'The Assassin' (2015) – Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

Beautifully shot with consummate style, the exhilaratingly mounted martial arts sequences, and a no less luminous performance by Shu Gi as stealthy killer Nie Yinniang provides an uncommonly sumptuous feast for film fans. Hsiao-Hsien's dazzling, melancholic, rigorously engrossing feature's non-combative elements prove no less compelling, making this enchanting, visually exquisite film an absolute must-see event! As an avid, life-long, and some might say, overtly obsessive fan of Asian cinema, I found The Assassin to be both profoundly moving, and an especially potent endorphin booster! Spellbinding spectacle, tinged with tragedy, this is a remarkably refined film that is as meticulously executed as Yianniang's victims. On a more subjective note, I found the production design to be exquisite, not only the lavish interiors, but the rustic, magnificent-looking 9^th century agricultural dwellings.

 'Doctor Mordrid Master of The Unknown'. (1991) – Charles Band.

Creative genre alchemists Full Moon are one of the very few independents who so frequently created dazzling B-Movie gold from such pulpy base elements. The exciting escapist fantasy Doctor Mordrid Master of The Unknown finds mankind unaware that their reality is about to be utterly usurped by maniacal sorcerer Kabal (Brian Thompson), his demonic dominion courageously combated by heroic warlock Anton Mordrid (Jeffrey Combs). Ostensibly a brisk, boisterous battle of diametrically opposed wizards for big kids of all ages, Band's enormously likeable feature's Saturday morning serial/Rocket Man ethos is manifestly part of Doctor Mordrid Master of The Unknown's great charm. For me, this is one of Jeffrey Combs most overlooked performances, his electrifying confrontations with equally charismatic Thespian Brian Thompson are pure magic!

 'The Black Windmill' (1974) – Don Siegel.

In my youth I read a rather disparaging critique of Don Siegel's 'The Black Windmill', and while said individual manifestly has every right to express his low opinion, I, conversely, maintain a great appreciation of this exciting Michael Caine thriller. With maestro Siegel at the helm, the film-making is of an expectedly high standard, he has assembled an no less qualitative cast, and the sinister spy vs spy shenanigans are electrified by another exemplary Roy Budd score. Watching an inscrutable, credibly steely Caine forcefully extricate himself from these increasingly malign machinations, and rescue his beloved son still provides a generosity of knockabout thrills. One always has the palpable sense that his son is in gravest danger, generating genuine empathy, humanizing Caine's flinty, necessarily brutalist avenger. Siegel's fabulous 70s action/thriller looks resplendent on HD, as does Donald Pleasence's magnificently twitchy performance.

 House on the Edge of the Park (1980) – Ruggero Deodato.

Is House on the Edge of the Park a moral film? I think not. It hungrily wants its cake and eat it too. The exploited proletariat vs dilettantish bourgeoisie dynamic is merely a cynical ruse for a memorably brutal catharsis which suggests that privileged, equally vapid wasps enjoy the same capacity for fetishized cruelty as the prodigiously psychotic rapist Alex (David Hess). House on the edge of the Park is a perverse, darkly fascinating, gleefully sadistic exploitation gut-puncher, yet it is so consummately made, you can almost forgive director Deodato for being so bloody nasty! A hard film to love, but its ability to disturb remains undiminished, it must also be noted that David Hess exposes a pair of demonstratively magnificent buttocks.

'The Devil's Business' (2011) – Sean Hogan.

Ripe for rediscovery, The Devil's Business remains a tense, thrillingly unpredictable, darkly foreboding, palpably disturbing Brit-crime/horror hybrid with exhilarating eruptions of unleavened weirdness. A blackly funny, wholly credible, exceptionally well-made independent British horror film, The Devil's Business has an nihilistic, doomy ambience, with rigorously compelling performances. Frisson-hungry fans of equally skewed Brit-horror eccentricity like 'The Ghoul' 'Mum & Dad, and 'K-Shop' are sure to appreciate the no less Mephistophelean menaces lurking oppressively within 'The Devil's Business'. It is extraordinarily rare to discover a genre feature that commingles gritty crime and lurid folk horror tropes so adroitly. Sean Hogan's infernally creepy The Devil's business is a heady distillation of Stephen Frears The Hit and the weirder elementals of monster master Clive Barker.

 The Clinic (2011) – James Rabbitts.

This rewatchable Aussie horror finds a handsome road-tripping young couple fighting for their lives, trapped in an isolated outback dust-hole, which harbours an altogether sinister grottage industry. Violent, bloody, and rewardingly action-packed, The Clinic might just be the place to get your late night prescription of goosebumps filled! Performances are decent, with the distractingly beautiful bombshell Beth (Tabrett Bethell)providing a hugely sympathetic, gutsy glamour-puss protagonist. I wasn't always wholly convinced by the creepy clinic's macabre modus operandi, yet our voluptuous Valkyrie Beth's plucky heroism, the zippy pace, and robustly orchestrated terror tropes within the grimly appointed slaughterhouse/Clinic still proved compelling. While there is little doubt in my mind that the producers took liberties with the film's factual origins, I find a little fiction ultimately makes the truth that much more cinematic.

 Princes Aurora (2005) – Bang Eun-Jin.

An exhilarating, smartly made revenge thriller that has a sublime, increasingly heart-wrenching performance from Uhm Jung-Hwa as the grieving mother turned ruthless angel of death. Bang Eun-Jin's masterful Princess Aurora provides stylish, and frequently bloody entertainment. This adult, exceptionally fine genre film captivates due to the compelling performances, and an unusually gripping plot. It is rather uncommon for a relentlessly dark and brutal thriller to be so strongly replete with such an excess of pathos. This dazzling, profoundly immersive Korean thrill-fest remains an outstandingly cinematic treat, with a bravura, white-knuckled climax that I found utterly devastating.