Viewings: March 2025

What if Federico Fellini delivered a film that wasn't the equivalent of NyQuil? That's exactly what his frequent script collaborator and artistic advisor, Brunello Rondi, achieved with proto-The Exorcist horror, The Demon. Provocative, disturbing and ahead of its time. An early Italian horror gem blessed with a career defining performance from Daliah Lavi.

Film:

 Cash on Demand (Quentin Lawrence, 1961)

The Demon (Brunello Rondi, 1963)*

Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971)

The Legend of Hell House (John Hough, 1973)

Assault! Jack the Ripper (Yasuharu Hasebe, 1976)*

Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Richard Brooks, 1977)

Madame Claude (Just Jaeckin, 1977)*

The Brood (David Cronenberg, 1979)

Scanners (David Cronenberg, 1981)

Der Fan AKA Trance (Eckhart Schmidt, 1982)*

Night of the Creeps (Fred Dekker, 1986)

In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000)*

A Bittersweet Life (Kim Jee-woon, 2005)*

The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005)

The Prestige (Christopher Nolan, 2006)

Popeye the Slayer Man (Robert Michael Ryan, 2025)*

Television:

V (Kenneth Johnson, 1983-1983)

V: The Final Battle (Richard T. Heffron, 1984-1984)

Andor - Season 1 Episodes 1 & 2 (Tony Gilroy, 2022)*

Adolescence - Season 1 Episodes 1-4 (Philip Baratini, 2025)*

 

* First time viewings.

 

Dada Debaser Notes:

• Mentioned A Bittersweet Life being an obvious blind spot in my recent Picks of 2005 post. Having seen it, I can confidently confirm I didn't miss out on Kim Jee-woon's attempt at mimicking Guy Ritchie's gangster flicks.
• Watching anything Star Wars related is like getting back with an ex. Two episodes of the critically acclaimed Andor was enough for me to call it quits. So bored. The magic can never be rekindled.
• Finally got to watch the notorious Nikkatsu Roman Porno Assault! Jack the Ripper. About a couple who get off on sexually assaulting and murdering random women. Utterly depraved and definitely not for the easily offended. Colour me surprised this was recently made available in my region uncut. Thank you, Natasha Kaplinsky!
• Speaking of offended. File Der Fan as a rare film that's way too uncomfortably problematic even for me. Do like a couple of songs off its synth pop soundtrack, though.
• My take on the whole Adolescence hype: Phenomenally great performances, particularly impressive screen debut from child actor Owen Cooper, but the writing is laughably cringe. The one-take gimmick out stays its welcome after the first episode. Didn't need to waste what felt like twenty minutes on Stephen Graham driving to a B&Q.
• The dreaded Dada Debaser death curse struck twice. My mention of Wings Hauser had him galloping to the big rodeo in the sky a couple of weeks later. This was later followed by Clive Revill drifting to the spirit world days after my blog post on The Legend of Hell House. Really ought to watch something with James Corden to make the world right.
• Also revisited V and V: The Final Battle. Has aged considerably, but Jane Badler's scenes as Diana, the Alexis Colby of fascist space lizards, are still top notch.

Nobody Puts Ricky in a Corner

Hot diggity! Former head honcho of the BBFC, James Ferman, must be turning over in his grave right about now. With ex-BBC Breakfast presenter Natasha Kaplinsky taking over the reins as the current president of the BBFC, she put the kibosh on a lingering leftover from Ferman's dictatorship by finally passing uncut Ruggero Deodato's film The House on the Edge of the Park (1980) in the UK.

To my knowledge, the film was never actually banned, but it was butchered to an inch of its life. Once considered the most censored film in the UK, here's an extract from the highly recommendable book Shock! Horror! Astounding Artwork from the Video Nasty Era sharing some insight into just how draconian the BBFC were over Deodato's film:

"It's funnny to think that this truly outrageous Italian shocker, starring David Hess, the utterly convincing psycho from The Last House on the Left, was actually submitted to the BBFC... It would have been hilarious to see the examiners' faces when this film unspooled in their cosy Soho screening room.

Despite the film's fearsome reputation, it was still surprising to discover that, when re-submitted for video classification by VIPCO's Mike Lee in 2002, a whopping 11 minutes 43 seconds of cuts were ordered before a certificate would be granted." - Brewster, Fenton & Morris, Shock! Horror! Astounding Artwork from the Video Nasty Era, p 217, FAB Press, 2005.

I wonder if Natasha Kaplinsky passing this truly problematic film uncut might be attributed to Ricky and Gloria's dance scene? Perhaps it rekindled the time she was on Strictly Come Dancing and being crowned the series' first celebrity winner. Not watched a single episode since Darcey Bussell left, but I would definitely tune in again if Kaplinsky returned to the show to perform the dance scene with Italy's whipping boy, John Morghen AKA Giovanni Lombardo Radice.

The House on the Edge of the Park (Dance scene)

Ruggero Deodato, 1980