Black Oxen (1924)

Black Oxen is a slightly curious but enjoyable silent movie. A love triangle but with elements of fantasy and science fiction.

The film stars Conway Teale as a NY writer who falls in love with an Austrian countess played by Corinne Griffith. Clara Bow plays the other side of the triangle, in love with the writer but his attention is only on the countess and not the somewhat annoying flapper...

But the countess has a dark secret, she is using specialised treatments and X-rays to retain her youth and is really a much older woman and not in her twenties as she appears.

She gets found out in the end of course. Well apparently, only seven of the film's original eight reels are extant meaning the end of the movie (about twenty minutes) is now missing. Luckily original reviews can tell us what happens! All spoilers arn't bad.

The New Barbarians (1983)

After the apocalypse the few starving survivors of mankind will apparently battle for survival in the desert wastes in battered old cars covered in spikes and weapons. Now it's not Mad Max but a very passable Italian film obviously inspired by it.

The plot is basic to say the least, a band of helmeted maniacs called The Templars seek to wipe out all other survivors on Earth. To stop them: our hero Giancarlo Prete (who is an ex-member of this group) and some friends.

Well the plot (which is a bit of a rip off of Mad Max 2 if we are going to be honest) is fairly irrelevant with a film like this. The most important question is: what is the action like? Well it is good, often very good in fact, despite the obviously tiny budget. The film consists of a number of bloody set pieces with people blown up, decapitated by exploding arrows, burned alive and run over. It is very violent indeed but also has a great deal of camp fun. And has a car with a giant corkscrew.

One thing to note about this horrific vision of the future is that its set in 2019...

Häxan (1922)

Häxan is a curious and enjoyable Swedish/Danish silent movie. It is a documentary horror exploring witchcraft and superstition from the Middle Ages onwards with numerous dramatised vignettes featuring witches, black magic and various devilment.

Some parts of the film are tinted which adds to the creepiness and/or fun especially when the tint is red.

A controversial film, scenes of nudity and torture helped it be banned in several countries. The film is full of weirdness and the forbidden, it's a lot of fun. The early part of the film, which is mostly documentary, can drag a bit though.

George & Mildred (1980)

The 1970s and 1980s was a hard time for British cinema with money scarce and seemingly ideas even scarcer. Popular sitcoms and other TV shows were ruthlessly plundered to make low budget and relatively low risk movies. George & Mildred was a popular TV sitcom that ran in the late 1970s and became the latest show to hit the big screen. It was also such a colossal flop it pretty much ended the practice.

Truthfully the feature length versions of these sitcoms and dramas has produced some turkeys (and some decent fare such as the Sweeney movies). How about George & Mildred the movie? It's not as bad as you think, it's certainly not good by any stretch of the imagination but it could have been so much worse.

Starring Brian Murthy and Yootha Joyce the film involves various ridiculous scenes in a posh hotel (where George is mistaken for a hitman - the sheer bizarreness of this one of the best things about the film). Ultimately though the film is too far removed from the original show and what made it popular.

Blue Lightning (1991)

Hong Kong: it seduces you, inspires you, attracts you but it's a tough mistress. The streets have the bright lights and a myriad of attractions but in a dark alleyway something is always ready to bite you on the ass.

Danny Lee plays a drunk ex-cop whose ex-wife is killed by person unknown. Only their kid survives. But why kill the woman? That's the question on the lips of cop Tony Leung Ka Fei. As they investigate the crime they start to delve into a world of blackmail, corruption and underage sex...

A bigwig in HK is preparing for election but has a dark secret the assassin is trying to cover up. The assassin comes back for more to remove the evidence, including the friend of the deceased woman in the form of Olivia Cheng (in her last film before she changed career to become a golf instructor). And then he comes after Danny. The bigwig has the police in his pocket, can he be stopped?

A hard bleak and very violent film. In this film HK is sleazy, HK is brutal, and HK doesn't care as another victim bleeds to death on it's tarmac...

Murder Weapon (1989)

A sex slash gore movie basically. There is an awful lot of murder, an awful lot of sex and it's also pretty awful.

The premise of the film involves two girls (played by Linnea Quigley and Karen Russell) recently released from a psychiatric hospital inviting some of their ex-s to a party who then start getting killed.

Quite a simple premise, and of course it needs some setting up but the film takes ages doing that - including some interminable flashbacks to where the girls are psychologically assessed.

When the murders finally start they are low-budget gore cheese and completely ridiculous. To sum this film up: the sound and set design is all over the place, acting fairly non-existent and the story makes little sense. So obviously it's brilliant. Or would have been if it had cut out a bit of the waffle.

Seven Days to Noon (1950)

A renegade scientist steals a nuclear warhead from a British research centre. If that's not bad enough he's now in London and threatening to blow the city up if the government doesn't renounce nuclear weapons in seven days...

Barry Jones plays the idealist scientist and Andre Morell plays a Scotland Yard superintendent leading the manhunt to find him. While the almost impossible search takes place the government begins the enormous task of evacuating one of the largest cities in the world. This goes pretty well though all considering, though we're only a few years after WW2 so the Army and authorities had plenty of practice in mass personnel deployment!

A tense and well structured suspense movie. The characters are well drawn, the scientist for example is misguided rather than evil. Supporting characters add a bit of lightness where needed.