Thriller

  • Eloy de la Iglesia – Nadie oyó gritar AKA No One Heard the Scream (1973)

    1971-1980Eloy de la IglesiaHorrorSpainSpanish cinema under FrancoThriller

    “No One Heard the Scream” is another terrific Spanish horror film from the troubled director Eloy de la Iglesia. The film stars two of his strongest performers, Carmen Sevilla (from de la Iglesia’s “The Glass Ceiling”) and Vincente Parra (from de la Iglesia’s “Cannibal Man”), and so with these two tried-and-true leads it is hard for this film to fail. While it is not as overtly frightening as the other two aforementioned films, “No One Heard the Scream” definitely has its moments. Sevilla plays a professional mistress who bids farewell to her older lover when she meets the handsome man next door (Parra); unfortunately for Sevilla, Parra has just murdered his wife.Read More »

  • Freddie Francis – The Skull (1965)

    1961-1970Freddie FrancisHorrorThrillerUnited Kingdom

    From Allmovie:
    Adapted from the Robert Bloch short story “The Skull of the Marquis de Sade,” this inventive gothic chiller from Amicus stars Peter Cushing as Professor Maitland, a collector obsessed with obtaining artifacts reputed to have occult powers — including the title object, believed to be from the crypt of the notorious French nobleman. Shortly after the Professor brings home his latest find, the skull begins making nightly rounds (the gliding camera peers through the eye sockets for the nifty “skull-cam” point-of-view shots) before eventally dominating Maitland’s will. Despite the potentially cheesy premise (which sounds better suited to a William Castle project), the film is remarkably subtle and spooky thanks to the deft hand of director Freddie Francis and an excellent performance from Cushing.Read More »

  • Clint Eastwood – Sudden Impact (1983)

    1981-1990ActionClint EastwoodThrillerUSA

    Quote:
    Clint Eastwood returns to his popular Dirty Harry character and directs himself in the role for the first time. The film starts with Harry leaving San Francisco at his superiors’ insistence and going to a small seaside town for a little peace and quiet. There he becomes embroiled in a series of brutal murders committed by a young artist, Jennifer Spencer (Sondra Locke). She and her sister were raped by a group of local men, including the police chief’s son, a few years back. The experience left Jennifer’s sister completely catatonic, and Jennifer herself is tormented by flashbacks. While Harry investigates the killings, he falls in love with Jennifer, not knowing that she is committing the murders. Sudden Impact is a disturbing film in which Eastwood examines the darker aspects of Dirty Harry and comes up with a brooding, grim drama that has a hauntingly ambiguous ending.Read More »

  • Jonathan Demme – Something Wild (1986)

    1981-1990ComedyJonathan DemmeThrillerUSA

    From Allmovie:
    A wildly inventive and entertaining comic nightmare from former Roger Corman prodigy Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), this screwball odyssey is a ride to remember. Jeff Daniels plays clean-cut New York bond trader Charlie Driggs, who accepts a ride home from a strange but attractive lower-class woman named Lulu (Melanie Griffith). The sexy Louise Brooks lookalike doesn’t take him home, but shanghais him for a bizarre roadtrip to Virginia that includes kinky bondage sex, destruction of property, and robbery. Things get stranger when Lulu tells Charlie that her real name is Audrey and takes him home to meet her mother, asking him to pose as her husband.Read More »

  • Jacques Tourneur – Experiment Perilous (1944)

    USA1941-1950Jacques TourneurRomanceThriller

    Dr. Hunt Bailey (George Brent) is fascinated by a portrait of breathtaking Allida Bedereaux (Hedy Lamarr) – and with the woman herself. Fragile and frightened, Allida confides to him that she and her young son are in great peril. Her husband (Paul Lukas) insists she is insane. And around them, people mysteriously die. Director Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, Out of the Past) brings his celebrated mastery of shadowy menace to this absorbing tale of madness and murder in an outwardly genteel world of wealth. Follow Dr. Bailey as he searches for the truth. And, like him, don’t believe everything you are told.Read More »

  • Cedric Sundstrom – The Shadowed Mind (1988)

    1981-1990African CinemaCedric SundstromHorrorSouth AfricaThriller

    Stephanie, arrives as a patient at a private clinic for sufferers of sexual dysfunction run by Dr Hildesheimer. Stephanie’s fellow patients all have their own issues including inhibition, neurosis, fixation, delusions etc. Stephanie begins a tentative affair with one of the other patients while a killer stalks the institution.Read More »

  • Stuart Heisler – Tokyo Joe (1949)

    1941-1950DramaStuart HeislerThrillerUSA

    An American returns to Tokyo try to pick up threads of his pre-WW2 life there, but finds himself squeezed between criminals and the authorities.Read More »

  • Werner Herzog – My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009) (HD)

    2001-2010DramaThrillerUSAWerner Herzog

    Quote:
    The police are called to a murder scene and quickly discover that the murderer, the victim’s son, is holed up in his house with two hostages. Through a series of interviews with both the murderer’s fiancée and his theatre director the police piece together a picture of a man losing touch with reality.Read More »

  • Phil Karlson – 99 River Street (1953)

    1951-1960Film NoirPhil KarlsonThrillerUSA

    Synopsis:
    Having lost his heavyweight championship match, boxer Ernie Driscoll now drives a taxi for a living and earns the scorn of his nagging wife, Pauline, who blames him for her lack of social status. Involved with jewel thief Victor Rawlins, Pauline is murdered by him when she impedes his ability to fence the jewels. Blamed for his wife’s murder, Ernie must track down Rawlins before he leaves the country.Read More »

Back to top button