Modesty Blaise (1966)
May 1, 2006Female Super Thief/Comic Book Adaptation
The classic British comic-book about a smart female thief is turned into a copy of the James Bond films that goes for excruciating camp excess
Harry Andrews
The Nightcomers (1971)
Feb 3, 2001The Turn of the Screw Prequel
Michael Winner makes a prequel to the classic, multiply filmed psychological ghost story The Turn of the Screw but erases all the ambiguity in his clodding and unsubtle direction
Night Hair Child (1972)
Apr 25, 2023Psychopathic Child
Quite a perversely charged film about a psychopathic child with voyeuristic tendencies
Burke & Hare (1972)
Oct 20, 201619th Century Grave Robbers
One of several film versions of the story of the 19th Century grave robbers Burke and Hare, made at the height of the Anglo-horror cycle. While reasonably accurate to the facts, the story is sidetracked by softcore happenings at a brothel
Theater of Blood (1973)
Nov 5, 2000Mad Shakespearean Actor's Revenge
Following on from the success of the Dr Phibes films, Vincent Price is cast as a mad Shakespearean actor who employs comically grotesque deaths from Shakespeare's plays to kill his critics
The Final Programme (1974)
Sep 23, 2000Spy Capers in an Entropic Future/Michael Moorcock Adaptation
Michael Moorcock's psychedelic adventurer hero Jerry Cornelius gets a disappointing film adaptation here. There are imaginative sets but the plot plays out as a pedestrian spy thriller
The Blue Bird (1976)
Oct 28, 2014Fairy-Tale
A ghastly fairytale adaptation. Classic Hollywood director George Cukor took several stars to shoot in the Soviet Union and the results look like a badly choreographed amateur pantomime, lacking in any essential whimsy
Watership Down (1978)
Apr 7, 2003Animation/Talking Rabbit Quest
Neglected today, this adaptation of Richard Adams' classic novel about a quest among rabbits was one of the finest animated films of its era. This is frequently heartbreaking and touches on darker emotions that Disney and most other family films regularly sanitise.
The Medusa Touch (1978)
Sep 16, 2005Psychic Powers
Film in which hospital patient Richard Burton seems able to will terrible things to happen with psychic powers
The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb (1980)
May 8, 2018"True Story" of the Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb
TV movie about the historical discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter that inflates the tabloid notion there was a curse and so distorts the historical record that it more properly enters the realm of fantasy
Jack the Ripper (1988)
Oct 27, 2013Jack the Ripper Killings/TV Mini-Series
TV mini-series made to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Jack the Ripper killings. The publicity claimed to uncover new evidence and, while the show adheres more to the facts of the case of any filmed work up to that point, the script only makes a beeline for the sensationalistic aspects and should more properly be considered fiction