julie darling (1983)

"Daddy I never want to get married. I just wanna be with you."
Teenager Julie (Isabelle Mejias) is indulged by her father (Anthony Franciosa), but hates her mother. So much so that when her mother is attacked one day, she doesn't act to prevent her death. But then her planned happy life with her father gets interrupted by his haste to remarry, and she is soon planning another couple deaths for her step-mother (Sybil Danning) and her son...
Slow, and uninvolving.

L.A. Streetfighters (1985)

aka Los Angeles Streetfighter. Chinatown. Ninja Turf. L.A. Street Fighter.
"You are a much better student than he is."
Tony (Phillip Rhee) is a Korean immigrant to L.A. Upon starting high school he soon encounters the local gangs, and Young (Jun Chong). Young and Tony become friends, but the gang culture is never far away.
The oldest student in town, arrives in LA and gets involved in a Romeo and Juliet rip off, b-movie style: bad acting, worse script, and none existent direction.

death by dialogue (1983)

aka Evil Nightmare.
"I understand your concern, but I believe you are needlessly worrying yourself."
Lenny (Ken Sagoes) takes four friends to visit his uncle, who happens to live with his housekeeper on an old movie set, and soon people start dieing in the same way as indicated in an old film script one of the friends finds.
Cheap, stupid and cheesy, screams straight to video 80's mush.

escape by night (1964)

aka Clash By Night.
"They'll have to know now, it'll be in the papers."
A prisoner transport is hijacked by a gang trying to free a gang boss. Whilst he makes off, the others are locked in a barn, and threatened that if they try to escape the place will be set on fire. Salvation may come in the form of the police, who having found the escaped prisoner dead, are trying to find the missing bus and its passengers.
Low budget thriller, that replays all the usual clichés, (and actors, inc Terence Longdon, Peter Sallis, Harry Fowler, & Alan Wheatley), but still entertains despite its flaws.

mishima: a life in four chapters (1985)

"Your skin is so beautiful, I just had to cut it."
A fictionalized account in the life of celebrated Japanese writer Yukio Mishima (Ken Ogata), paralleling his life with his novels, and ending on his final day, when in an attempt to return Japan to its pre-war status with the emperor as head of state, ultimately ending in him committing seppuku.
Driven by the beautiful direction and Philip Glass's score, this is a complex and stunning dramatisation on the writers complicated life.

bloody friday (1972)

aka Blutiger Freitag. Violent Offender.
"We are all going to make a lot of money."
Violent bank robber Heinz Klett (Raimund Harmstorf) escapes from police custody, and immediately starts planning his next bank robbery. But despite his planning the robbery turns into a siege with hostages. Outside, the police attempt to put together the ransom, whilst trying to deal with the media circus. Inside, the tension mounts and squabbles break out...
Violent exploitation fare, that works well with what it has.

single room furnished (1966)

"cuse me! Just want to live a little."
The story of how a innocent girl called Johnnie (Jayne Mansfield) who marries but her young husband looses interest and disappears. Alone, she changes her name to Mae, but falls for a man using a false identity, and becomes pregnant. So Mae becomes Eileen, a good time girl, completing her unwitting decent from innocence to hard bitten...
Jayne Mansfield's last film, sees her in a downbeat and overlong kitchen sink drama.

the omen (2006)

aka The Omen 666.
"This is for you, Damien! All of this is for you!"
Richard Thorne (Liev Schreiber), an American ambassador in London, is initially concerned about his wife (Julia Stiles) and her relationship with their son Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick). Confronted by a priest (Pete Postlethwaite), he rejects the clerics assertion that Damien is the son of the devil, but when the priest dies horrifically, Thorne finally starts to accept that his wife and the priest may have been right.
A weak cast, and (if you've seen the original), a predictable plot, lessens the enjoyment of this otherwise fine film.

holocaust 2000 (1977)

aka Lucifer's Curse. Rain of Fire.
"There has to be a rational explanation."
Robert Caine (Kirk Douglas) is an executive building a nuclear power plant in the Middle East. If that wasn't enough trouble for him, he starts to believe that his son (Simon Ward) is the Anti Christ and is planning on using the power plant to wipe out mankind.
Confused horror, that lacks any kind of shocks, and is a sad pastiche of The Omen.

drowning by numbers (1988)

"You women are getting too proficient at this."
Cissie Colpitts (Joan Plowright) drowns her husband having tired of his adulatory. With the help of the coroner, the murder is covered up. But her daughters (Juliet Stevenson & Joely Richardson) are having similar problems and are soon looking at their mother's example as a way out.
Classic 80's art house, that is as beautiful as it is convoluted.

mysteries (1978)

aka Evil Mysteries. Knut Hamsun's Mysteries
"I am a stranger here, I have lost my way."
A wealthy stranger called Johan Nagel (Rutger Hauer), turns up in a remote town. He befriends Midget (David Rappaport), who narrates the tale, and becomes romantically linked with an engaged women, Dany (Sylvia Kristel), but the longer he is in town, the more erratic his behaviour becomes.
Uninvolving romantic drama.