Viewings: September 2023

When Harry met Julie! Steve De Jarnatt's forgotten eighties thriller Miracle Mile may have bombed at the box office, but no film has put me on such an emotional blast wave like this in ages. Still feeling the fallout weeks later. Diamond of the month for your host.

Recent notable standouts were Talk to Me and The Passenger, which renewed my hope for films in 2023. Both William Friedkin and Father Amorth will probably be rolling over in their graves, but I enjoyed Russell Crowe as the famous Italian exorcist riding around on his Lambretta in the rollercoaster horror The Pope's Exorcist.

 

Film:

Blood and Black Lace (Mario Bava, 1964)

2+5: Missione Hydra (Pietro Francisci, 1966)*

Carry on Screaming! (Gerald Thomas, 1966)

Cruising (William Friedkin, 1980)

Night Ripper! (Jeff Hathcock, 1986)*

Gor (Fritz Kiersch, 1987)*

Miracle Mile (Steve De Jarnatt, 1988)*

Edge of Sanity (Gérard Kiköine, 1989)*

Rush Week (Bob Bralver, 1989)*

In the Cold of the Night (Nico Mastorakis, 1990)*

Slumber Party Massacre III (Sally Mattison, 1990)

Sorority Slaughter (Gary Whitson, 1994)*

A Gun for Jennifer (Todd Morris, 1997)

The Midnight Meat Train (Ryûhei Kitamura, 2008)

Insectula! (Michael Peterson, 2015)*

Crucible of the Vampire (Iain Ross-McNamee, 2019)*

Influencer (Kurtis David Harder, 2022/2023)*

Maid Droid (Rich Mallery, 2023)*

No Hard Feelings (Gene Stupnitsky, 2023)*

The Passenger (Carter Smith, 2023)*

The Pope’s Exorcist (Julius Avery, 2023)*

Talk to Me (Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou, 2022/2023)*

 

Television:

Neverwhere (Dewi Humphreys, 1996)

Mastermind - Episodes 1 - 5 (Bill Wright, 2023/24)*

Neighbours - Episodes 8903 - 8910 (Reg Watson, 2023)*

 

*First time viewings.

 

Dada Debaser Notes:

• Copped Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace on 4K UHD this month and it cements my opinion of it being one of the most beautiful films. It also happens to be one of the best gialli, in my opinion.
  
• Insectula! is a micro budget homage to fifties era sci-fi/horror creature features, and mostly fails at it. Arielle Cezanne made the film watchable, though.
• Carry on Screaming! proved to be an infinitely better written comedy than the painfully unfunny recent shite that I had to endure in No Hard Feelings.
  
• Revisited the BBC fantasy mini-series Neverwhere this month. Didn't realise the actors who played Johnson and Toni from Peep Show were in it.
  
• Don't really blame Oliver Reed being sloshed in the Conan style fantasy film Gor. Horrifically bad. Apparently, the sequel is even worse!
  
• Didn't fall in love with Edge of Sanity, but I did appreciate Anthony Perkins gurning in emo make-up in this Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Jack the Ripper mash-up.
  
• Only watched In the Cold of the Night because one of Bob Morton’s coke whores (the fit one) was the femme fatale in it. Mastorakis' attempt at a De Palma erotic thriller is largely soporific, but it's well shot and the curveball sci-fi finale redeems it slightly. Feel like I might be one in only half a dozen people on the planet to identify the obscure UK rap song which sampled the film's dream sequence theme.
  
• Not seen Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, but Maid Droid is the worst 2023 film for me this year. Inclined to believe the producers blew their entire budget (and their wads) on the French maid uniform that Faith West wore for this poor production.
  

In other media: I've been casually reading Quentin Tarantino's book Cinema Speculation; the chapter on Don Siegel's Dirty Harry (1971) is both fascinating and educational, despite me disagreeing with QT's opinions half the time; and I've been watching the most insane animation since Mad God (2022); the viral phenomenon Skibidi Toilet (2023):

Skibidi Toilet

Alexey Gerasimov AKA DaFuq!?Boom! (2023)