Viewings: August 2025

Karel Kachyňa's The Ear was the only discovery I liked enough to even bother with a dedicated blog post. One of the few films dubbed as new wave which didn't bombard me with pseudo intellectual diarrhoea. The Ear is an accessible and thought provoking film, with some alarming parallels to our current timeline. Well worth checking out.

 

Film:

The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin, 1932) 

The Long Hot Summer (Martin Ritt, 1958)

Beyond the Time Barrier (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1960)

Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962)

Lunch Hour (James Hill, 1962)*

Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965)

The Ear (Karel Kachyňa, 1970)* 

Smile Before Death (Silvio Amadio, 1972)*

The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive (Francesco Mazzei, 1972)*

The Secret of Seagull Island (Nestore Ungaro, 1982)*

Cobra (George P. Cosmatos, 1986)

Enemy Territory (Peter Manoogian, 1987)*

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (Tony Randel, 1988)

Her Vengeance (Ngai Choi Lam, 1988)*

Def by Temptation (James Bond III, 1990)*

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, 2024)

Eddington (Ari Aster, 2025)*

Red Sonja (M.J. Bassett, 2025)*

Superman (James Gunn, 2025)*

 

Television:

Mastermind - Episodes 4-6 (Bill Wright, 2025 / 2026)* 

*First time viewings.

 

Dada Debaser Notes:

• The god Leviathan, the Labyrinth, Dr. Channard cenobite, Pinhead's origin and Julia's metamorphosis from the wicked stepmother to the evil queen; this is how you creatively expand upon a classic film and deliver one of the best horror sequels ever. Feeling like a right mug not including it in my GOAT Brit flicks list.
• Did not expect the depth and drama exploring the price for revenge in Cat. III thriller Her Vengeance. There's still enough to appease the exploitation crowd, however, particularly an '80s action movie montage and a brutally violent showdown for a finale.
• Smile Before Death is a very sleazy giallo with an insufferable theme that plays ad nauseam. Effectively guaranteeing I'll never bother with it again.
• Sticking with giallo: The Weapon, the Hour, the Motive is an acceptable murder mystery surrounding the death of a randy priest. Hilariously, the detective investigating the case winds up proposing to one of the prime suspects.
• Enemy Territory is a curious entry from the legendary B-movie company Empire International Pictures. It's neither a horror, sci-fi or a fantasy movie, but an urban thriller set in an apartment building that's very much inspired by Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and The Warriors (1979). It's nowhere near as good as those, however, but it does have a great over-the-top performance by Tony Todd as The Count, the psychotic leader of a gang called The Vampires.
• James Gunn once again transplants his tried and tested formula of outsiders finding a surrogate family in another comic book movie. Worked with unfamiliar / forgotten characters like Star-Lord or Polka-Dot Man, but surprisingly not with his Superman outing. Gunn's irreverent humour also feels very dated and ill suited for such a wholesome character like the Man of Steel, especially after years of quips being run into the ground from similar movies. However, the biggest issue is the lack of time given for the viewer to process everything, and therefore it's one CGI set-piece to the next. I gave it three stars on Letterboxd; too generous, in hindsight. 
• There's a half decent crime thriller lurking about somewhere in Ari Aster's latest overlong picture. Having to wade through over an hour's worth of cringe, satirising the insanity of 2020, is the reason why I'll most likely never bother with Eddington again.

And finally: R.I.P. Terence Stamp and Ray Brooks!