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STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING (1972)
A timid, withdrawn woman meets a man she believes is finally the love of her life, unaware that he is a vicious serial killer.
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THE X-FILES, 11.4 – ‘The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat’
Darin Morgan was always a name to look out for in the credits of 1990s The X-Files, having penned many of the show’s funniest and most successful hours. He singlehandedly invented the ‘comedy episodes’ the series occasionally indulging in, even after he left. An Emmy-winning contributor during his time on the series, it was always a…
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TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER (1976)
An occult novelist battles to save the soul of a young girl from a group of Satanists, led by an excommunicated priest, who plan on using her as the representative of the Devil on Earth…
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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, 1.12 – ‘Vaulting Ambition’
A great magic trick is all about misdirection. While many had spotted the groundwork going into Star Trek: Discovery’s mid-season twist (that Ash Tyler is actually Voq), most people missed the second one “Vaulting Ambition” unleashed. Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs) is actually from the Mirror Universe, so his questionable morals weren’t because he’s a tough…
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DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE (1971)
A Victorian scientist tests a serum that transforms him into a sensuous murderess.
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BLACK MIRROR, 4.6 – ‘Black Museum’
This final episode was longer than usual, although there were less feature-length instalments compared to the last series. “Black Museum” reminded me of 2014’s excellent “White Christmas” special, as it likewise told three stories interlinked by an enigmatic figure at the centre of things. It didn’t do this anywhere near as succinctly, but it was…
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THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1970)
When a bored Holmes eagerly takes the case of Gabrielle Valladon after an attempt on her life, the search for her missing husband leads to Loch Ness and the legendary monster.
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THE X-FILES, 11.3 – ‘Plus One’
Chris Carter delivers his first decent X-Files script in years, by doing something that doesn’t involve the tangled mythology and was instead a simple paranormal mystery. Stories like “Plus One” were very common in the 1990s, but in 2018 it feels retro seeing Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate the “evil twin” cliche.…
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COCO (2017)
Aspiring musician Miguel, confronted with his family’s ancestral ban on music, enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, a legendary singer…
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BLACK MIRROR, 4.5 – ‘Metalhead’
Episode 5 is a bit of a departure for the current series of Black Mirror and feels more like a standalone short movie. Within minutes of the opening, we’ve settled into the beautiful black-and-white world and forgotten about all that superfluous colour. The choice of monochrome harks back to post-war British sci-fi cinema and the…
