Cagey Films Blog

2022 reading

Posted on January 7, 2023January 4, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Tony Dalton's biography of Terence Fisher from FAB Press

Three books which I read last year connect with my love of genre film, particularly horror: Tony Dalton’s hefty biography Terence Fisher: Master of Gothic Cinema from FAB Press; Lost Girls: The Phantasmagorical Cinema of Jean Rollin, edited by Samm Deighan and now available as an e-book from Spectacular Optical; and – somewhat more esoteric – Powers of Darkness, an alternate version of Dracula first published in a Swedish newspaper from 1899 to 1900 and recently unearthed and translated back into English, published in an impressive limited edition by Centipede Press.

Wrapping up 2022

Posted on January 4, 2023January 4, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Countess Erzebeth Bathory (Lucia Bosé) discovers that virgin's blood will keep her young in Jorge Grau's Blood Ceremony (1973)

Hunkered down in the depths of winter, I spent a lot of December immersed in genre movies from around the world – it’s a dizzying mix of violence, perversion and unexpected cinematic delights.

Year End 2022

Posted on December 31, 2022December 28, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Marcel and Nana Connie gardening in Dean Fleischer-Camp's Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021)

It’s that time of year, and as usual coming up with a “best of” list – having seen somewhere around five-hundred movies in 2022 – seems impossible; so here are just a few which remained vivid in my memory, plus an unexpected and charming movie with which I ended a stressful year.

Vinegar Syndrome closes out 2022

Posted on December 28, 2022December 27, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Fong Sai Yuk (Willie Chi) faces a Manchu army in Ringo Lam's Burning Paradise (1994)

Vinegar Syndrome wraps up 2022 with a very mixed bag of releases, including no less than four grubby, bottom-of-the-barrel slasher movies, a dynamic Hong Kong martial arts movie, and loaded special editions of Freeway (1996), Matthew Bright’s reworking of Little Red Riding Hood as serial killer black comedy, and Rowdy Herrington’s red-neck action-romance Road House (1989).

Resurrecting a pre-tax shelter classic: The Rainbow Boys (1973)

Posted on December 24, 2022December 24, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Donald Pleasence, Don Calfa and Kate Reid hit the road in search of gold in Gerald Potterton's The Rainbow Boys (1973)

A relatively new label, Canadian International Pictures, has resurrected Gerald Potterton’s light and charming character-based comedy The Rainbow Boys (1973) in a fine Blu-ray edition with substantial extras. Another CIP release showcases Potterton’s National Film Board short The Railrodder (1965), a travelogue starring Buster Keaton towards the end of his life, along with John Spotton’s documentary about the making of the short, Buster Keaton Rides Again (1965), and another NFB travelogue, Eugene Boyko’s Helicopter Canada (1966), made to mark the country’s centennial.

Todd Haynes’ The Velvet Underground (2021): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on December 21, 2022January 30, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Andy Warhol adds polka dots to the performance in Todd Haynes' The Velvet Underground (2021)

Todd Haynes’ documentary The Velvet Underground (2022) is as dense and illuminating as the band’s music, providing a kaleidoscopic account of the creative explosion in music, art and film in New York in the 1960s out of which the band emerged for a brief, transformative moment of cultural change.

Universal Noir #1 from Indicator

Posted on December 14, 2022December 12, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Menace on the mean streets of film noir in Jerry Hopper's Naked Alibi (1954)

After five box sets devoted to film noir B-movies from Columbia Studios, Indicator have embarked on a follow-up covering Universal Studios crime films from the same mid-’40s to late-’50s period. The inaugural set of six titles covers a range of styles, from the classic noir of Michael Gordon’s The Web (1947), Norman Foster’s Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) and Jerry Hopper’s Naked Alibi (1954) to the docu-noir of Joseph M. Newman’s Abandoned (1949) and the shot-in-Italy neorealist melodrama of Robert Siodmak’s Deported (1950). With a host of contextual and critical extras, Universal Noir #1 inaugurates another great series of releases from Indicator.

Italian Gothic horror on Blu-ray

Posted on December 7, 2022December 5, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Saint Simon (John Phillip Law) believes he's the reincarnation of Vincent Van Gogh in Sergio Bergonzelli’s Blood Delirium (1988)

Arrow’s Gothic Fantastico box set gathers together four lesser-known Italian genre movies from the mid-’60s from the period when Gothic horror flourished between Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) and the rise of the giallo later in the decade, while Sergio Bergonzelli’s Blood Delirium (1988) from Vinegar Syndrome is a garish throwback long after the Gothic had faded away.

Brief Notes, December Part Two

Posted on December 3, 2022December 3, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

An ancient vampire is foolishly revived in Leon Klimovsky’s The Werewolf vs Vampire Woman (1971)

A few more comments on recent viewing, which includes a couple of interesting older horror movies and two overblown recent Hollywood blockbusters.

Brief Notes, December Part One

Posted on November 30, 2022November 29, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Dr. Ted Rampion (Keiron Moore) descends into a volcano with an atom bomb in Andrew Marton's Crack in the World (1965)

A few notes about disks from a couple of companies I’ve previously had little experience with – 88 Films and 101 Films, both from the UK – plus three box sets from Arrow.