Film Reviews by griggs

The Wind is as bleak and beautiful as silent cinema gets—a sandblasted psychological thriller that pits Lillian Gish against the elements and her own sanity. The wind never stops howling, the house creaks like it’s haunted, and Gish’s wide eyes do more acting than most performers manage in a career. It’s melodramatic, but in the best way—operatic and unhinged, with nature playing the ultimate villain. The ending, though, feels suspiciously upbeat—like someone at the studio panicked and demanded a cleaner resolution. Not quite a knockout blow, but a gut punch nonetheless.

Walter Hill’s stripped-down, minimalist urban cowboy film The Driver owes a clear debt to Le Samouraï—all style, silence, and steely resolve. You can see its fingerprints all over later films, yet it still feels fresh. Bruce Dern’s dogged detective squaring off against Ryan O’Neal’s ice-cool wheelman is a brilliant bit of casting. The 4K StudioCanal remaster looks fantastic, and it’s great to have the original audio—but honestly, this deserved a beefed-up sound mix.

The Lion in Winter is incredible—two hours of pure psychological warfare, where every character doesn’t just want to win; they want to obliterate. It’s like watching a chess match where the pieces are all armed and spiteful. None of them can resist twisting the knife, and they do it with such relish that you almost admire the malice.

The dialogue is blisteringly good—no surprise it won the Oscar—and Hepburn, who scooped Best Actress, is nothing short of volcanic. I didn’t expect a so-called “Christmas film” to be this dark. Just because there’s a yule log doesn’t make it festive. It’s relentless, brutal, and weirdly exhilarating. Every scene is laced with danger, every relationship on the brink. It’s a hate-fuelled cauldron—and I couldn’t look away.

Radio On is a rare British road movie – let’s be honest, no one wants to watch someone crawling around the M25 in real-time. This is entirely different: eerie, slow, and hypnotic, with Wim Wenders’ fingerprints all over it. He produced it, his ex-wife stars, and one of his regular collaborators is behind the camera, capturing a hauntingly still, greyscale Britain at the moment fundamental to its future, with Thatcher newly elected. It’s low-budget, patient, sensitive, and kind. There’s barely any plot, even less dialogue, but the music, engine noise, radio silence, and bleak news broadcasts do the talking. Mesmerising stuff.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into with Deadbeat at Dawn. Five seconds in, I had to pause and check that Tommy Wiseau hadn’t somehow played a role—such is the sheer chaos of its opening moments. But unlike The Room, this isn’t incompetence wrapped in cashmere; it’s guerrilla cinema powered by pure, unfiltered passion. Jim Van Bebber writes, directs, edits, stars—and probably did the catering too.

It’s scrappy, bloody, and often ridiculous, but it moves—like The Warriors if shot on stolen cameras after a bad trip. Where Wiseau threw money at the problem, Van Bebber used ingenuity and madness to plaster over budgetary holes. The result is violent, anarchic and weirdly beautiful.

The acting’s ropey, the plot’s barely there, and yet it works. Not in spite of its flaws but because of them. Deadbeat at Dawn isn’t just a cult film—it’s a punch to the face.

No Way Out is a sharp, twisty thriller that blends Cold War paranoia with a slick murder mystery. The story's got plenty going on—surveillance, power plays, and the creeping fear that nobody's quite who they claim to be. While it's not in the same class as The Conversation and The Parallax View, it sits comfortably alongside them in tone and subject matter, swapping their grim introspection for glossy tension and a dash of melodrama.

Roger Donaldson keeps things tight and pacy, especially in the Pentagon scenes, which unfold in real-time and hum with tension. Kevin Costner is surprisingly layered here, mixing charm with just enough unease. Gene Hackman does what he does best—gruff authority shading into moral murk—while Will Patton nearly steals the show as his eerily loyal aide. Sean Young is more presence than character, but she's memorable despite limited screen time.

It's not quite top-tier stuff, and like many '80s thrillers, the clunky computer tech hasn't aged well. The infamous sex scene—in a limo, naturally—is equally of its time: audacious, a bit ridiculous, and strangely charming. Both elements date the film but also add to its pulpy appeal. It's no masterpiece, but the plot keeps you guessing. A solid pick if you're after something suspenseful, with that classic '80s sheen that will surely evoke a sense of nostalgia and a whiff of political rot.

Hear me out—I’m a massive Bong Joon Ho fan, which is precisely why Snowpiercer was such a letdown. With his name attached, I expected something special, but his first English-language film derails fast and never gets back on track. Based on a graphic novel, it throws together a ludicrous premise—a perpetually moving train housing the last humans on Earth—and expects us to take it seriously. The class-war allegory is as subtle as a sledgehammer, played out in dimly lit carriages by a bunch of thinly drawn characters spouting clunky dialogue.

For every great turn (Tilda Swinton’s gloriously unhinged), there’s a disaster—Jamie Bell’s bargain-bin Irish accent deserves its own carriage to nowhere. It’s all very joyless, claustrophobic yet without atmosphere, and padded with strange tonal shifts that veer between po-faced melodrama and ill-timed black comedy. Bong’s a genius, but here he’s flailing. Sure, there are flashes of flair, but they’re not enough. I honestly think the glowing praise is more about the director’s reputation than the film itself.

I’m not an MCU regular—at best, I’ve seen three or four of them and only really enjoyed one—so I approached Thunderbolts* with pretty low expectations. Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan were the main draws, and as expected, they delivered. What I didn’t expect was just how much fun I’d have. It works surprisingly well as a standalone, which for once meant I wasn’t scrambling to decode ten years of Marvel lore just to follow the plot.

The first-hour zips along—sharp, funny, and packed with energy. But as it veers toward the final act, it starts to wobble; the pacing stutters, and the tone shifts awkwardly. It all wraps up a bit too tidily, as if someone realised they’d hit the two-hour mark and had to rush out the door, so they quickly finished it, concluding all the storylines at once. The multiverse elements didn’t totally land for me, but they weren’t a dealbreaker. What did stick was the film’s quieter exploration of loneliness and its impact on mental health—handled with more care than I could ever have expected. All in all, it’s a film that might even get me watching more MCU stuff. Maybe.

The Old Dark House isn’t especially scary by modern standards, but it’s a fun, moody watch with an intense gothic atmosphere and a delightfully oddball cast. The shadows are huge, the thunder cracks like gunfire, and there’s plenty of mirror trickery and melodramatic shrieking to keep things lively. It loses steam between the shrieks—partly down to age and being endlessly imitated—but there’s a charm in its creaky corners.

Class tension quietly simmers beneath the surface, with the decaying upper-class Femms buckling under their own repression. There’s also a strong thread of queer-coded subtext—Horace’s nervy flamboyance, Sir Roderick’s drag casting, and James Whale’s direction all feed into readings that see this as a foundational piece of queer horror.

It practically invented the “dark and stormy night” blueprint and inspired everything from The Rocky Horror Picture Show to Clue and Evil Dead. Set in Wales but featuring not a single Welsh accent in sight—unless you count thunder. Think Rocky Horror’s grandparent… just less fabulous. Not essential, but definitely interesting.

Meta-horror with a severe case of madness. John Carpenter blends cosmic horror, straight from the H.P. Lovecraft playbook, with a clever, unsettling story about a writer whose books don’t just scare people—they shatter the fabric of reality. The concept is brilliant: eerie atmosphere, disturbing characters, and reality-bending twists abound. It gets a bit messy in places, but it’s never dull. Sam Neill is a delight as he unravels, chewing scenery and losing his grip in style.

It’s not Carpenter’s most polished work, but it’s bold, bizarre, and feels like a half-remembered nightmare. If you like horror that twists your brain more than your stomach, this is one to seek out. Imagine reading a Stephen King novel and realising halfway through—it’s reading you too.

Mute Witness is a total blast—one of those cult gems you dig up after wading through a sea of mediocrity. It’s constantly escalating, packed with amusing characters, and thoughtfully directed, with a killer dialogue-free lead turn from Marina Zudina. She’s far and away the standout, while most of the supporting cast flail about like they’re in a school play. Fay Ripley’s American accent is genuinely awful—but she seems in on the joke—and she’s otherwise pretty decent for a debut.

There’s something oddly out-of-time about it. Even when it came out in the mid-90s, I imagine it already felt dated. It plays more like a 70s slasher-thriller hybrid, complete with John Carpenter-esque camerawork and a synth-heavy score. The late Alec Guinness pops up briefly in his final film role, which adds a strange touch of class to the chaos. Flawed but fun. Definitely one for the late-night crowd.

3 Days of the Condor is peak ’70s paranoia—slick, stylish, and just a little off-kilter. It’s not in the absolute top tier of conspiracy thrillers, but it’s still a cracking watch. The early scenes, as Pollack’s camera glides through Redford’s CIA office, are wonderfully disarming—both mundane and mysterious. That quietness makes the later chaos hit harder, and the pacing keeps things taut without feeling rushed. The sound design’s a treat, too—phones ringing, doors slamming, odd little noises all ratcheting up the tension.

Redford is effortlessly watchable, Robertson adds gravitas, von Sydow is ice-cold, and Dunaway does her best with a role that’s not great. There’s an uncomfortable dynamic between her and Redford’s character that hasn’t aged well, which the script never really justifies. Still, the film’s charm, smarts, and suspense keep it ticking along nicely. A fun, tense thriller that doesn’t outstay its welcome.

I consider myself a fan of John Cassavetes, but Love Streams blew me away. There’s something utterly beautiful and honest at its core—the idea that it’s not enough to want to love someone; you have to be ready to be loved, too. That hit me in a way I wasn’t prepared for. It’s a film full of messiness and pain and not always easy to watch, but it’s also incredibly tender. Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands play estranged siblings—both on the edge in different ways—and their performances are breathtaking. Knowing that Cassavetes was seriously ill while making this and had been told he only had months to live just adds another emotional layer. The scene where Rowlands arrives with a cab full of animals—parakeets, ducks, horses!—and her total delight versus his deadpan reaction? One of the funniest and strangest things I’ve ever seen. Love streams, indeed.

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.