Watching Knock Knock, I got the distinct feeling of being told “do as I say, not as I do”. Such hypocrisy is always irritating, and in this context director Eli Roth seems to think he can pile on loads of sleazy misogynist exploitation, then have the film lecture the viewer about misogyny, paedophilia, child abuse and infidelity with superficial pretentions of serious feminist subtext.

I generally avoid Roth’s movies, but on this occasion I heard he had attempted something more along the lines of a Fatal Attraction or The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. Sadly this completely lacked the entertainment or suspense of either, and in fact has more in common with 1970s exploitation movies like I Spit on your Grave, which also had pretentions of feminism – at least according to many film academics I have read or listened to over the years.

This home invasion movie centres around architect/retired DJ Evan (Keanu Reeves, whose committed performance is the sole good thing about the movie). One rainy night when his wife and children are away, two flirtatious young girls named Genesis and Bel (Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas respectively) knock on his door, claiming to be lost. He tries to help them, and initially resists their increasingly blatant seduction attempts. However he eventually succumbs to temptation, leading to a truly hellish ordeal as the girls turn out to be sociopathic, femme fatale honey traps out to punish infidelity, paedophilia and child abuse.

Of course Evan is none of the above – except unfaithful, which he wasn’t initially. This immediately makes their targeting of him preposterous. Although he succumbs, the film is clearly on his side throughout, in spite of what Roth and the filmmakers might pretentiously claim. Therefore there is no feminist subtext but merely a revelling in gratuitous sex and nudity, some of which wants to come off as disturbing but instead plays out as lurid and pointless (and no doubt offensive to many audiences). It seems redundant to further warn about tons of bad language and some violent scenes, but I mention them purely for the sake of detail.

I am no prude, and do not get put off by sex, nudity, violence, bad language or problematic themes in films. I have also said in the past that I would rather be offended than bored. The problem is, I actually found this film rather boring. It had absolutely nothing interesting to say, nor was it even a properly committed piece of reprehensible exploitation. I ended up hating the film, purely because it thought it could wag a finger at the audience in a student filmmaking kind of way, without realising it was celebrating the very thing it half-heartedly claimed to condemn.

With the latest instalment in the Terminator franchise due in cinemas next week, I thought now was an opportune moment to continue my occasional series on favourite films by favourite directors, with James Cameron.

An action director par excellence, Cameron has helmed some truly great movies, including Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It is also generally true that the bigger his budgets, the less interesting his movies get. He has held the claim on the most expensive movie ever made no less than five times – with The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies, Titanic and the current most expensive, Avatar. But with the exception of Terminator 2, it is true to say that each of those films is less interesting than its predecessor. By the time you get to Avatar, you get to the first James Cameron film that simply fails to satisfy. However, for me his finest hour remains The Terminator. Here are just ten reasons why.

NOTE: spoilers from this point.

“Nice night for a walk.”

The arrival of the naked Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger in a role he has never bettered) is dark, mysterious and brutally violent, as Bill Paxton’s punk discovers after refusing to surrender his clothes. A cyborg sent back through time to kill Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton), mother of the future saviour of the human race, the Terminator is immediately established as one of the greatest screen antagonists of all time.

“Come with me if you want to live.”

Sent back to defend Sarah from the Terminator is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn). His suspenseful arrival in the tech noir nightclub set piece is hugely memorable; as he goes from apparent stalker to protector, culminating in the above iconic one-liner.

“It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”

The essential plot exposition is delivered via intense exchanges during a car chase. Cameron’s direction and scripting is superb. Not only are the action scenes brilliantly shot, but the exposition is so breathlessly delivered, the entire movie feels non-stop and relentless in an entirely appropriate way – just like the Terminator itself. The film has an economy, a tightness, a leanness that is sadly lacking in some of Cameron’s later, more expensive films.

The surgery scene

Stan Winston’s stop motion visual effects and the appealing lo-fi Terminator make-up are gruesomely appealing throughout. In particular, the scene where the Terminator performs wince inducing surgery on his arm and eye is very well done. The sequence also has a wonderful little moment of humour where the Terminator adjusts his hair in the mirror afterwards. It appears this cyborg has also been programmed to be a little vain.

“I hate the weird press cases.”

Police detectives Vukovitch (Lance Henriksen) and Traxler (Paul Winfield) find themselves investigating the Terminator murders, and at the same time Cameron pokes fun at police movie clichés (jokes about coffee and cigarettes, for instance). Although the detectives are essentially one-note characters, the script and performances enable them to be memorable (Vukovitch talks too much, Traxler is warm and humane). Their banter and dark humour provides an amusing counterpoint to the grimness of the situation that will inevitably eventually kill them.

“I’ll be back.”

Speaking of which, the Terminator’s assault on the police station remains one of the most brutal and frightening sequences in the film, even though it kicks off with the oft-quoted comedic line that Arnold Schwarzenegger is most famous for.

“I came across time for you.”

People often talk of The Terminator being a great action or sci-fi horror movie, but they never speak of it being a great love story. I actually really like the romance that develops between Sarah and Reese. It never feels contrived, and their relationship is compassionately and sensitively handled. Of course it ultimately proves to be essentially to the plot; the big twist being that unbeknownst to him Reese is in fact the father of John Connor, the future saviour of mankind.

“Get out.”

The chase sequences in the finale are still some of the best action scenes in the James Cameron back catalogue. I particularly love the huge tanker explosion that burns the Terminator to its metal skeleton, thus providing a terrific false ending.

“On your feet soldier!”

When Sarah yells the above to a wounded Kyle Reese, it is a vital moment in her character arc, where she stops being the hunted victim and becomes the Sarah Connor of legend. This plays out subsequently in the resourceful way she finally puts an end to the murderous pursuit.

“A person could go crazy thinking about this stuff.”

The final scene of the film manfully admits the time travel paradoxes inherent in the material by having Sarah speak them aloud to get them straight in her head, then essentially give up trying, subtly signally the audience to do the same. The gambit pays off, not least because the scene is a very emotional one, with Sarah coming to terms not only with the coming nuclear apocalypse, but also the death of Reese. This is underscored by the beautiful moment when it transpires the photograph Reese saw of Sarah in the future – the photo he fell in love with, where he always wondered what she was thinking – that she was thinking of him when it was taken. I’ve always been a sucker for doomed romances, and that is another reason why for me the first Terminator film nudges ahead of the second in my affections.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a stark, beguiling and utterly extraordinary Iranian film from director Ana Lily Amirpour. It is emphatically not for everyone. But if it is, boy are you in for a treat.

Blending western, horror, offbeat humour and surreal romance in such a fashion is risky to say the least. Yet Amirpour somehow manages to create something unique. Perhaps she has magic powers. After all, watching this film, I felt like I was being hypnotised, gradually succumbing to a dark and delicious cinematic spell. And make no mistake, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is pure cinema.

The plot – involving a lonely hijab clad female vampire stalking the streets of Iranian ghost town “Bad City” – is merely the deceptively simple hook on which hangs Lyle Vincent’s drenched-with-atmosphere monochrome cinematography, and Amirpour’s subtle and brilliant set pieces. Said set pieces are played out at a trancelike pace, with woozy, hypnotic long takes adding to their hugely understated power. Two scenes in particular, one involving a long shot of two people listening to a record, the other involving ear-piercing, are infused with some of the most poignant and heart-wrenching romantic longing I have seen in any film for a long time – even though Amirpour’s vision is a dark and twisted one.

In spite of its uniqueness, cineastes will spot several influences present in the film, from movies as diverse as Sergio Leone’s Once upon a time in the West, Michael Almereya’s Nadja, Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction, Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, as well as David Lynch films including Eraserhead, and the films of Jim Jarmusch in general (particularly Down by Law and Dead Man). Oddly, it also contains echoes of Iranian animated film Persepoplis, especially in sequences where “The Girl” (a splendid Sheila Vand) listens to transgressive, western pop music in her “lair”.

Not that this is a political film. It’s message appears to be more an understated feminist one, albeit one with a very dark love story at its centre. Perhaps this would be a good point to warn about violence, drug use and some sexual content (the latter a particularly brave inclusion for an Iranian film), but for a sort-of horror movie it isn’t really that scary. It is also worth reiterating that this isn’t a film for those whose appreciation for cinema doesn’t extend beyond the latest multiplex blockbusters. Even amongst the art house crowd, I suspect for everyone who loves it there will be as many who hate it.

I belong firmly in the former category. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a truly mesmerising experience. It is bold, absorbing, beautiful and dangerous, as all great art should be. If you watch just one Iranian monochrome, spaghetti western, skateboarding, vampire love story this year, make sure it’s this one.

Simon Dillon, June 2015.

In the opening moments of The Lost World, the first Jurassic Park sequel from 1997, Steven Spielberg included a wonderfully self-deprecating piece of cynicism by cutting from a screaming girl to a yawning Jeff Goldblum. Essentially the edit was an admission that yes, you are about to watch more of the same, and don’t expect groundbreaking, iconic cinema this time. A similar, albeit far less subtly amusing moment occurs near the beginning of Jurassic World when a character says that no-one is impressed with a dinosaur anymore.

Well, count me unimpressed. Jurassic World isn’t a bad film by any means, but there is nothing of great interest here, beyond a decently assembled monster movie. Colin Trevorrow picks up the directorial reins from Spielberg, and does a fair job at emulating the great man, but despite his noble attempts at jumpstarting a moribund franchise, Jurassic World fails to top The Lost World (in retrospect, a somewhat underrated film), let alone the peerless original. To his credit however, Trevorrow does surpass the waste of celluloid that was Jurassic Park III.

Trevorrow and his various screenwriters ask the question what would happen if Jurassic Park had actually opened to the public. Would they end up under pressure to genetically engineer new species to keep things fresh? It would appear the public has become bored with plain old dinosaurs, and wants something extra scary. Therefore the In-Gen company, under the leadership of Operations Manager Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), decide to engineer the Indomitus Rex – a hideously dangerous hybrid creature that represents new levels of weapons grade stupidity, even for the let’s-play-God-because-we-can crowd. Speaking of stupidity, there’s also a half-baked subplot involving an ill-conceived attempt at weaponising velociraptors.

Amid this mire of hubris and greed we also get the inevitable characters-talking-common-sense-that-are-ignored-until-it’s-too-late, including pseudo-velociraptor whisperer Owen (Chris Pratt – fun, but not as fun as he is in Guardians of the Galaxy). We also get the regulation pair of imperilled kids, and a lot of obvious dino-bait that would be wearing red shirts if this was Star Trek.

Trevorrow clearly loves the franchise, and does his best to try and recreate the sense of thrilling wonder inherent in the original. Many set-pieces essentially act as variations on those in the first Jurassic Park – for example children are attacked in a vehicle, and the finale has a real sense of deja-vu. Yet despite the fact that one can hardly leave the cinema feeling short changed on dinosaur action, Jurassic World feels like an oddly empty experience.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh. After all, at half a billion dollars worldwide and rising, the audience clearly enjoyed the film (and there is a set-up for further sequels). There are a couple of genuinely inspired moments worthy of Spielberg himself (one involving a reflection). It also goes without saying that the special effects are spectacular, and Michael Giacchino contributes a decent score when he isn’t quoting sections of John Williams’ original themes.

In short, Jurassic World is big, loud and expensive. But you’ve seen it before, better, in the magnificent 1993 original. In the golden summer of that year, I felt compelled to revisit Jurassic Park at the cinema no less than four times. I doubt Jurassic World will inspire the same level of affection in many viewers.

Simon Dillon, June 2015.

Spy, the latest comedy from Bridesmaids helmer Paul Feig, is something of a mixed bag. Whether or not you like it will largely depend on your tolerance of Melissa McCarthy and Feig’s frequently infuriating mixture of lowest common denominator humour with genuinely funny writing.

Frankly I’m somewhat torn with this film. On the one hand, Spy works reasonably well as a spoof, but only to a point. The first half is certainly better than the second, wherein slick and smug Bond-esque spy Bradley Fine (Jude Law) is murdered on a mission involving a stolen nuclear weapon. Desk bound CIA analyst Susan Cooper (McCarthy), who had a painful crush on Fine, is sent undercover to recover said nuke. Hilarity ensues for about an hour or so, particularly in the form of her own back-up analyst Nancy (Miranda Hart), and ludicrously aggressive but inept rogue agent Rick Ford (Jason Statham).

The best scenes all involve Statham, who is consistently laugh-out-loud funny, but the film is at least thirty minutes too long. Also the violence is gratuitously graphic, purely because it feels out of place. I am not a censorial person by any means, and absurdly graphic violence can be funny (think of the Black Knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail), but here it just comes off as tiresome.

At first, one feels the film has its heart in the right place, but there are definitely moments here that will offend some – the afore-mentioned graphic violence, very strong language and a running sexual harassment gag, to name just a few elements. As the film progresses, I found myself caring for the characters less and less, and just wanted the thing to be over with. Performances are all decent enough (Rose Byrne makes a laughably nasty villain), and the action scenes are certainly well done, but all things considered, Spy is just too inconsistent.

All that said, reviewing comedy is a notoriously difficult business, because humour is in the eye and ear of the beholder. I have no doubt Spy will prove a big hit with many. Just not me. Well, with the exception of the Jason Statham scenes.

Simon Dillon, June 2015.