SPIDER BABY
Time hasn’t been kind to this loveable 1964 oddity, but it remains a memorable film with unforgettable performances
SPECIAL EFFECTS
This 1984 cheapie appears to be writer-director Larry Cohen’s answer to PEEPING TOM, a unique and intelligent account of voyeurism and exploitation in the movie business that, as usual with Cohen, is all-but done in by its low budget and uninspired direction
SONNY BOY
The 1990s were filled with independent films marketed, most often misleadingly, as “bizarre”, “shocking”, “subversive” and other similarly enticing adjectives. For a nineties indie that really is all those things go directly to SONNY BOY
SOCIETY
So-so eighties horror enlivened by amazing special effects and a GREAT climax
SMOOTH TALK
A seminal ’80s indie that still holds up as a provocative and disturbing psychological horror story
THE SIGNAL
Hardly the “groundbreaking indie masterpiece” it’s been made out to be, THE SIGNAL (2007) is a semi-experimental anthology film that’s scary, funny and suspenseful—but still not all it could be
SHY PEOPLE
This largely forgotten gothic melodrama appears on its way to becoming a lost film. A shame, really, as it’s a haunting and atmospheric work unlike any other movie released during the eighties…or ever
SHOCKER
Wes Craven put some interesting ideas into play in this film, but it doesn’t really work. Blame a fraught shoot, and the fact that Craven was attempting in vain to create a NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET-like franchise
THE SEVERED ARM
A zero budgeted early seventies gore fest that’s unremarkable in most respects (and downright inept in others) but has a curious resonance nonetheless
SERIES 7
Perhaps the ultimate satire on America’s reality TV craze, SERIES 7: THE CONTENDERS, about a reality program whose participants must kill each other in order to advance, is funny, disturbing and far more insightful than most of us would feel comfortable admitting