Dementia 13 (1963)
Jan 31, 2003Psycho-Thriller
The second film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, a psycho-thriller made for Roger Corman where Coppola shows the glimmerings of style that made him a major director a decade later
Patrick Magee
The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
Feb 9, 2000Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation
The seventh of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations and usually the best regarded. Vincent Price is at his most cruel and the film looks incredibly sumptuous thanks to a young Nicolas Roeg on camera
Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)
Aug 9, 2000Medium/Kidnap Thriller
Standout thriller with Kim Stanley as a medium who fakes a child kidnapping with husband Richard Attelborough to prove her powers
Die, Monster, Die! (1965)
Jun 30, 2001H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation/Mutations
Adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space, directed by Roger Corman's production designer Daniel Haller that draws on the look and mood of Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films
The Fiend (1971)
Nov 8, 2004Religiously-Repressed Psycho
British-made film with Tony Beckley as a sexually repressed psycho raised in a religious cult who goes out and kills women. The film seems more interested in the sexploitation elements than it does in the psycho elements
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
May 3, 2001Future Thugs/Brainwashing
One of the key films by Stanley Kubrick, centred around ultra-violent thugs in a near-future setting. Everybody was outraged at Kubrick choreographing scenes of violence to classical music but the film has a considerable brilliance and very dark sense of humour
Tales from the Crypt (1972)
Feb 18, 2001Horror Anthology/Comic-Book Adaptation
Amicus adapts several stories from the notorious EC Comics as one of their anthology films. Missing is EC's black humour but this is a worthwhile Amicus anthology
Asylum (1972)
Apr 1, 2002Horror Anthology
One of the best of the horror anthologies from UK’s Amicus Films. This adapts four stories from Robert Bloch, which are all tales told by the inmates of the titular asylum and settle in with chill effectiveness
Demons of the Mind (1972)
Dec 16, 2000Family Madness and Victorian Psychology/Hammer Film
This is one of the rare failures from Hammer Films, a not uninteresting work set during the early era of 19th Century psychology and directed with some vivid effect
… And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)
Jan 6, 2005Haunted House/Supernatural Retribution
Amicus Films venture into the haunted house genre with a newlywed Stephanie Beacham haunted by a disembodied hand but atmosphere is weakened by the constant reaching for crude shock effect
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 Monster Club (1980)
Dec 6, 2002Horror Anthology
Following the collapse of Amicus Films, producer Milton Subotsky went on on his own to make this horror anthology, the bread and butter of Amicus in their heyday. Though he brings in some major horror names – Vincent Price, John Carradine – the jokey tone failed to find any success
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980)
Jun 1, 2015Surrealism
Surreal and plotless British film based on a radio show about the happenings around a country mansion
The Black Cat (1981)
Apr 9, 2000Black Cat Murders/Italian Horror
One of the films from cult Italian director Lucio Fulci. This has almost nothing to do with the Edgar Allan Poe story. With Fulci’s trademark gore sequences tamed, there is not much else for the film to fall back on
Dr Jekyll and His Women (1981)
Dec 18, 2012Erotic Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Adaptation
Retelling of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde from cult Euro erotica director Walerian Borowczyk. Not quite the erotic retelling one expects, this nevertheless conducts some radical revisions