Monthly Archives: July 2021

Film Review – The Suicide Squad

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It is best not to think of writer/director James Gunn’s sequel to David Ayer’s studio tinkered, lame-duck Suicide Squad as a sequel at all. Adding The to the title makes a certain emphatic statement. This isn’t a damp squib. This is the real thing.

Ultra-violent, ultra-gory, foul-mouthed, furious, and funny, The Suicide Squad is a smart, satirical, smash-up of ludicrous proportions. Gunn wastes no time laying out the premise, in which supervillains of the DC Universe are given the chance to cut their sentences by assisting ruthless government agency chief Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) with suicidal covert missions for Uncle Sam. The colourful, rag-tag gang includes Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), and King Shark (Sylvester Stallone – voicing a monosyllabic CGI walking shark). No, I’d not heard of most of them either. Polka-Dot Man? King Shark? Seriously? Anyway, they’re sent off on some ridiculous mission into a fictional banana republic to blow up a giant alien starfish. No, really. Former Doctor Who Peter Capaldi pops up too, as a mad scientist.

The film dials the anarchic lunacy up to eleven, but Gunn’s flamboyant visuals make for eye-popping, brutal comic book fun. The heavily stylised tone and inspired fight choreography takes the edge off the spectacularly unpleasant violence. Or at least, it will for those who share Gunn’s pitch-black, twisted sense of humour. Unlike the murkiness of the previous film, this one has some stand-out big screen moments, especially in vertiginous, tower-collapsing climactic action scenes. If you’re going to watch it, see it in IMAX if possible.

Performances are decent enough, though no one is coming to this for Shakespearean drama. That said, although the satire about clumsy American interventionalism is obvious, it does hit home in a few places. Special effects are excellent, and no-one will be able to claim they’ve been short-changed on Dirty Dozen-style thrills. The film even has shades of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid during the final reel.

It’s all very silly (not to mention violent), so The Suicide Squad certainly isn’t for everyone. But it is satisfying, occasionally surreal, well-put-together silliness that will hit the spot for a certain kind of comic book audience.

UK Certificate: 15

US Certificate: R

Content Warnings: Very strong gory violence, swearing, nudity.

Film Review – Old

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M Night Shyamalan’s Old has been touted as a return to form. The accuracy of this assertion depends on how you define “form”. If by form you mean as moderately diverting as some of his better post Signs output – Split for instance – then yes, by that metric Old is a return to form after the dog’s dinner that was Glass. However, if you mean a return to the lightning-in-a-bottle brilliance of his one undoubted classic The Sixth Sense, to paraphrase Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark, you’re digging in the wrong place.

The premise concerns a group of holidaymakers who find themselves trapped on a mysterious beach that causes them to rapidly age. Escape seems impossible, and there are hints that they are being observed. As the ensemble flap around in an escalating panic, they face danger from within as well as without.

In truth, Old is little more than a shaggy dog tale echoing everything from The Twilight Zone to Lost (the latter never a good series to invoke). I did find it engaging for the most part, and there are occasional flashes of the directorial genius Shyamalan displayed in earlier works in some of the gnarlier moments of body horror. However, I would have preferred more interesting character arcs. The cast is rather underserved in this respect, and none of their performances particularly stand out.

As it is, Shyamalan attempts to introduce serious issues such as divorce into the mix. Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps) are planning on separating, but want one more holiday with their children Trent and Maddox before telling them. The latter are played by different people at their various stages of development, as they rapidly grow up – including Nolan River, Luca Faustino Rodriguez, Alex Wolff, and Emun Elliot, and Alexa Swinton, Thomasin McKenzie, and Embeth Davidtz respectively.

This central idea of a family falling apart, and the irony of a place that causes rapid aging bringing them back together, is rather lost in the clutter of supporting characters, most of whom seem to be present only to add additional shocks. The premise has much potential for deep exploration of character, but instead, Shyamalan seems more concerned with tying up every conceivable loose end. This includes a final act in which the audience is spoon-fed an explanation for everything. I know some people don’t like ambiguity, but on this occasion, the film could have done with more of it, allowing the characters to come to the foreground instead and create something more emotionally involving.

On the plus side, Old is never boring. It may not be a profound meditation on time, aging, and how we reorder our priorities when faced with our own mortality, but time flies when you watch it.

UK Certificate: 15

US Certificate: PG-13

Content Warnings: Swearing, violence, injury detail, scary scenes.

Medium Update

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Here’s a selection of my activities on Medium over the last month. If you’ve missed them, please click the links and check them out. Don’t forget to “clap” generously. If you have a Medium subscription, you can also highlight any areas that you particularly like, and leave comments. It all helps to squeeze a few extra pennies out of the Algorithmic Overlords for this struggling writer, so any assistance in that respect is greatly appreciated. Mostly however, I just hope you enjoy the articles.

Frame Rated

Monstrous Metaphors

In film, a monster is never just a monster… right?

Fan Fare

Why Captain America is the Greatest Avenger

“There’s only one God ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.”

The Science of Avoiding Disruptive Movie Audiences

How to minimise the likelihood of cinema rage.

Six Statements Guaranteed to Annoy Cineastes

A grumpy rant from a grumpy old film fanatic.

Why Severus Snape is the Best Hogwarts Teacher

“It may have escaped your notice, but life isn’t fair.”

Ten Films There Ought to Be a Law Against Watching on Television

I shudder to think of anyone discovering these for the first time on the small screen.

My Ten Favourite Superhero Films

A list mercifully bereft of a certain Mr Snyder.

Why Sean Connery is the Best James Bond

“What I did this evening was for Queen and country. You don’t think it gave me any pleasure, do you?”

Jason and the Argonauts: Still Great Fun for All the Family

How my love of Ray Harryhausen’s thrilling stop-motion adventure evolved into a bonding experience with my children.

My Dark Knight of the Soul

I prefer The Dark Knight Rises to The Dark Knight. Here’s why.

Retro Rewind: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

The galactic grudge match and parasitical horrors of the best Trek film proved a landmark childhood experience.

Where Eagles Dare: A Rattling Good Yarn

One of my late father’s favourite films; just as good now as the twentieth time I watched it.

The First Time

The First Time I Thought I’d Die Laughing Watching a Film

How I feared for my life during my first viewing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The First Time I Watched a Horror Film That Actually Scared Me

How Alan Parker’s Angel Heart awakened me to the cathartic pleasures of a truly terrifying film.

Cinemania

My Favourite Anthony Hopkins Performance: The Remains of the Day

Brilliant though he is in The Father, Mr. Stevens in Merchant-Ivory’s masterpiece remains my favourite Hopkins screen role.

Backyard Church

Thou Shalt Not Watch Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror?

Navigating the nonsensical evangelical entertainment rules of the churches in which I was raised.

That’s all for this month’s Medium round-up. If you have a Medium account, please consider following my page. Thank you.

Film Review – The Forever Purge

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First, a confession: I’ve always had a slight vendetta against the Purge series, because the ingenious premise – for one night every year, all crime is legal – I came up with myself, some years before these films existed. I even went so far as to write a screenplay, though it was radically different from anything we’ve seen on screen in the Purge series. For one thing, it had more of an oppressive religious angle and was set amid a Puritanical cult, who repress all their sinful urges to an absurd degree, except for one day in the year when all sin (including murder) is permitted. I went so far as to get feedback on this screenplay and polished it up into fairly good shape.

Alas, you snooze you lose. I didn’t take the project further, and a few years down the line, The Purge pipped me to the post. Oh well. No sense in begrudging the success of the franchise, even though they have varied greatly in quality, to say the least. However the latest instalment, The Forever Purge, I liked more than usual. It takes the premise a little further, with ominous warnings of how the Purge doesn’t purge anything, but rather spreads like a contagion, and eventually won’t be contained to just one night.

Sure enough, a Mexican immigrant couple working at a Texas stables get caught up with the aftermath of the Purge, as a nationwide cult of organised rebels decides to continue the murderous mayhem after it officially finishes, to “cleanse” the country of undesirables (principally immigrants). Said couple are Juan (Tenoch Huerta) and Adela (Ana de la Reguera, who initially find themselves at the wrong end of Juan’s racist employer Dylan (Josh Lucas) before they are forced to work together to try and escape to Mexico. Yes, Mexico – see the irony? It’s not exactly subtle, nor particularly original (Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow pulled a similar stunt with people rushing across the Mexican border from America in a ha-ha-how-ironic moment).

On the other hand, performances are good enough, and there is plenty of nasty gruesome violence to satisfy genre fans. Director Everardo Gout isn’t great at handling the frightening aspects, throwing out a bunch of jump scares that fail to scare. On the other hand, there are some intermittently exciting action sequences.

It would be easy to snootily dismiss The Forever Purge as satire for nitwits, but sometimes blunt instruments are effective. In this case, the lingering unpleasantness of the Capitol riots provides obvious but powerful parallels. Although the film is clearly preposterous, with America more polarised than ever, perhaps the Mad Max-style landscapes seen here aren’t such a huge leap from reality. Let’s just hope they don’t become reality. In the meantime, The Forever Purge does just enough to engage horror audiences.

UK Certificate: 15

US Certificate: R

Content Warnings: Contains strong violence and swearing.

Summer Holiday Special: Download The Irresistible Summons FREE

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For the next six weeks, I’m making my gothic mystery novel The Irresistible Summons FREE to download at Smashwords, to promote my novels in outlets other than Amazon.


Here’s an introduction to whet your appetite.

In a brief prologue, teenager Naomi Levinson laments the death of her boyfriend, Toby Lane. Toby and his entire family perished in a mysterious house fire, which Naomi comes to believe may have been started deliberately.

Several years later, Naomi is now an accomplished television producer making documentaries debunking the supernatural. When a shoot interviewing a possibly possessed killer in prison goes terribly wrong, the production company Naomi works for faces a lawsuit and possible closure.

Offered what could be her last job, Naomi is initially reluctant to take on filming a promotional video for computer game company Persephone. She considers the task beneath her talents. However, after production gets underway at the Persephone office block on London’s Canary Wharf, strange things begin to happen.

One member of staff inexplicably disappears. Ghosts are sighted, one of whom appears to be Toby. This re-opens old emotional wounds for Naomi, bringing back bittersweet memories of her strictly religious messianic Jewish parents, who disapproved of her secret teenage romance.

As Naomi continues to investigate, she begins to believe she might have stumbled onto a genuine haunting, one with disturbing links to her past, and possibly her future.

A horrifying conspiracy is gradually revealed. Cutting edge technology and ancient evil meet, leading to the discovery of a shocking and terrifying secret – one that could change the nature of life and death as we know it.

The Irresistible Summons can be downloaded FREE from Smashwords here. It also continues to be available for purchase at Amazon. Enjoy!

Film Review – Black Widow

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After a Covid inflicted hiatus, Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe officially gets underway with a long-overdue solo movie for Scarlett Johansson’s eponymous Avenger. An action-packed spy romp that plot-wise recalls Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and more weirdly The Incredibles, Black Widow is an entertaining, lively film; not quite top-tier Marvel, but still an enjoyable blast. It’s available on Disney+ as well, but obviously, it needs to be seen in the cinema, so let’s have no more of this simultaneous release streaming nonsense please Disney.

Sandwiched between the end of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, the story sees Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow on the run from Secretary Ross (William Hurt), evading him with relative ease and hiding out in Norway. However, when she is attacked by a mysterious masked assailant with a Cylon-style flashing red-eye, Natasha is drawn back into an old mission she believed to be over. Said mission involves being reunited with certain family members, and coming to terms with her past.

At this point, I’m dancing around spoilers, though some plot details beyond this have been ruined by the trailers. Suffice to say, a childhood prologue neatly sets up what is coming, and at last, we get to find out the truth behind the references to the mission in Budapest that often crops up in banter between Hawkeye and Black Widow. Performances are good, not just from the always excellent Johansson, but also Florence Pugh, whose banter with Natasha proves quite hilarious at times. One gag about the way the Avengers land on the ground in heroic pose proves particularly amusing.

Equally amusing is David Harbour, who plays a kind-of failed Russian version of Captain America gone to seed. With an amiable streak of stupidity, selfishness, and self-delusion (he honestly believes he and Captain America could be considered proper contemporaries), Harbour nails the role, aided and abetted by a humorous script that also delivers on poignancy. Rachel Weisz and Ray Winstone also crop up, the latter with a particularly dodgy Russian accent. Actually, the accents are a bit all over the place, to put it mildly.

Director Cate Shortland proves adept at handling both action scenes and smaller character moments. In conjunction with cinematographer Gabriel Beristain, she creates a colour palette that makes splendid use of red, amid whites and blacks, giving the film a distinct, stylish sheen. It stands out visually compared with other entries in the Marvel series, but also has the grit of the classic spy thriller in its splendid use of locations.

More intriguingly, this film metaphorically touches on themes of trafficking and exploitation, albeit very lightly. “I recycle the trash,” says the film’s ultra-misogynist villain, “the only natural resource the world has too much of: Girls.” Having touched on these dark themes, the film seems to rather set them aside, instead concentrating on comedy. Some may see this as a failure to properly engage with the issues it raises, but for me, Black Widow is tremendously thrilling fun for the most part, with plenty of heart. It fills in some plot blanks, neatly dovetailing between earlier films, whilst also (in the post-credits scene) setting up things to come. On that basis, it’s hard to come out feeling short-changed.

UK Certificate: 12A

US Certificate: PG-13

Recent Reviews

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Here are four new (or newly discovered by yours truly) five-star rave reviews for my novels.

For my most recent novel Peaceful Quiet Lives, this from A Critical Reader on Amazon:

“What an appropriate book for the here and now! While it may be a fictional account of a future America’s “Second Civil War” which breaks it into two separate countries, one far left and one far right, it is written as political satire of our current state of affairs.

Aside from the politics, readers will be swept up in the love story between Sam and Eve and the struggles they go through.

A must-read!”

For dystopian sci-fi memoir Children of the Folded Valley, an enthusiastic endorsement from Mathew Graves, on Amazon:

“Well-written and deeply personal, this book weaves together religious fanaticism and science fiction wonderfully and had me on the edge of my seat throughout. I would love to see this story adapted to the screen one day but in the meantime I highly recommend reading the book.”

Next, I rather like this amusing assessment of my gothic horror mystery Spectre of Springwell Forest:

“This book was immediately gripping. It has a lot going on, but it all works so well together that it doesn’t feel over the top. I mean, there are ghosts, witches, government coverups, possession. It sounds bonkers, and I guess it is, but it never gets ridiculous.”

Finally, here’s an unnamed Amazon customer on my sinister psychological thriller The Birds Began to Sing:

“Amazing thriller with a brilliant twist at the end which even the most hardcore of murder mystery readers wouldn’t see coming. A must read.”

In closing, a plea: Reviews are vitally important to indie authors such as yours truly, so if you do read one of my novels and enjoy it, please do leave a review, on Amazon, Goodreads, or ideally both (using the same review for both is fine).

I don’t need these reviews because I’m in need of constant affirmation (although affirmation is always nice). These reviews are vital because they act as sacrificial offerings to the Algorithmic Overlords, who in their beneficence, then point other readers in the direction of my work. They don’t need to be long or eloquent. “I enjoyed it” is fine. But if you like my work, or even if you hate it for all the right reasons – “Too scary”, “Too disturbing”, “Too offensive”, “Too unbearably sad”, etc – the best possible way to support me, other than buying my novels, is to please, please, please leave reviews. Thank you very much to those who already do. It is hugely appreciated, as this literally helps me to earn a living.

Check out my novels from Amazon here (in the UK), here (in the US), or alternatively on Smashworlds here.



Film Review – Freaky

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Freaky is a horror-comedy with an ingenious premise: A serial killer and high school girl swap bodies, after said girl is stabbed by some kind of silly mystical blade. She then has until midnight to get her body back whilst avoiding the police. Meanwhile, the serial killer makes use of his new feminine form to continue his bloody rampage. Comical and gruesome shenanigans ensue, to hugely satisfying effect.

In any body swap movie, performances are all important. Here Kathryn Newton convincingly switches between shy, bullied teen and scary killer, whilst Vince Vaughn is particularly hilarious playing a teenage girl. I was a little reminded of computer avatar gags in the recent Jumanji films.

Celeste O’Connor and Misha Osherovich also contribute terrific support as black and gay best friends, respectively. The racial and sexual distinctions are important, because of one cleverly meta-moment when the pair are confronted by Vaughn whilst Newton is in his body. Believing their demise is imminent, slasher-genre convention aware Osherovich runs away yelling: “You’re black! I’m gay! We are so dead!”

This isn’t a particularly scary film, though it features plenty of inventive gore, violence, and very strong language. However, the satirical undercurrents – touching on everything from bullying to sexual harassment to the current debates around gender – are pleasingly sharp. Newton’s character arc from shy people-pleaser to assertive and confident is informed by lessons from living in a strong man’s body, through which she learns inward strength isn’t about physical prowess. The only significant flaw in the film is that Newton is far too pretty to be considered an ugly duckling, as is absurdly implied during early scenes where she is bullied by mean girls and ignorant jocks.

Christopher Landon (who also helmed Groundhog Day variant Happy Death Day 2U) directs with a sure hand. He and screenwriter Michael Kennedy have crafted a subversive, immensely entertaining genre piece, that skimps neither on laughs nor grisly deaths. I’m a little wary of potential sequels, but for the moment at least, this stands alone as a blast of smart fun for horror fans.

UK Certificate: 15

US Certificate: R

Content Warnings: Violence, strong gore, sex, very strong language.

Children of the Folded Valley: 7 Years On

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Seven years ago, this month, my most successful novel to date, Children of the Folded Valley, was self-published by yours truly. The novel is a first-person memoir, about a man recalling his childhood growing up amid a strange, seemingly utopian cult, cut off from the rest of the world. The cult leader has gathered his followers in a mysterious valley because he believes they will be safe there, from a coming nuclear Holocaust.

The precise nature of the hidden valley is revealed later, but this science fiction ingredient is the least important part of the narrative. What is important are the coming-of-age elements, involving the protagonist’s relationship with his parents, friends, and the traumatic events that ensue as terrible secrets at the heart of the cult are gradually revealed. I should add at this point that although entirely fictional (obviously, given the sci-fi aspect), the novel did draw from some of my own personal experiences growing up. However, I must also add that the death of my father did not inform the novel, as some mistakenly claimed. The first draft was written a year before that, in the summer of 2011. The death of the father in the novel was an essential element of the plot, foreseen from the outset.

Once I had the finished draft, I shopped Children of the Folded Valley around major publishers. I came frustratingly close to success, but in the end, the door closed. Somewhat disappointed, I decided to self-publish. To say I was surprised by the result is an understatement. I had self-published a few novels already – mainly children’s adventure stories like Uncle Flynn – but this was my first grown-up book. I did not expect it to be a big success, yet in the end over 11,000 copies (most of them free downloads) flew off the digital shelves, landing me at the number one spot on Amazon’s free novels on the science fiction chart.

The decision to make the novel free for a couple of months was a strategic one, and at the time I didn’t think getting to number one on the free science fiction chart was a big deal. But apparently, it was. Later when I tried to replicate the success with other novels, I didn’t come anywhere close. This is despite the fact that my marketing and promotion was much better organised with subsequent novels (including those traditionally published rather than self-published).

What am I to conclude from all this? Was the success of Children of the Folded Valley down to good timing? Subject matter? An act of God? I honestly couldn’t say. For some reason, it struck a chord. If I were writing it today, there are a couple of things I would do differently (at least one chapter is a bit of an info-dump), but it is a good reflection of my skills at that time, and as an author, it is important to always strive for improvement (my second foray into dystopian fiction, Peaceful Quiet Lives, I think is a significant improvement). On the other hand, with over a hundred mostly five-star reviews on Amazon, and about a hundred and seventy on Goodreads, I clearly did something right seven years ago.

Children of the Folded Valley is available on Amazon Kindle or paperback here (in the UK) and here (in the US). It can also be purchased from Smashwords here.