sex & drugs & rock & roll (2010)

"Keep your head up and try not to drown."
A biography of Ian Dury (Andy Serkis), who went from youthful polio victim expected to die, to fronting a number of influential pub rock bands in the early 70's and eventually no 1 selling artist. All whilst maintaining his uncompromising stance on life and music.
A complicated man, which this biog just about gets away with it, due to the sterling work of Serkis, but its lack of historical context fails to show how truly revolutionary Dury was.

legend of the werewolf (1975)

aka Plague of the Werewolves.
"The moon controls the ocean, and drives some men insane..."
His parents killed by wolves, the surviving boy is then brought up by them. He is then discovered by a traveling show and exhibited as a feral wolfboy until one full moon he turns and kills a member of the troupe. Now a murderer he flees to Paris, but his background is never far from his mind, especially when the moon is full.
This is essentially a re-version of an earlier Hammer film, Curse of the Werewolf, making use of many of Hammer's regulars, including Peter Cushing, and despite the limited budget, they give a good account. Though the poor Parisian setting looks too bright and clean for my liking.

what the butler saw (1950)

"Do you realise the scandal there will be in the country, when they realise that there is a native girl in the house."
Upper class family has their world turned upside down when an South Seas princess (Mercy Haystead) arrives to stay, as she is in love with the butler (Henry Mollison).
Comedy of manners whose time is long past.

the torture garden (1967)

"there is no end to man's inhumanity to man."
Portmanteau piece centered on a fair ground attraction, where Dr Diablo (Burgess Meredith) shows four curious punters their future, including Peter Cushing and Jack Palance.
As with most compendiums, we are presented with a mixture of stories, good, bad and indifferent, depending on your taste in horror.

attack of the eye creatures (1965)

aka The Eye Creatures. Attack Of The The Eye Creatures. (sic)
"Let's get out of here."
Stan Kenyon (John Ashley) and his girlfriend Susan Rogers (Cynthia Hull) are planning to elope. Unfortunately for them they stop at lovers lane first and spot something dodgy in the woods, some meandering aliens! Their troubles really start though when they accidentally run one of the creatures over, and make the mistake of telling the police. Obviously the police they are skeptical, and finding a man dead on the same road, do what any good cop would do, swiftly charge Stan with hit and run. Now Stan has two troubles, the cops and aliens loose in the woods!
Funny for all the wrong reasons; plot errors, lack of costumes and bad scripting. There is nothing left to chance by the producers in making sure this is one of those 'so bad it's bad' flicks.

what (1963)

aka The Whip And The Body. La frusta e il corpo.
"Kurt, you are not my son, you are a serpant."
A 19th Century nobleman (Christopher Lee) returns to the ancestral castle after years of wandering, and immediately sets about alienating his extended family. So much so that when he is subsequently found murdered, suspicion falls on all of them. Then his ghost is seen roaming...
Standard Gothic horror, with added sado-masochistic tendencies, and the visual flare that Bava brings to all his films.

lady terminator (1988)

aka Nasty Hunter. Terminator Woman. Shooting Star, Snake Terminator: The Snake Wench Dies Twice. The Revenge of the South Seas Queen.
"I'm not a lady, I'm an anthropologist."
Tanya (Barbara Anne Constable), a young anthropologist is possessed by the spirit of the South Sea queen, who uses her body to go on a killing spree.
Cheap, choppy, disjointed and sexed up rip-off of James Cameron's Terminator, with a frequently nude woman replacing the Austrian behemoth.

dick barton special agent (1948)

aka Dick Barton, Detective.
"'It's no use Rosemary, I can't stand it any longer, I'm going out to look for Dick!"
Dick Barton (Don Stannard) and his mates visit the seaside, but get annoyed when someone takes a pot shot at them. As this is not an unusual occurrence for Mr Barton the group continue on their holiday, but once they arrive at the fishing village they stumble on Nazi spy ring and obviously set about dismantling it.
Cheap and amateurishly produced boys own adventure from a fledgling Hammer. Fortunately for all they bucked up their ideas and eventually found that horror was the way forward.

the tenth victim (1965)

aka La decima vittima.
"Live dangerously, but within the law.",br/> Society has a new game to occupy it, a chase to the death involving a hunter and the victim. Win ten hunts, and ten as victim, and you win one million dollars. We join the story with two stars of the game, Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) and Caroline (Ursula Andress) are pitted against each other.
Shot through with Italian pop art style, this is a distillation of everything populist Italian films were all about in the 60's - camp, pulpy, and spacey, with beautiful women cavorting in futuristic fashions, to the slightest of stories.