Thriller

  • Clint Eastwood – Play Misty for Me (1971)

    USA1971-1980Clint EastwoodHorrorThriller

    Synopsis:
    Disc jockey Dave Garver (Clint Eastwood) attracts the amorous attentions of a demented fan named Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter). Evelyn lets Dave pick her up at a bar. Later at her apartment, Evelyn admits that she is the cooing caller who repeatedly asks Dave to play the Erroll Garner classic “Misty”. From then on, this movie is a lesson in how one casual date can turn your whole life around. Evelyn stalks Dave everywhere, ruins his business lunch, assaults his maid, mutilates his house and all of his belongings, and finally threatens to butcher his girlfriend Tobie Williams (Donna Mills). You’ll never be able to hear that song again without looking over your shoulder.Read More »

  • Guerdon Trueblood – The Candy Snatchers [+Extras] (1973)

    1971-1980ExploitationGuerdon TruebloodThrillerUSA

    Candy, a teenage heiress to a large fortune, is kidnapped by a trio of small time criminals on her way home from Catholic school. After burying her alive in an unmarked grave, the trio attempts to extort Candy’s father, a wealthy jeweler, for a hefty ransom. But what seemed like a simple, straightforward kidnapping soon spirals out of control with violent consequences and Candy’s only hope for survival is a young mute boy who knows where she is buried. Newly restored in 4k from the original camera negative.Read More »

  • Mike Hodges – Get Carter (1971)

    1971-1980CrimeMike HodgesThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    A vicious London gangster, Jack Carter, travels to Newcastle for his brother’s funeral. He begins to suspect that his brother’s death was not an accident and sets out to follow a complex trail of lies, deceit, cover-ups and backhanders through Newcastle’s underworld, leading, he hopes, to the man who ordered his brother killed. Because of his ruthlessness, Carter exhibits all the unstopability of the cyborg in The Terminator (1984), or Walker in Point Blank (1967), and he and the other characters in this movie are prone to sudden, brutal acts of violence.Read More »

  • Jerry Jameson – Brute Corps (1971)

    USA1971-1980ActionJerry JamesonThriller

    Synopsis:
    A Mexican camping trip turns into a nightmare when a group of vacationers crosses paths with mercenaries.Read More »

  • Richard C. Sarafian – Vanishing Point [Extended UK Cut] (1971)

    1971-1980ActionRichard C. SarafianThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    Kowalski works for a car delivery service. He takes delivery of a 1970 Dodge Challenger to take from Colorado to San Francisco, California. Shortly after pickup, he takes a bet to get the car there in less than 15 hours. After a few run-ins with motorcycle cops and highway patrol they start a chase to bring him into custody. Along the way, Kowalski is guided by Supersoul – a blind DJ with a police radio scanner. Throw in lots of chase scenes, gay hitchhikers, a naked woman riding a motorbike, lots of Mopar and you’ve got a great cult hit from the early 70’s.Read More »

  • Sydney Pollack – Three Days of the Condor (1975)

    1971-1980DramaSydney PollackThrillerUSA

    Quote:
    One of the most memorable paranoia thrillers of the 1970s, Sydney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor never loses its focus as a tense, compelling exercise in suspense. The plot rests on the premise that everyone with power is corrupt; Pollack and writers Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfiel keep the proceedings from devolving into the preposterous or unconvincing. True to form, Robert Redford represents the powerless, non-corrupt, masses as the film’s bookish CIA researcher Turner. Unlike some of the bleaker examples of the genre (1974’s The Parallax View), Redford’s character ultimately outwits the system and finds a way to fight the corruption, much as he would the following year in All the President’s Men. Redford’s charisma smoothes over some of Condor’s less-believable moments, and Sydney Pollack directs in the distinctively gloomy-but-lively style common to 1970s films. This was the fourth film on which the director and star teamed; they would continue to work together on movies such as 1986’s Out of Africa and 1990’s Havana. –Brendon HanleyRead More »

  • Pierre Granier-Deferre – Adieu, Poulet AKA The French Detective (1975)

    1971-1980CrimeFrancePierre Granier-DeferreThriller

    Synopsis:
    When political thugs murder an opponent’s volunteer and also kill a cop, chief inspector Verjeat believes the politician who hired them is as guilty as the murderous goon. Verjeat’s pursuit of the councilman, Lardatte, gets him a warning from his superiors. When he embarrasses Lardatte while disarming a hostage (the dead volunteer’s father), Verjeat is told he’s being transferred within a week. He speeds up his hunt for the goon and, with Lefévre, one of his young detectives, he engineers a complicated scheme to buy more time before the transfer. How should Verjeat play out his values of honor and duty?Read More »

  • Takashi Miike – Silver – shirubaa (1999)

    1991-2000CampJapanTakashi MiikeThriller

    Based upon the manga by Hisao Mali, Silver centres around the exploits of Jun Shirogane (Shinobu Kandori), a karate expert and undercover police officer who conventionally has also undergone FBI training in the US. After her family who worked for the Secret Service are brutally murdered, she agrees to infiltrate a group of criminals known as the ‘Viper’s Nest’. The fact that she is also a karate expert gives her an upper hand in the seedy world of wresting that she has to inhabit in order to mete out justice to her family’s killers, adopting the name of ‘Silver’ as her wresting alter-ego and undercover moniker. Standing in her way, is the beautiful but dangerous, Nancy, a dominatrix and part of the powerful Otsunami yakuza family. Will ‘Silver’ manage to escape the sadistic attentions of Nancy, who is and I quote ‘the most powerful and stimulating woman of her generation’ and take her revenge, or will she become just another masochistic plaything for deadly femme fatale?Read More »

  • Roman Polanski – Le Locataire aka The Tenant (1976)

    1971-1980MysteryRoman PolanskiThrillerUSA

    Director Roman Polanski casts himself in the lead of the psychological thriller The Tenant. Trelkovsky (Polanski) rents an apartment in a spooky old residential building, where his neighbors – mostly old recluses – eye him with suspicious contempt. Upon discovering that the apartment’s previous tenant, a beautiful young woman, jumped from the window in a suicide attempt, Trelkovsky begins obsessing over the dead woman. Growing increasingly paranoid, Trelkovsky convinces himself that his neighbors plan to kill him. He even comes to the conclusion that Stella (Isabel Adjani), the woman he has fallen in love with, is in on the “plot.” Ultimately, Polanski assumes the identity of the suicide victim – and inherits her self-destructive urges.Read More »

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