Episode 147: The Tenant + The Sentinel

We're full throttle into Noirvember now - and time for a film from the Master himself (with perhaps a slight detour into Italian poliziotteschi - because we can't help ourselves). First up, we have Welles' noirsterpiece (and widely regarded to be the last American film of its genre), Touch of Evil (1958). We follow that up with the pulse-pounding action of Tony Arzenta (1973), directed by Duccio Tessari. Touch of Evil is a film which has been discussed, written about and pored over so much that Spoiler Territory hardly feels necessary, but we do announce one for Tony Arzenta. Skip ahead to 2:28:05 to avoid spoilers for that one. Join our Patreon! As a member of our Mario Adorf Allstars tier you get access to hours of extra content including two audiocommentaries every month and other bonus episodes! Find it here. Want to get in touch? You can reach us on [email protected] Theme music: "The Cold Light of Day" by HKM. Check out HKM on #SoundCloud or Bandcamp "Revenge" by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse

We're just about to dive into Noirvember but before we do... we've decided to kick off a new series of audio commentaries for the Rambo franchise, starting at the obvious place: Ted Kotcheff's initial instalment, First Blood (1982). Joining us this time (and for the rest of the films in this franchise as we get to them over the next 6 months or so), Sammy from The Gentlemen's Guide to Midnite Cinema podcast. Join our Patreon to access the full audiocommentary! As a member of our Mario Adorf Allstars tier you get access to hours of extra content including two audiocommentaries every month and other bonus episodes! Find it here. Sammy suggests that this film is possibly one of the most influential films of the last 40 years, and when you consider the sheer volume of one-man-army style action films since the 80's - in fact, the whole "action hero" phenomenon that Stallone and Arnie pioneered and which continues today with the likes of Jason Statham - that's a lot of cinema which can probably be traced directly back to this film. Having said that, First Blood is arguably incompatible with the rest of its own franchise. John Rambo became a symbol of America fighting back, of the American political entity exerting its will within the wider geopolitical environment - a right wing fantasy of moral superiority as somehow exemplified by violence. But in this first film, America itself is the problem - John Rambo is instead a post-traumatic powderkeg thrown into a society with little compassion for those it sacrifices in the name of American imperialism. Although a first rate action flick, First Blood has a lot on its mind, is what we're trying to say.

Our classic audiocommentary for Creepy Spooky Month is Scanners (1981), directed by David Cronenberg, with special guest, Dr Ethan Lyon! We've been having a very Cronenberg October this year, and to go along with our review of The Fly on the main feed, we're excited to present this audiocommentary for Cronenberg's first commercial breakthrough. Scanners explores a lot of themes common to the great Canadian auteur's work: concepts of bodily autonomy, the mind's psychological effect on the flesh, notions of human evolution and the role of technology on that. Get ready for stark forbidding brutalist architecture, bleak frostbitten landscapes and, of course, that epic exploding head. What a way for Michael Ironside to kick his career off.  Join our Patreon to access the full audiocommentary! As a member of our Mario Adorf Allstars tier you get access to hours of extra content including two audiocommentaries every month and other bonus episodes! Find it here.

It's Noirvember and this week we kick off a series of episodes where we'll pair a classic film noir (pre-1960) with a neo-noir (1960's onwards). Film-maker Tim Auld joins us to discuss a double feature which demonstrates the evil that powerful men do. First up: Sweet Smell of Success (1957), directed by Alexander Mackendrick, a study in fame, power and the manipulative effects of exploitative media figures. And if that's not bullet-riddled enough for you, we follow it up with Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974), directed by Sam Peckinpah - a cinematic poem of darkness and despair from one of Hollywood's great iconoclasts. We will be announcing a Spoiler Territory section for both films, so if you haven't seen them before you listen, you can nevertheless avoid spoilers for Sweet Smell of Success by skipping ahead to the 1:10:11 mark, and for Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia by skipping ahead to 2:03:02. Want to get in touch? You can reach us on [email protected] Join our Patreon! As a member of our Mario Adorf Allstars tier you get access to hours of extra content including two audiocommentaries every month and other bonus episodes! Find it here. Tim's YouTube channel is Nothing is Written Theme music: "The Cold Light of Day" by HKM. Check out HKM on #SoundCloud or Bandcamp "Bullets and Rocks" by Calexico

Happy Halloween! It's the end of Creepy Spooky Month - AND it's our 150th episode! - so we figured it was time to line up a big one. Dr Ethan Lyon is back on the pod (not in the pod, and there's definitely no flies on him) to discuss The Fly (1986), directed by David Cronenberg. And we close the month out with another Ed Wood joint, Bride of the Monster (1955). That's right, it's wall to wall mad science this week - from the sublime to the ridiculous, perhaps, but the delights of horror cinema were ever thus. We don't think these films are really spoilable so we don't bother with Spoiler Territory this week, although we do go into detail concerning the plots so, as always, if you're concerned about spoilers, do watch the films beforehand. Join our Patreon! As a member of our Mario Adorf Allstars tier you get access to hours of extra content including two audiocommentaries every month and other bonus episodes! Find it here. Continuing the Cronenberg theme, we've added an audiocommentary for Scanners this month, along with all the other bonus content available to our Allstars tier! Want to get in touch? You can reach us on [email protected] Theme music: "The Cold Light of Day" by HKM. Check out HKM on #SoundCloud or Bandcamp "Meet Ze Monsta" by PJ Harvey

Graham Humphreys programs a sacrilicious double feature for our latest Creepy Spooky Month episode! First up, Hammer horror goes all Satanic Panic and espionage thriller at the same time with The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), directed by Alan Gibson. Following this, we explore the deeply weird and also weirdly seminal The Devil's Rain (1975), directed by Robert Fuest. This month is scary enough without the eerie parallels between the apocalyptic imaginings of these two films and today's sociopolitical climate. Plus we find out where John Carpenter got the iconic Michael Myers mask from, and why John Travolta joined the Church of Scientology. We don't think these films are really spoilable so we don't bother with Spoiler Territory this week, although we do go into detail concerning the plots so, as always, if you're concerned about spoilers, do watch the films beforehand. Join our Patreon! As a member of our Mario Adorf Allstars tier you get access to hours of extra content including two audiocommentaries every month and other bonus episodes! Find it here. Want to get in touch? You can reach us on [email protected] Theme music: "The Cold Light of Day" by HKM. Check out HKM on #SoundCloud or Bandcamp "Tangled Up in Plaid" by Queens of the Stone Age

Creepy Spooky Month continues as we revisit that most terrifying of horror subgenres: the airborne threat of malevolent birds! OK, maybe it's not THE most terrifying horror trope, but that won't stop us watching films promising such dubious delights. Ted Bennett is in the house to check out the relatively yet-to-be-discovered Shaw Brothers gem that is Bloody Parrot (1981), directed by Hua Shan, and the epically derided made-for-TV sequel to Hitchcock's classic (and recently covered by us) work of avian existentialism, The Birds II: Land's End (1994), directed by Alan Smithee (otherwise known as, in this case at least, Rick Rosenthal) - that's right, a film so hated that even the director of Halloween: Resurrection saw fit to remove his name from it. We don't think these films are really spoilable so we don't bother with Spoiler Territory this week! Join our Patreon! As a member of our Mario Adorf Allstars tier you get access to hours of extra content including two audiocommentaries every month and other bonus episodes! Find it here. Want to get in touch? You can reach us on [email protected] Theme music: "The Cold Light of Day" by HKM. Check out HKM on #SoundCloud or Bandcamp "Colouring of Pigeons" by The Knife

Hell is other people. Apartment living means being close to your neighbours - way too close, in some instances - leading to all sorts of psychological horrors and possible silliness. This week, Dallas Norvell stops by to discuss a couple of apartment horror stories like only the 1970's could turn out. First up: The Tenant (1976), directed by Roman Polanski, followed by The Sentinel (1977), directed by Michael Winner. We will be announcing a Spoiler Territory section for both films, so if you haven't seen them before you listen, you can nevertheless avoid spoilers for The Tenant by skipping ahead to the 1:31:32 mark, and for The Sentinel by skipping ahead to 2:20:57. Want to get in touch? You can reach us on [email protected] Join our Patreon! As a member of our Mario Adorf Allstars tier you get access to hours of extra content including two audiocommentaries every month and other bonus episodes! Find it here. Theme music: "The Cold Light of Day" by HKM. Check out HKM on #SoundCloud or Bandcamp "In This Room" by Ride

The days are cooling down, the leaves are changing colour, and the nights are drawing in. It must be Creepy Spooky Month! Bryan Davidson joins us for the first of a series of episodes all devoted to horror this October - and we start with ZOMBIES. Or at least, zombie adjacency. First up, we discuss Stewart Gordon's absolute cult classic, Re-Animator (1985), and follow that up with a jaunt into some woozy, Italian weirdness: Zeder (1982), directed by Pupi Avati. If you haven't seen Re-Animator yet, you need to get your head checked thoroughly (possibly after removing it), so we haven't called out spoilers (although they're there!) , but we have called out Spoiler Territory for Zeder. Skip ahead to 2:30:49 to avoid spoilers for that one. Join our Patreon! As a member of our Mario Adorf Allstars tier you get access to hours of extra content including two audiocommentaries every month and other bonus episodes! Find it here. Want to get in touch? You can reach us on [email protected] Theme music: "The Cold Light of Day" by HKM. Check out HKM on #SoundCloud or Bandcamp "K Hole" by Ali Love

The fabulous Samm Deighan is back with us this week to delve into a couple of great, underseen French films - and also to tell us all about her new book on the work of that great master of cinema insanity, Andrzej Żuławski. Exciting! We kick off our double feature with Żuławski's frantic ode to mad French mobsters, L'Amour Braque (1985) and we follow that up with La Cérémonie (1995), directed by Claude Chabrol - a domestic thriller about class, shame and sociopathy that comes on like a television procedural but hits you like a gut punch when you least expect it. Oof!!! L'Amour Braque is so dense and confusing that we'd probably recommend listening to this before you watch it - and spoilers are made up for by being properly prepped for its unique vibe - but Spoiler Territory was ESSENTIAL for La Cérémonie. Skip ahead to 1:58:34 to avoid spoilers for that one. Join our Patreon! As a member of our Mario Adorf Allstars tier you get access to hours of extra content including two audiocommentaries every month and other bonus episodes! Find it here. Buy Samm's new book here: Hysterical Excess and Inhuman Ecstasy: The Cinema of Andrzej Żuławski Want to get in touch? You can reach us on [email protected] Theme music: "The Cold Light of Day" by HKM. Check out HKM on #SoundCloud or Bandcamp "Idiot Heart" by Sunset Rubdown