Film Reviews by griggs

The Mummy has a cracking atmosphere, and Karloff is brilliantly eerie, all stillness and menace. There's something quietly unsettling about it all. Despite the plot being a bit creaky and the central romance feeling forced, the film is still worth your time. It also moves at a crawl, which really tests the patience. The discussions around cultural theft and Western plundering by the British Museum are surprisingly sharp for the time. It's not as deep or affecting as Frankenstein or Bride of Frankenstein, but still worth unearthing for the vibes.

Monkey Business kicks off with a flurry of funny gags and classic Marx Brothers chaos, but the laughs wear thin fast. It’s as if they blew through all their best material in the first half and then just kept riffing, hoping something would stick. By the end, it feels less like a film and more like a sketch show running out of steam. The wisecracks are relentless—so much so, they start to trip over the plot.

Watching the sound version of Blackmail, one can't help but be intrigued by Hitchcock's bold experimentation with the new form. Sound is used sparingly but deliberately, almost like an extra character creeping in when needed, adding another layer of tension to the narrative.

This is a quintessential British thriller, with its tight interiors, clipped dialogue, and an undercurrent of polite unease. In true Hitchcock fashion, we are presented with a world of murky morality, blurred lines between guilt and innocence, a hint of villainisation, and, of course, a blonde in peril. It's a world that draws you in and holds you tight.

What really stood out to me was the streak of dark humour woven through the story. It lends the film a wry, human edge often absent from his later, glossier Hollywood efforts. That humour makes the characters feel more grounded and recognisable—something I didn't expect from such an early sound film.

The plot wobbles occasionally, with the pacing occasionally dragging and a few contrived twists popping up. But it's still a solid watch—an early milestone where you can already see Hitchcock fine-tuning the techniques that would define his career. Blackmail is a precursor to many of the themes and techniques that would become synonymous with Hitchcock's later, more polished works.

Rolling Thunder is a bleak and chaotic revenge thriller, brimming with the same moral darkness found in other Paul Schrader scripts. It plays like Taxi Driver relocated to rural Texas, swapping city lights for shotgun blasts and quiet desperation. William Devane gives a quietly intense performance, while Tommy Lee Jones practically steals the film with just a few lines. John Flynn’s direction is rough around the edges, but it suits the raw, nihilistic mood. It’s uneven in places, but there’s a visceral power that makes it difficult to forget.

Some documentaries feel scripted like everyone’s in on it. But Prince of Broadway has that gritty, lived-in feel that makes you forget there’s a camera. Watching it feels like you’re eavesdropping on real life—especially if you’ve ever wandered Canal Street and been approached by guys hustling fake handbags and AirPods. On the street, those vendors can blur into one faceless crowd. Baker reminds you they’re not. They’re individuals—each with a story, a hustle, a heartbreak.

It’s raw and rough around the edges, but that’s part of the charm. Baker makes these New Yorkers—intimidating to some, undocumented and vulnerable—feel deeply human, just trying to get by. There’s a tenderness beneath the chaos, especially in the unlikely father-son bond at the film’s core. It’s not flashy, and the pacing drifts at times, but it quietly earns your attention by spotlighting a corner of the city most films ignore.

Mr. Burton boasts superb acting—Toby Jones and Harry Lawtey are magnetic—but the film struggles under the weight of its own structure. It’s a fascinating story, no doubt, but telling it in such a blocky, one-thing-then-the-next way really saps the energy. About an hour in, I found myself checking my watch—not because I wasn’t interested, but because the pacing started to wear me down. The CGI shots of Port Talbot didn’t help either; they felt artificial and took me out of the moment. Despite its flaws, Mr. Burton is still worth a watch for the performances alone, especially if you’re drawn to complex character studies.

Your Name. is visually stunning and impressively imaginative — a story that springs from a worldview untouched by adult cynicism. It understands its teenage protagonists in ways most Western films don't and moves freely through time, space, and memory without hesitation. But despite all that, it left me cold. The emotional sincerity felt cloying, and I struggled to connect. It's not for me — though I admire what it achieves visually.

The 4th Man is Verhoeven's last Dutch-language film before he hit Hollywood, and it's a total wild ride. A deliriously stylish, psychosexual fever dream that blends Catholic guilt, homoerotic vibes, Hitchcockian suspense, and full-on weirdness into one spiked cocktail. Think De Palma on communion wine.

It follows Gerard, a booze-soaked, guilt-ridden writer who gets together with Christine, a mysterious widow whose lovers keep turning up dead. But the real joy isn't in the twists — it's how Verhoeven plays with religion, lust, and full-blown hallucination to properly scramble your brain.

The performances go big (Jeroen Krabbé oozes tortured flair), and the visuals — veering from artsy to gloriously trashy — are a total feast. This is cinema as psychosexual theatre: campy, classy, and completely unhinged. Verhoeven dares you to take noir seriously again. If you like your thrillers sexy, strange, and steeped in sacrilege, this one's divine.

The Quick and the Dead is a thrilling mash-up of spaghetti Western and horror, thanks to Sam Raimi's delightfully unhinged direction. His knack for tension and love of over-the-top spectacle inject real energy into this deathmatch shootout—without him, it'd be all guns, no bullets.

Sharon Stone is the clear standout—her character is written with depth, and she rises to the challenge. Gene Hackman wrestles with a script that leans hard into pantomime but just about reins it in. Young DiCaprio is a live wire, all charm and swagger, while Russell Crowe's casting and performance feel... peculiar.

It's all a bit silly, wildly stylish, and utterly enjoyable—as long as you don't go looking for meaning in the tumbleweeds.

Scanners isn't winning any awards for acting, but that's hardly the point. It's fast, gory, and weirdly charming in its chaos. Cronenberg brings enough madness to paper over the cracks, and the effects still hit hard. It's not perfect, but honestly, it's impossible to look away — and not just because someone's head might explode.

Yellow Submarine is a gloriously trippy oddity fuelled by breezy imagination and Beatles charm. It really shouldn’t work—the story’s paper-thin, the pacing’s baggy, and it often vanishes into pure self-indulgence—yet somehow, it pulls you along with a daft grin. The visuals are wild, and, of course, the songs are great. The whole thing feels like a cheerful fever dream. It's fun to experience once, for sure, but it's more a colourful relic than essential, life-altering cinema.?

Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 is a thrilling sci-fi journey that effortlessly juggles humour, horror, and heart. It’s a rollercoaster of entertainment, not as weighty as Parasite, but an absolute joyride—brimming with energy and jaw-dropping production design that makes every frame pop. Robert Pattinson does his usual thing, blending charm with quiet torment, but the real stars here are Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette.

Ruffalo is on another level, playing the villain with a perfect mix of tech-bro arrogance and full-blown cult leader madness—part Trump, part Musk, part David Miscavige, and just unhinged enough to feel all too real. In today’s world, people will be projecting their least favourite political figure onto him for years. Collette, who’s way too often underused, goes full scene-stealer here, bringing a wicked stepmother-meets-pantomime villain energy that cranks up the fun.

Bong, as always, directs with masterful ease, balancing big ideas with blockbuster spectacle. Beneath the dazzling visuals and creeping horror, there’s real emotional weight too. Mickey 17 might not be Bong’s deepest film, but it’s a slick, endlessly entertaining sci-fi romp that promises to be rewatched and dissected for years to come.

Shock Corridor is a brutal, fascinating dive into America's cracked soul, stitched together with Fuller's sweaty, claustrophobic energy. The mental hospital setting isn't just grim — it's a gnawing, ugly trap that feels like it might pull you into the madness yourself. Fuller rages against a country buckling under a mental health crisis, racism, PTSD, nuclear dread, and the hollow cheapening of human life for fame. Its relevance to current social issues is striking, making it a messy, blunt, and completely gripping film — the sort that shakes you up, leaves you slightly rattled, and demands you sit with its raw, angry truths.

Drop starts promisingly enough, but it quickly runs out of steam. The second act is a slog—just the same argument on repeat, like a broken record bumping into itself. No one on a date would actually stick around for this nonsense. The final ten minutes go full bananas (kind of fun, I’ll admit), but by then, the damage is done. Meghann Fahy is the one saving grace, grounding it all with a performance far better than the script deserves.

Spring Breakers has plenty of ambition, but it’s a messy ride. On the surface, it’s all bikinis, booze, and bad decisions, but dig a little deeper, and there’s something genuinely dangerous lurking. It clearly wants to point the finger at the debauched American Dream. Yet, it misses by a long mark, ending up glamorising misogyny, toxic masculinity, and violence. Franco is properly terrifying as Alien, but even the Pussy Riot-inspired costumes can’t save the film’s confused message.