Blogging may have taken a substantial hit, but I still managed to cover a bunch of new and old film discoveries worth writing about in 2025. Hope to repeat the same for next year.
Lam Nai-Choi's bonkers sci-fi actioner The Cat was easily the best find for me this month. It features one of the most epic fights you will ever witness between a cat and a dog; not to mention a multitude of other insane sequences.
Close behind is the N.Y.C. crime thriller Night of the Juggler. A cult film which was rescued from video hell this year, and was well worth it.
Dada Debaser Notes:
- I wrote about some of my very favourite queens of giallo this month.
- Speaking of giallo, there aren’t too many that I like produced in between Argento’s Deep Red (1975) and Tenbrae (1982), Pupi Avati’s The House with the Laughing Windows, is superb, however. Additionally, it also happens to be a fantastic folk horror, too.
- I wish James Gunn stuck with writing horror screenplays instead of comic book movies. His irreverent humour felt more natural in The Belko Experiment compared to being shoehorned in Superman (2025).
- One half of The Vicious Brothers is back! It’s another faux TV show, too. Strange Harvest could have been another cult horror film like Grave Encounters (2011), but it lacked the same zest, despite the intriguing concept.
- Reflection in a Dead Diamond might be one of the best looking films for me this year, but it's also one of the biggest disappointments as well, sadly. The constant flip-flopping of meta levels of reality and eras in time made it a slog to sit through. This experimental treatment just doesn't work in a what's essentially a throwback to Euro-spy films like it did with the directors' prior films.
- I was going about to blog about Russell T. Davies's latest unintentional comedy, The War Between the Land and the Sea (2025), but never had the time nor the motivation. The best thing about it was its acronym being changed to T.W.A.T.B.L.A.S.T. by Doctor Who fans.
- Bidi-bid-bidi rest in peace, Gil Gerard! Best known as Captain William "Buck" Rogers in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979). Coincidentally, two recurring characters, Colonel Wilma Deering and Princess Ardala, are featured in Buck Roger's 500 year wet dream in the opening credits of the pilot, despite the astronaut having not even met them yet.
In terms of the blogosphere, I enjoyed The Martorialist's fave choons old and new in 2025; Glen McCulla's in depth piece on Sergio Martino gialli; and The Flashback Fanatic's review on Rollerball (1975), which inspired me to rewatch the film and a host of other sci-fi flicks this month.
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