It took me a while to get my bearings with Matador, and that's even for someone who has seen quite a few early Almodovar films. I was a little confused about the tone - basically, I didn't understand what this movie was trying to be. The answer to that question, as it turns out, is like nothing else you will have seen - Matador is a very singular and unique film.

To call it an Almodovarian take on the giallo…

Even in a subgenre rife with shoddy, cheap productions and exploitative storylines, Mat Cimber's The Candy Tangerine Man feels shoddy, cheap and exploitative. I'm not going to argue that it's a finely crafted film in any way, shape or form. But it's a hell of a lot of fun.

It revels in its sleaziness - peppered with sadistic (yet not particularly convincingly realised) violence, casual misogyny and crude humour. And I'm fine with that because what else is this movie…

Point of clarification: despite my high rating, this is not a well made movie in any way, shape or form. I rate stuff based on how much I enjoy it. I know some people think enjoying movies "ironically" (as our American cousins call it) is puerile. OK but... Cruel Jaws is fucking hilarious, so I don't care!

And it's not as if all cinematic ineptitude is funny. Believe you me, as a genre and especially horror completist, I have seen…

I suppose there's nothing here that would leap out at the casual viewer - someone who was perhaps not the biggest fan of the first Ringu remake and so went into this without bags of good will. It's narratively a bit loose and wonky too - certainly not without its flaws - and yet I found myself warming to The Ring Two almost instantly and was pleasantly engaged in the entire film.

Partly this is down to the quality of…

Hooptober6 – mosQuito-thewinged-dragon-serpent #81

Rule 5: Films featuring the work of Carlo Rambaldi - second of two movies

I don't really know where to start when talking about Alien. I just think it's one of the greatest horror movies ever made - some might think it's over-rated, and that's fine because my love for this is a pretty subjective thing. I've always been a sci-fi nerd as much as a horror nerd (I'm ambinerdstrous) - so this movie just captured…

I committed a bit of a faux-pas. A friend of mine said he wanted to have a movie night and he suggested Blade Runner because it's his favourite movie. I'm not going to say no to watching Blade Runner, but I suggested a Philip K Dick double feature, with Total Recall as the B movie. Problem is, I sent him an Outlook calendar invite titled "Dickfest" which triggered an alarm in his work's security software and gave his wife a…