only really begin to notice how many dogs are around you when you have your own little fur baby (Alice was spending the day with Rachel's parents).

As we didn't have Alice with us, we were also able to visit the Dockyard's Brickwrecks exhibition of famous shipwrecks recreated in LEGO, designed by the legend himself, Ryan 'The Brickman' McNaught from LEGO Masters Australia (the best of the LEGO Masters' global TV franchise).

NB. For those who don't already know, a lot of the BBC's top period drama Call The Midwife is filmed at the Dockyard. It's easy to wander around and spot recognisable backdrops, but the venue also hosts guided tours - which allows you access to areas not usually open to the public.

It's unfair to single out a "favourite" cute dog... but this was my favourite

Bubbles!!!

Me studying a Brickwreck

An Introduction To Judge Dredd

Hellraiser (2022)

In this remake/sequel to Clive Barker's definitive, original Hellraiser from 1987, a penniless, former junkie, Riley (Odessa A’zion) and her loser boyfriend, Trevor (Drew Starkey). decide to rob a warehouse, so she can make enough money to pay her brother, Matt (Brandon Flynn), the rent she owes.

Unfortunately, what they end up stealing is a dread magical puzzle box that opens a portal to Hell, summoning demonic Cenobites who demand a blood sacrifice.

After her brother is seemingly taken by the Cenobites, Riley and Trevor's investigation into what they have stolen leads them to the home of its former owner, the - presumed dead - billionaire hedonist, Roland Voight (Goran Višnjić of ER and Timeless).

There Riley must reach an agreement with the leader of the Cenobites, The Hell Priest (formerly known as Pinhead and played exquisitely by Jamie Clayton), if Riley is going to get her brother back.

Part of my problem with this Hellraiser is that Riley isn't a particularly engaging protagonist. Clearly inspired by Jane Levy's Mia from the 2013 remix of Evil Dead, it is, however, almost impossible to have any relatable sympathy for Riley until pretty much the final scenes of this current flick.

The lack of character depth is accentuated in the set-up to the final act - at Voight's elaborately constructed mansion in the middle of nowhere - that plays out like a generic "teens get in trouble and get slaughtered" slasher flick.

And that's my biggest issue with this take on Clive Barker's mythology: the Cenobites are largely portrayed as simply monsters to be fought, actors in rubber costumes that could be interchangeable with vampires, werewolves or any number of other supernatural creatures. 

For me, the sadistic Cenobites work best when shown to be forces of nature, with almost Lovecraftian levels of inscrutability and power, totally beyond our comprehension and ability to combat with fists and physical weapons.

It is only when the 'angels of pain' are more static and still, as the film builds to its glorious climax, and we get to appreciate the porcelain nature of The Hell Priest's flesh and the power of her words (yes, she does get to recite some Pinhead classics from the original) that Hellraiser becomes more than just another monster movie.

For all that, although this film is around two hours long, director David Bruckner, coming off of The Night House, paces Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski's screenplay really well, so the action carries you along and the movie never drags.

Bruckner permeates the film throughout with a building sense of dread, and that most certainly pays off in the end, with a denouement worthy of the original film as we get to witness the horrific creation of a new Cenobite.

While this Hellraiser wasn't on a par with the 1987 one, it was certainly better than the awful avalanche of sequels that followed that, and, actually, I'd be interested to see an inventive sequel to this Hellraiser, as long as the same team were behind the camera and they continued to build on what they established here.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Football Crazy

Oh Captain, My Captain: That's me, second from the right, front row
- my feet didn't even touch the ground!

I've spoken about my sporting prowess (or lack thereof) before, but - outside of my fencing - one of my "proudest" moments was somehow being named team captain of the Third (or Fourth?) XI football team at Tonbridge's Yardley Court Prep School, one year in the late '70s.

Not being a top-tier team, there weren't many other schools in the area with similar numbers of teams, so we didn't get to play many games.

I was only on the team for a season and am pretty certain I wasn't captain for the whole time. It's even quite possible that we all took it in turns.

I played in defence, the position of "left back" (which was the root of much humour in the Knight household).

However, I have no recollection of how we actually did in those matches four decades ago, but I played for my school, and have a team picture to prove it.

The Monster aka I Don't Want To Be Born (1975)

Recently retired stripper Lucy (Joan Collins at the height of her 1970's allure) has married Italian businessman Gino Carlesi (Ralph Bates, with a wandering accent) and just given birth to baby Nicholas.

However, there's something "wrong" with the child, he's growing faster than expected and seems very aggressive.

Quickly this violence escalates from biting fingers, clawing faces, and trashing its nursery to pushing his nanny, Jill Fletcher (Janet Key) into a lake after he failed to drown her in the bath the night before!

The Carlesi's very patient paediatrician, Dr Finch (Donald Pleasence), is baffled but stresses that Nicholas is too young to be psychiatrically examined, while Gino's visiting sister, a Catholic nun, Sister Albana (Eileen Atkins), eventually comes round round to Lucy's way of thinking: that the baby is possessed by The Devil.

Earlier on, Lucy had confessed to her best friend, fellow dancer Mandy Gregory (Caroline Munro) that, after spurning the lecherous advances of her diminutive co-star Hercules (George Claydon), the dwarf put a curse on her to have a "monstrous baby".

How he is able to do this is never explained and what his connection to "The Devil" is is also handwaved; we're supposed to accept that because he is physically "Other" he has access to black magical powers or some other ableist nonsense.

Other than his 'lapse' in behaviour towards Lucy, at no other time in the 95-minute movie is he shown as being anything but a consummate, professional entertainer in a '70s Soho revue bar.

There's a sleazy veneer to the whole sorry affair that is 1975's The Monster (aka I Don't Want to Be Born aka It Lives Within Her aka The Devil Within Her) that accentuates its general awfulness.

Observe the sudden prevalence of naked female flesh during Lucy's return to the revue bar to confront her ex-boyfriend, slimy club owner Tommy Morris (John Steiner), who may actually be the child's father.

Given that when we see Lucy's act in flashback, she's wearing an enormous outfit (although, for some reason she is then shown in her lacy undies in her dressing room... three years before The Stud and The Bitch), I'd just assumed that this was one of those "cinematic strip clubs" where all the dancers keep their clothes on.

However, during Lucy's return there are a couple of dancers - Maria Lopez and Susie Lightining - auditioning for Tommy, who just casually strip off in the background.

Later, there's a random and unnecessarily protracted sex scene between Lucy and Gino... just before he gets bumped off in the most unintentionally hilarious murder I've witnessed in years.

This scene alone, which suggests that baby Nicholas has suddenly grown into a flesh-and-blood Chucky, was worth the (low) price of the Blu-Ray alone.

This moment in particular reminded me, unsurprisingly, of the disappointing HBO/Sky comedy-horror, The Baby, from back in 2022.

Luckily, ultimately, there's a book on exorcisms in the shelf of the laboratory where Sister Albana (a specialist in animal diseases... or something, it's not really important) is working and so the nun is eventually able to drive Satan out of the child.

Of course, the fact that everyone else in the house is dead by then and this act - for no readily apparent reason - also kills Hercules (who's just dancing at the revue bar and totally oblivious to all this demonic tomfoolery that's been going on), isn't even addressed as the film finishes at that point.

A sordid rip-off of The Omen, The Exorcist, and Rosemary's Baby, with phoned-in performances from most of the cast (there's an awkward scene early on between Mandy and Lucy that just sounds as though they were being poorly dubbed), The Monster definitely qualifies as being so bad it's good - primarily because of the comedy value surrounding several of the murders that the baby commits.

Clearly, some thought was put into the set-pieces, but not so much in how they would all hang together into a coherent narrative.

Even though the film is respectably short in duration, it still feels stuffed with lots of shots of people walking - or driving - through the streets of London (occasionally with 'authentic' dialogue dubbed over it), which, on one hand is a nice snapshot of this period in our recent history, but on the other highlights the paucity of actual story director Pete Sasdy had to show on screen.

Although immensely derivative (especially at that time in horror movies), there's possibly a half-decent story buried in The Monster somewhere, it's just unfortunate that everyone seems to have gone about telling it in such a half-arsed way.

UPDATE:

• JUSTICE FOR HERCULES: I was thinking more about this movie. When Hercules gropes Lucy, he has a glazed expression on his face and in my headcanon for The Monster I've decided that he was being possessed by an unseen demonic third party, which is why Hercules' random "curse" actually worked.
• JUSTICE FOR SISTER ALBANA: When the police roll up at the end (as the credits roll), they would have found the nun, the child, and a host of brutally murdered corpses. I can't believe the justice system will have much time for "the baby did it" and the Sister is probably facing a long stretch in prison or a psychiatric hospital.

Always Here For A Mystery Box Yarn

A woman spends the night fighting for her existence as she slips down a rabbit hole contained inside a gift from a late-night visitor.

M3GAN (2022)

After the tragic death of her parents in a road traffic accident, eight-year-old Cady (Violet McGraw), goes to live with her workaholic aunt, Gemma (Allison Williams), a robotics engineer at a leading toy company.

Gemma is not at all prepared to suddenly become a 'substitute mother', but quickly realises that a pet project of hers might be the solution: a cutting edge, AI-controlled 'companion doll' called the Model 3 Generation Android or M3GAN (played impressively by Amie Donald, and voiced by Jenna Davis).

M3GAN has been designed to bond to a child and learn from its environment.

While Cady's tragic backstory brings out M3GAN's protective side, this soon escalates into "over-protective" and she starts making sure that anyone that seems to threaten Cady won't do so for much longer.

All this is happening against a backdrop of the toy company racing to unveil the M3GAN before any of its competitors get wind of the doll's capabilities (while exploiting Cady's tragedy in its marketing to demonstrate the utility of their android in such difficult situations).

Picture Chucky from the 2019 iteration of Child's Play getting a Terminator-scale upgrade, assisted by a dash of Tony Stark's inventiveness.

Although it starts slowly, M3GAN soon ramps up the action and tension, tempering it with some laugh out loud moments of dark humour.

Perhaps not enough is made of the 'uncanny valley' factor of M3GAN's near-human appearance, but when it is addressed it leads to some very funny - and believable - reactions (such as the scene where the school teacher mistakes the android for a new pupil).

While the technology employed both on-screen - and behind the camera - to bring M3GAN to life is ultra-modern, there's a definite 1980s tang to the plot.

For instance, the ending seems rather abrupt and doesn't explore the consequences of M3GAN's actions, but still manages to slide in a sly nod towards a sequel (M3GAN 2.0 has already been greenlit for a 2025 release).

Sidestepping the potential for a finale involving mass slaughter and carnage, writer Akela Cooper and director Gerard Johnstone instead choose to make the climactic showdown more personal, with a satisfying resolution that was foreshadowed earlier in the 102-minute movie.

The film certainly has something to say on the possible dangers of an overreliance on technology in our lives, especially in the field of parenting, but it largely skates over this as an excuse for more "killer robot" action.

And I was there for the wonderful "killer robot" action.

Although it doesn't bring anything particularly new to the party, M3GAN is a fun, thrilling, and entertaining serving of sci-fi/horror that hits all the right slasher beats in a classic "cuckoo in the nest" scenario. 

The film's memorable and iconic lead certainly has the potential to spawn a fantastic franchise and I await with interest the many variations of a theme that will be entertaining us in the future (at least until the fiction of androids in everyone's home becomes a reality).

I Don't Know What To Say

Doug (Jack Black) and Griff (Paul Rudd) have been best friends since they were kids, and have always dreamed of remaking their all-time favorite movie: the cinematic "classic" Anaconda. When a midlife crisis pushes them to finally go for it, they head deep into the Amazon to start filming. But things get real when an actual giant anaconda appears, turning their comically chaotic movie set into a deadly situation. The movie they’re dying to make? It might just get them killed.

Insidious (2010)

Starting out as a good old fashioned 'haunted house' movie, Insidious spins off into Lovecraftian pseudoscience horror as a family find the ghostly manifestations have followed them to a new house.

Soon after the Lambert family - school teacher Josh (The Conjuring's Patrick Wilson), musician Renai (Rose Byrne) and their three kids - move into a new home, son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) falls into a mysterious coma and his mother starts to see strange apparitions around the house.

Eventually, she gets so freaked out the family moves house - but the paranormal phenomena follows them!

Josh's mother, Lorraine (Barbara Hersey), puts her daughter-in-law in touch with medium Elise Rainier (the legendary Lin Shaye) and her team of comedic psychic investigators, Specs (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson).

They quickly deduce that it is not the house that is haunted, but comatose Dalton, a gifted 'astral projector' and dreamer, whose soul has gotten lost on his night-time dimensional travels, leaving his body open to potential possession by otherworldly beings.

Things get a bit silly in the latter part of the third act when there's a journey into the ghost-dimension known as The Further, but Insidious scores bonus points with me for one of the most wonderfully over-the-top séance scenes I've ever encountered in a horror movie.

There are a number of telegraphed "jump scares", but the film works best when it's relying on atmosphere (which is why the "monster movie moments" towards the end don't gel quite as well).

Created by the same team that brought us the original, inventive Saw, writer Leigh Whannell and director James Wan, Insidious establishes a solid supernatural mythology that now, several sequels later, was obviously setting up its own franchise from the off.

Check In To Netflix's Haunted Hotel This Friday

After inheriting a hotel from her late brother, a single mom moves in with his good-natured ghost — and high-maintenance guests who will never check out.

What if The Shining was a comedy from the mind of Matt Roller, a former Rick and Morty story editor? Season one of the Haunted Hotel manifests itself on Netflix this Friday (September 19).

Knock At The Cabin (2023)

While staying at an idyllic, isolated, lakeside cabin, young Wen (Kristen Cui in her feature film debut) and her two dads, Andrew (Pennyworth's Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Hamilton's Jonathan Groff), have their vacation interrupted by the arrival of four strangers at the their door .

This group - Leonard (Guardians of The Galaxy and Dune's Dave Bautista), Sabrina (Avenue 5's Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Little Women's Abby Quinn) and Redmond (Harry Potter's Rupert Grint) - are the politest, most apologetic home invaders, but they are also quite insistent in their demands.

They explain that, while they were previously unknown to each other, they have been guided to the cabin by identical visions.

These told them that unless unless one of Andrew, Eric, or Wen is sacrificed by the other two, the entire population of the Earth will die in a series of plagues and disasters.

Naturally, Andrew and Eric don't believe this, with Andrew becoming increasingly convinced that this is a targeted, homophobic attack, especially when he thinks he recognises one of the intruders.

The couple are given four chances to choose a sacrifice and if they don't the consequences are - initially - rather unexpected.

However, if the ultimate sacrifice isn't made, only Andrew, Eric, and Wen will survive... to walk the desolate, post-apocalyptic Earth for the rest of their lives.

Straight off the bat, I have to say that I really enjoyed Knock at The Cabin. 

When I sit down to watch a movie where I strongly suspect there will be some kind of major twist, especially if it's an M. Night Shyamalan flick, I like to come to it with as little foreknowledge as possible... so I can be disappointed on my own terms, and not because some doofus has blabbed a key plot development online.

I'm glad that I knew nothing beyond the inciting set-up as Knock at The Cabin certainly delivers. This is a return to classic Shyamalan, with no stupid contrivances to undermine the powerful psychological horror at the heart of this story.

There's a modicum of violence in the film, although most occurs off camera as that's not how Shyamalan wants to unnerve his audience here, rather that's left to audience members contemplating the implications of choices that Andrew and Eric are being told they need to make. It's a more cerebral approach to horror than cheap jump scares, gruesome gore or scary monsters (all of which have their place, but it's nice to mix things up every now and again).

The story alludes to a pseudo-Biblical Apocalypse without being overly religious, drawing upon topical, real world fears, but ramping them up to 11 for the news coverage of the global drama unfolding beyond the confines of the cabin.

Based on Paul Tremblay's award-winning 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World (which is a far better name and I don't know why they didn't use it for the film), Knock At The Cabin could also easily be adapted to a stage play because of its clever and minimal use of locations.

All the core cast are on top form, being wholly convincing in their particular roles during the stressful scenario that kicks off almost immediately after the film begins.

There's no hanging around, the script (by director M. Night Shyamalan, co-written with Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman) throws us in the deep end, with a handful of brief flashbacks during the film's 100-minute runtime to fill in the protagonists' backstory.

The antagonists, however, we - like Andrew, Eric, and Wen - can only judge by their words and deeds.

I kept looking out for obvious, or predictable, grand scale Shyamalan twists, trying to second guess the plot, but I'm delighted to say I failed and got to live the ending as the characters did.

HEALTH UPDATE: We Have A Diagnosis!

Arriving at Biscuit Club a couple of weeks ago with my new set of wheels

After my MRI and symptoms were looked over by three or four medical experts, one has finally put the pieces together and presented Rachel and I with a diagnosis.

The head of the Pain Clinic told us - via an impressively lengthy and thorough telephone call - this week that I have osteoarthritis in my lumbar facet joints. Rather than a nerve condition, this is affecting the muscles connecting my spine to my thighs. The pain and weakness in my calves are then a result of referred issues from the weakness in my thighs.

The whole 'slipped disc' aspect was an unfortunate coincidence and is unconnected with my leg problems.

As the doctor explained they don't do "spine replacement surgery", the best treatment I can receive is steroid injections into my lower back. This should (it has a 70 per cent success rate) alleviate my pain and allow me to focus on my rehabilitation.

And this is the part he stressed: if I don't do the exercises and keep limber it's all a waste of time.

The injections are not a permanent fix (which we will come back to in a bit), but at my age the shortest gap between jabs would be about 18 months. The older you get the less time can pass before you can benefit from new injections.

This is the same doctor I saw back in 2017, and the same procedure I'm being offered. The injections worked great then, but now, obviously, my symptoms are far worse. At that time I had really bad back pain, now I can barely walk unaided.

Of course, I'm already doing my weekly exercises at Biscuit Club and this week was our 12-week assessment. Naturally I'd - unfortunately - slipped back a bit since I joined the class, but that's nobody's fault. No one could have predicted a dramatic flare-up of osteoarthritis in my spine.

Nevertheless I did my best, and this will now serve as my new baseline going forward. I even managed to walk a short distance unaided and unsupported... although I did look like I'd had way too much to drink as I trudged unsteadily along the carpet, around a chair and back to my starting point.

Balance test during my assessment: not very successful. Needs work!

Ten "Banned" Exploitation Classics That Tarantino Recommends

It never even entered my mind that this could be called "controversial"!

Banned on arrival, prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, hunted as video nasties. Fight for Your Life. Eaten Alive. Last House on the Left.These are the grindhouse shockers Tarantino keeps recommending, from Leatherface's heat-stroke nightmare to a one-eyed angel of revenge that inspired Tarantino’s own Kill Bill.

Banshee Chapter (2013)

Given that it overtly references two of my favourite authors (HP Lovecraft and Hunter S Thompson), I really should have liked Banshee Chapter more than I did.

It's one of those frustrating little works that's so close to being worthy of being called a "cult classic", but falls just short in the final reckoning.

Journalist Anne Roland (Katia Winter aka Katrina Crane in Sleepy Hollow) is investigating the disappearance of her old university sweetheart James Hirsch (Michael McMillian aka Steve Newlin in True Blood), who had been looking into the drugs used by the CIA in the infamous MKUltra "mind control" experiments.

Her quest eventually leads her, via the ever-intriguing phenomena of "numbers stations", to gonzo journalist Thomas Blackburn (Ted Levine aka Buffalo Bill from Silence Of The Lambs), who invites her to try some 'mind-altering drugs' with him and his 'pharmacist', Callie (Jenny Gabrielle).

Weird shit goes down at their 'party', prompting Anne and Blackburn to pay a visit to Callie's house. There they discover she has learned the location of the secret bunker where the MKUltra experiments were performed.

And so they head out into the desert to explore the long-abandoned bunker. In the middle of the night...

A blend of 'found footage' with proper movie making, Banshee Chapter manages to keep the balance right, and blends in enough 'genuine' conspiracy theory to pique my interest, especially when they hammer home - by directly referencing - the fact that this story is a contemporary twist on HP Lovecraft's From Beyond (famously made into Stuart Gordon's glorious movie of the same name).

The documentary footage that splices in to Anne's narrative reminded me of The Atticus Institute, and as James attends the mythical 'Atticus University', I wonder if I'm missing some hidden link here beyond the thematic.

Aided by some solid special effects, the horror of Banshee Chapter comes in a mix of cheap jump scares and some genuinely creepy, atmospheric work, but where the film seriously stumbles is with Ted Levine's character, Thomas Blackburn.

He's such an obvious clone of Hunter S Thompson (particularly the gonzo author's Raoul Duke persona as seen in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas) that it isn't funny. It simply jars, shattering the verisimilitude the filmmakers were craving.

I know the film tries to justify this in its denouement, but really more originality should have been put into such a key character so that we aren't constantly thinking "but that's Hunter S Thompson".