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AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL – ‘Room Service’
It’s not an accident I haven’t written much about Liz Taylor (Denis O’Hare), the barkeep at the Hotel Cortez, so far in my reviews of American Horror Story: Hotel. The show has mostly kept Liz on the periphery of its many storylines, and I’ve been dreading what the show might have in store for a transgender…
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YOU, ME & THE APOCALYPSE – ‘Episode Six’
Well, excuse me while I get my breath back because that was quite an episode of You, Me & The Apocalypse! Everything kicked off this week as the revelations fell thick and fast. Fathers revealed themselves, grandmothers were unveiled, and there were strange hints at hidden links between many of our supposedly disparate bunch. In…
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BRAZIL (1985)
Bureaucracy on film is a subject that, for obvious reasons, has always been best approached by filmmakers working under authoritarian governments, specifically in Eastern European countries in the middle of the last century. But with 1985’s Brazil, Terry Gilliam reminded us that bureaucracy is as commonplace in the democratic West as it is anywhere else.…
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THE LEFTOVERS, 2.5 – ‘No Room at the Inn’
It’s time for Reverend Matt Jamison (Christopher Eccleston) to have his turn in the limelight, and my expectations were high because a favourite episode last season was the Matt-focused “Two Boats and a Helicopter”, which singlehandedly made me stick with The Leftovers in those early days when its gloomy vibe was proving a tough sell.…
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YOU, ME & THE APOCALYPSE – ‘Episode Five’
We’re at the halfway point in Iain Hollands’ inventive You, Me & The Apocalypse, and, perhaps understandably, this episode aimed to give everyone a chance to breathe, take stock, and see where our heroes are and where they’re all going. Which is another way of saying that it was a bit slower than the last…
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DOCTOR WHO, 9.7 – ‘The Zygon Invasion’
UNIT, eh? What are they like? Considering they’re one of Doctor Who’s last defences against all manner of alien incursions, they always seem to miss the obvious and disregard their training when alien blobs pretend to be their mothers. You just can’t get the staff. Writer Peter Harness, whose “Kill the Moon” split the jury…
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THE KNICK, 2.3 – ‘The Best With the Best to Get the Best’
Well, if there was any doubt at the end of the previous episode in regards to which way Dr. Thackery (Clive Owen) was going to go, the opening moments of “The Best With the Best to Get the Best” dispel it instantly. Thack is back on the crack, and prostitute Kate has a lot to…
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SPECTRE (2015)
To follow on from the billion-dollar box office success of 2012’s Skyfall must have been a bit of a daunting task for director Sam Mendes and his writers John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth. While Spectre doesn’t quite match the winning combination of psychological intensity and spectacular action of the previous Bond…
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AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL – ‘Devil’s Night’
In “Devil’s Night,” this week’s episode of American Horror Story: Hotel, James March (Evan Peters), the show’s spectral H.H. Holmes surrogate, invites the ghosts of other real-life serial killers to the hotel for his annual Halloween murder party. Wackiness ensues. I still have 560 words to go? Well, fine… This week’s episode mostly takes a break…
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6 HORROR FILMS TOO SCARY TO SEE TWICE
It’s Halloween this Saturday, so we’ve chosen 6 Horror Films Too Scary To See Twice. As the title suggests, not every film is a heartfelt recommendation for others to watch, but each one’s a film only those with nerves of steel should consider viewing this 31 October… 10 Rillington Place (1971, dir: Richard Fleischer) Paul…
