Thriller

The ghost of a murdered woman possesses a dancer’s body in order to exact vengeance on her killer.

Light Industry wrote:
A rarity unearthed from Harvard’s vaults, Fred Tan’s Split of the Spirit is a macabre tale of supernatural possession, necromantic battles, and the vengeful phantom of a woman scorned. In Tan’s stylish neo-noir thriller, a renowned female choreographer becomes overtaken by the specter of a murdered woman, who forces her to enact revenge upon the men who have wronged her. After a string of gruesome slayings, the film culminates in a searing conflagration, an allegorical avant-garde dance finale, and ultimately an Orphic journey to the afterworld and back. Tan worked as an assistant director to King Hu and made only three features before his death at age thirty-five; placing the forces of ancient sorcery in contemporary Taiwan and Hong Kong, he deploys an ominous synth soundtrack and an expressive, haunting mise-en-scène to bring primeval frights into the modern world.Read More »

Description:
This Low Budget neo-noir crime thriller involves Johnny, a hitman (Brad Rijn), whose contract hit on a gangland rival is witnessed by a three year old boy, playing in his backyard. Johnny’s initial motivation to “eliminate” the one witness to the crime (under orders of his mob boss) becomes conflicted by his growing romantic involvement with the boy’s mother, Sally (Anne Carlisle).Read More »

DIRECTIONS is a road movie through the dystopia that is present day Bulgaria, a country that remains optimistic, mainly because all the realists and pessimists have left.

At a meeting with his banker, a small business owner, who drives a cab to make ends meet, discovers the bribe he will have to pay to get a loan has doubled. The ethics board that reviewed his complaint about extortion now wants its share of the action. At his wit’s end, he shoots the banker and then himself.

The incident sparks national debate on talk radio about how despair has taken over civil society. Meanwhile, six taxi drivers and their passengers move through the night, each in hope of finding a brighter way forward. “Read More »

Synopsis:
Oft-filmed black-and-white thriller of coincidence or inexorable fate based on the popular play by W.W. Jacobs. The Monkey’s Paw was filmed at Kay Carlton Hill Studios at St Johns Wood in London by low-budget producers Butchers. Despite its atmospheric finale amid the thunder and rain, the films expectant chills fail to materialise leaving only a tale of morality.

A curio shop owner sells a monkey’s paw an antiques dealer (Sydney Tafler) that can grant three wishes, but warns it has its drawbacks and tragedy follows each wish. The paw comes into the possession of Irish shopkeeper Trelawne (Milton Rosmer) who needs to pay off his gambling debts. As a consequence his son Tom is killed in a speedway race; the compensation pays the debt. Mrs Trelawne (Megs Jenkins) wishes her son back to life but her husband counters this by wishing he rest in peace.Read More »

Synopsis:
Balancing between feverish dreamlike hallucinations of a tormented past and a grim disoriented reality, the grizzled Joe–a traumatised Gulf War veteran and now an unflinching hired gun who lives with his frail elderly mother–has just finished successfully yet another job. With an infernal reputation of being a brutal man of results, the specialised in recovering missing teens enforcer will embark on a blood-drenched rescue mission, when Nina, the innocent 13-year-old daughter of an ambitious New York senator, never returns home. But amidst half-baked leads and a desperate desire to shake off his shoulders the heavy burden of a personal hell, Joe’s frenzied plummet into the depths of Tartarus is inevitable, and every step Joe takes to flee the pain, brings him closer to the horrors of insanity. In the end, what is real, and what is a dream? Can there be a new chapter in Joe’s life when he keeps running around in circles?Read More »

Synopsis:
When his wife, also working for the the police, but in a different department, is being brutally murdered, a police officer begins to investigate the case on his own. Soon he has the hitwoman, who did it arrested, but must find out that things are not as easy as he thought. He has knocked at the wrong door and it turns out that the woman he has hold of may be his only ally.Read More »

Quote:
Fresh, funny, and filled with typically Hitchcockian suspense, The 39 Steps fully demonstrates the director’s unshaken status as a cinematic master. Based on the 1915 novel by John Buchan, this quickly paced adaptation follows Richard Hannay (played by the sublime Robert Donat) through one dangerous adventure after another and simultaneously tracks his romantic relationship with Pamela (Madeleine Carroll).

Like many Hitchcock characters, Hannay is singled out for no apparent reason, wrongly accused of a crime, and caught up in a world of intrigue and danger. It slowly dawns on Hannay that he is among such diabolical forces, and that he must struggle to survive. This scenario often recurs in the director’s work, notably in Strangers on a Train, The Wrong Man, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and The Man Who Knew Too Much (both versions). Through this theme of “the wrong man,” Hitchcock meditates on the issue of human identity and the related issue, in film, of human distinctiveness. He, also through this theme, contemplates what it means to be thrown into the world of a Hitchcock film. Death and exposure to being viewed are among the consequences, or risks, that human beings (characters, actors) face in his universe.Read More »

IMDB quote:
The story follows a filmmaker whose life is sent into a tailspin by the return of a former lover just as he is about to embark on the shoot of a new film.Read More »

The Original Masterpiece of Revenge, Confrontation and Murder!

Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum star in Hollywood’s classic tale of revenge and murder. Robert Mitchum is unforgettable as Max Cady, an ex-con determined to exact a terrible revenge on Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) and his family.

Sam is a small-town lawyer whose worst nightmare comes true when the criminal he helped put away returns to stalk his beautiful young wife (Polly Bergen) and teenage daughter (Lori Martin). Despite help from the local police chief (Martin Balsam) and a private detective (Telly Savalas), Sam is legally powerless to keep Max from playing his sadistic game of cat and mouse. Finally, Sam must put his family’s lives at stake in a deadly trap that leads to one of the most suspenseful and heart-pounding confrontations ever committed to film.

Director J. Lee Thompson builds tension with each scene leading to a deadly showdown at Cape Fear. This is truly a masterpiece of shock and suspense. Read More »