Sexuality | Cagey Films

A zombie romance, Nazis vs vampire, and sex and death in a Manhattan highrise from Vinegar Syndrome

Posted on March 5, 2025March 2, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

With the end of my Vinegar Syndrome subscription, I’ll be getting a lot fewer disks from them this year, but there are still a few leftovers from last year to consider – I won’t miss things like Phillip Noyce’s Sliver (1993), but without the subscription I might never have seen Fred Burnley’s romantic-horror oddity Neither the Sea Nor the Sand (1972). Only a brand-new 4K restoration of Michael Mann’s flawed second feature, The Keep (1943), gives me a twinge of regret. Still, although I’ll have to be much more judicious about ordering without the subscription, hopefully there’ll be other interesting releases like this in the future.

Fall 2024 viewing round-up, part five

Posted on December 18, 2024December 18, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

John Carradine can't believe what he's gotten himself into in Oliver Drake's The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals (1969)

Yet more notes on recent viewing, featuring horror – both high and low end – some documentaries and action movies, gritty realism and slick fantasy … eclectic and somewhat random.

The 5th Hong Kong International Film Festival, part nine

Posted on December 14, 2024December 14, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

An office drone (Donald Sumpter) suspects that his life isn't what it seems in Paul Bamborough's The Tom Machine (1980)

In this, the longest section of my notes from the Fifth Hong Kong International Film Festival, I cover the English-language films from Britain, Australia and the U.S., which include documentaries, mainstream movies, films about sexuality and toxic chauvinism, class conflict and ennui.

Grindhouse rediscovery: Christina Hornisher’s Hollywood 90028 (1973)

Posted on October 30, 2024November 1, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Working in the darkroom, Mark (Christopher Augustine) seems to be trapped in Hell in Christina Hornisher’s Hollywood 90028 (1973)

Grindhouse Releasing have done a stellar job of resurrecting a little-known low-budget exploitation movie from the early ’70s. Set on the fringes of the film business in Los Angeles, Hollywood 90028 (1973) was the only feature directed by Christina Hornisher who approached the story of a homicidal film cameraman with the cool detachment of a European director and an emphasis on the experience of women being exploited by the industry.

Pete Walker, master of British exploitation

Posted on October 23, 2024October 25, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

The threat to Marianne (Susan George) comes from inside her family in Pete Walker's Die Screaming, Marianne (1971)

Two new box sets from 88 Films provide an opportunity to re-visit the work of Pete Walker, arguably the best exploitation filmmaker working in England from the late-’60s to the end of the ’70s. The Flesh and Blood Show collects the seven horror movies which are his best-known work, while the Pete Walker Sexploitation Collection includes his first playful features which grew out of years of making sex loops as well as his final film of the ’70s in which the sex takes on a much darker tone.

Tod Solondz’s Happiness (1998): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on September 18, 2024September 16, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Bill Maplewood (Dylan Baker) has a frank talk about sex with his son Billy (Rufus Read) in Tod Solondz's Happiness (1998)

The cultural climate has changed in the quarter-century since the theatrical release of Tod Solondz’s second feature and it’s virtually impossible to imagine Happiness (1998) being made today. Controversial at the time, it seems even more explosive now. Its comedy of dysfunctional relationships is still pertinent, but its cool, even empathetic treatment of paedophilia and mass shootings forces the audience to engage in ways which bypass habitual responses and recognize the human element in monsters.

Sophie Compton & Reuben Hamlyn’s Another Body (2023): deep-fake porn and stolen identity

Posted on April 17, 2024April 13, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

It's impossible to trust the reality of what you see on-line in Sophie Compton & Reuben Hamlyn's Another Body (2023)

Sophie Compton & Reuben Hamlyn’s Another Body (2023) is an unsettling documentary which is also a horror movie and a detective story; when a college student discovers that she’s a victim of deep-fake revenge porn and that the legal authorities can’t/won’t do anything about it, she sets about tracking down the identity of her victimizer – which takes her to really disturbing corners of the Internet – and regains some control over her own identity.

Lost films and alternative histories

Posted on January 31, 2024February 11, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

A cultured ape (Zain Rahnat) teaches life lessons in Donn Greer's The Rare Blue Apes of Cannibal Isle (1975)

Film restoration is usually seen as an effort to preserve the canon, but there are vast areas of film history which may be less reputable, but still represent significant aspects of the past century’s most popular art form. In their recent six-disk, ten-movie set Lost Picture Show, Vinegar Syndrome highlight their own efforts to unearth and give new life to cheap, obscure, frequently disreputable examples of movies made far from the mainstream – sex. violence, politics and an occasional talking animal are on display in this ragged, sometimes enlightening, sometimes frustrating collection.

Murder, mayhem, sex and madness from Arrow

Posted on July 27, 2022July 26, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

The respectable doctor finds ecstasy in unrestrained violence in Gérard Kikoïne’s Edge of Sanity (1989)

Two new Arrow releases – and one older one – plunge into sexual confusion, insecurity, violence and romantic longing: Robert Day’s TV movie The Initiation of Sarah (1977) riffs on themes from Stephen King’s Carrie; Gérard Kikoïne’s Edge of Sanity (1989) gives Anthony Perkins a chance to unleash his inner demons in a career-topping dual performance as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; and Kathleen Turner is fearless as a businesswoman who moonlights as a prostitute inspires romantic passion in one man and murderous passion in another, the latter another ferocious, jittery performance from Anthony Perkins.

The low-budget art of Edgar G. Ulmer

Posted on July 6, 2022August 11, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Enid Elliot (Margaret Field) has a close encounter in Edgar G. Ulmer's The Man from Planet X (1951)

A pair of recent Blu-rays from Kino Lorber bookend the career of “King of the Bs” Edgar G. Ulmer, who began his off-Hollywood career with a social issues drama about syphilis called Damaged Lives (1933) and ended it with a pair of cheap sci-fi movies, The Amazing Transparent Man and Beyond the Time Barrier (both 1960), with one of the highlights between being The Man from Planet X (1951), the latter three included in KL’s Edgar G, Ulmer Sci-Fi Collection triple-bill.

Tag: Sexuality