'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.

 'Ghoulies' (1985) – Luca Bercovici.

In the splatter-soaked 80s, there was a vogue for malevolent horror homunculi: Gremlins, Dolls, Child's Play, The Gate, Ratman, Puppet Master, The Munchies, Critters, Troll, with, perhaps, the grodiest B-Movie boogers of the bunch being those diminutively demonic, satanically spawned, Toilet Ducking devils Ghoulies. I still mightily dig on Ghoulies, and to a lesser degree, the increasingly diminished sequels. Acclaimed practical FX maestro John Buechler's memorably man-baiting imps remain the unequivocal stars of the show, palpitating redhead Lisa Pelikan is excellent, and Michael Des Barre's grandstanding, deliciously camp necromancer is a scenery scoffing delight! My sole quibble, and it's only the merest quibble-ette, it would have been jolly nice to have a few more scenes with the fascinatingly charismatic Jack Nance.

 Galaxy of Terror (1981) – Bruce Clark.

As much as it pains me terribly to say this aloud, Galaxy of Terror is a much better creature feature than Creepozoids. There, I finally said it, and I will simply have to learn to make the necessary adjustments. Galaxy of Terror remains an outstanding, spooktacularly watchable B picture! Technically quite brilliant, with a dazzlingly celestial cast, blood-curdlingly eerie space beasties, a brain twisted plot, plus a groovily weird beard, deliriously Dark Star'd climax. This especially sinister trek into space madness is one only those already terminally infected with space madness who couldn't appreciate. If D&D had produced a thrillingly grisly, luridly Lovecraftian, sinisterly spaced-out SF edition it just might resemble far-flung fear fantasy Galaxy of Terror. Set phasers to stunning, this terrifying trip into the bleakest outer limits of the cosmos is certainly not to be missed!

'Dead and Rotting' (2002) - David P. Barton.

'Do you know what happens when you are dead and rotting? your putrid botty falls off and your grotty gizzards start clotting!'

3 boozy blue collar stiffs fatally find themselves on the business end of a witches broomstick in goofily ghoulish indie splatter 'Dead and Rotting'. This mostly doable, unrepentantly schlock-tastic, cheerfully cheapnis B-Horror brain-melter just might cast a spell over the more Tromatized, psychotronically-inclined trash humpers. With affable performances, cornball repartee, and hokey Ghost Train theatrics, I enjoyed this bargain bin grin more than I expected. Surprisingly, Dead and Rotting doesn't stink, but it might, perhaps, remain somewhat of an acquired taste.

Armageddon (1997) – Tibor Takács.

Tibor Takacs entertainingly pulpy Sci-actioner finds dastardly Kung Fu villain Mark Dacascos and coolly ambivalent mercenary Hauer locking horns within some grimly futuristic totalitarian Soviet state that eerily resembles contemporary Russia. Formula text is thankfully enlivened by plentiful, generously be-squibbed gun-play, energized performances, rewardingly frequent fisticuffs and an entirely welcome excess of fleshly fabulous T&A. As always, sleekly powerhouse pugilist Mark Dacascos excitingly delivers some nimble martial art beat-downs, and the ruggedly charismatic icon Rutger Hauer endows these bombastic cyberpunk shenanigans with far more gravitas than they deserve. I still dig this spunky 90s shoot 'em up, and I'm fairly certain that a few other action/Rutger Hauer fans may well share my positive impression of Armageddon. 

 Cold & Dark (2005) – Andrew Goth.

A vicious, recently demonized cop (Kevin Howarth) rampages bloodily amok in Andrew Goth's not entirely harmonious admixture of splattery horror and gritty UK crime thriller. Notable points of interest include Clinty Squinty Good Guy cop Luke Goss's distractingly protuberant nipples, Kevin Howarth's splendidly spiffy leather jacket, plus a delightfully impish Matt Lucas, who appears to have giddily Twilight Zoned in from Garth Merenghi's Dark Place! Performances are generally credible, with amusing lapses into chucklesome goofiness. Pace is fairly lively, the stolid text is okay-ish, sporadically enlivened by a number of unintentional howlers. This mostly entertaining conflation of Baphomet and Bergerac is certainly not without interest to the more avid Brit-horror fans looking for a skewed alternative to yet another formulaic slice & dicer. For all its awkwardness, I still greatly enjoyed Cold & Dark's laudable attempts at grisly idiosyncrasy.

 McVickar (1980) – Tom Clegg.

'Steely Shotgun thief John McVickar had a deadly, double-barrelled willy that sent all them dishy Dolly Birds giddy! Banged up inside the nick, he propah drove them screws crazy, never lazy, not one to shirk, McVickar put that monster tool to work, punched an f'n hole in the shower-room wall, took off for the smoke, and 'ad 'imself an f'n ball!!!!'

 Unborn but forgotten. (2002) – Chang jae-Lim.

I remain an avid fan of this creepy, exceedingly well-made Korean chiller. Appreciably light in gore, it has undeniable pathos, strong performances, a persuasively unsettling atmosphere, and the increasingly queasy narrative about wickedly warped wombs climaxes dramatically in satisfyingly sinister fashion.

'This-That-and the Other' aka 'A Promise of Bed'. (1969)

– Derek Ford.

Prolific low-budget smut-slinger Derek Ford's mostly amiable farce might prove to be a wee bit meagre in the rampant nookie department for the more actively degenerated Sinophile. Ford's film-making aesthetic is often crude, luridly garlanded with an occasionally giddy swathe of ersatz psychedelia to add some much-needed visual pizazz. Cast performances prove exuberant, rather than nuanced, while Ford's text is unforgivably flaccid, the consistently lively score remains engagingly buoyant throughout. For all the narrative inanities, Derek Ford's tremulously titillating triptych is fabulously festooned with top tier totty like tantalizing telly temptress Alexandra Bastedo, gamine crumpet Vanessa Howard, and voluptuously vulpine vamp Yutte Stensgaard. The stridently 70s grooviness is absurdly contrived, happily making 'This-That-and the Other' aka 'A Promise of Bed' all the more Kitschy delicious! Recidivist Tadger Tuggers, wanton wang whackers, jaded Jizz lizards, salacious slap n' ticklers, craven knob Jockies and spunky monkeys aught to give it at least 10cc's of their boggle-eyed attention.

Taxi Hunter (1993) – Herman Yau.

Once again, high wattage, HK legend Anthony Wong is on bravura, blood-spattered form in his thrillingly violent exploitation classic 'Taxi Hunter'. Following the brutal murder of Ah Kin's (Anthony Wong)adored wife, its hunting season on the sordid backstreets of Hong Kong, and no sleazily conniving cabbie is safe from his increasingly demented, Taxi Driver destroying wrath! Fare warning!!! Herman Yau's boisterously bullet-shredded Taxi Hunter remains a full-tilt, wickedly Wong-headed freak out, entertainingly replete with plentiful, exuberantly constructed, cabbie crippling Cat III carnage!