living movie review mark kermode

Mark Kermode: 50 films every film fan should watch

The UK’s best-known film critic, Mark Kermode offers up 50 personal viewing recommendations, from great classics to overlooked gems.

28 April 2017

The Arbor (2010)

Director: Clio Barnard

Artist Clio Barnard’s moving film about the late Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar (Rita, Sue and Bob Too) is no ordinary documentary. Mixing interviews with Dunbar’s family and friends (seen lip-synched by actors), scenes from her plays performed on the estate where she lived, and TV footage of her in the 1980s, the film makes intriguing, inventive play with fact, fiction and reminiscence.

Mark Kermode says: “Somehow the disparate elements form a strikingly cohesive whole, conjuring a portrait of the artist and her offspring that is both emotionally engaging, stylistically radical and utterly unforgettable.”

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Bad Timing (1980)

Director: Nicolas Roeg

Seen in flashback through the prism of a woman’s attempted suicide, this fragmented portrait of a love affair expands into a labyrinthine enquiry into memory and guilt. One of director Nic Roeg’s finest films, starring Art Garfunkel, Theresa Russell and Harvey Keitel.

Mark Kermode says: “Roeg himself reported that a friend refused to talk to him for three years after seeing the film. Today, Bad Timing still divides audiences: monstrosity or masterpiece? Well, watch it and decide for yourself.”

La Belle et la Bête (1946)

Director: Jean Cocteau

With its enchanted castle, home to fantastic living statuary, and director Jean Cocteau’s lover Jean Marais starring as a Beast who is at once brutal and gentle, rapacious and vulnerable, shamed and repelled by his own bloodlust, this remains a high point of the cinematic gothic imagination.

Mark Kermode says: “Personally I think Mexican filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro, the maestro of the modern screen fairytale, said it best when he declared La Belle et la Bête simply to be the most perfect cinematic fable ever told.”

Black Narcissus (1947)

Directors: Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell

A group of nuns open a makeshift convent in the foothills of the Himalayas but soon find their vows challenged in this new, exotic environment. Deborah Kerr’s Sister Clodagh has a spiritual crisis, while a fellow nun, brilliantly played by Kathleen Byron, becomes erotically obsessed with a British agent, leading to an unforgettable ending.

Mark Kermode says: “Black Narcissus is a vividly sensual work, which looks unlike any other British film of the period. Oscar wins for Jack Cardiff’s cinematography and Alfred Junge for production design confirm it as a technical triumph, but it is still so much more than that. It is a work of extraordinary power and passion from Powell and Pressburger.”

Blithe Spirit (1945)

Director: David Lean

When an eccentric spiritualist summons a man’s first wife, the ghost refuses to leave, much to his and his second wife’s frustration in this wonderful comedy based on one of Noël Coward’s most beloved plays. Rex Harrison and Constance Cummings are great as the husband and second wife, but the funniest turns come from Kay Hammond as the spoilt first wife and Margaret Rutherford as the batty medium.

Mark Kermode says: “A spicy screen comedy filmed in blushing technicolour… why Lean is still considered one of Britain’s greatest directors.”

Bullet Boy (2004)

Director: Saul Dibb

Ashley Walters rose to fame as one of So Solid Crew but impresses here in his first lead acting role, anchoring Saul Dibb’s stark and compelling urban drama. When Ricky (Walters) is released from prison he soon finds himself drawn back into old ways, while trying protect his brother Curtis (Luke Fraser) from the advances of a local gang.

Mark Kermode says: “Both Dibb and Walters have travelled far since the days of Bullet Boy, but this urgent, low-budget British drama remains a defining moment in both of their diverse careers.”

Capricorn One (1977)

Director: Peter Hyams

Peter Hyams’ stunning sci-fi thriller is steeped in post-Watergate paranoia. The world watches the first manned flight to Mars, unaware the mission is being faked. Forced to participate, the astronauts realise that when the hoax goes wrong, their existence threatens national security. In desperation, they escape…

Mark Kermode says: “After the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, it was easy for audiences to believe that governments were corrupt and recordings could be doctored – it is no wonder that so many people took Capricorn One at face value.”

Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974)

Director: Jacques Rivette

Jacques Rivette’s biggest commercial hit is an exhilarating combination of the themes of theatricality, paranoia and ‘la vie parisienne’, all wrapped up in an extended and entrancing examination of the nature of filmmaking and film watching. Its freewheeling, playful spirit still captures the imagination of new audiences today.

Mark Kermode says: “A comparative commercial hit on its release, Céline and Julie Go Boating has since gone on to become a much sought after cult item and has influenced everyone from David Lynch to Susan Seidelman. It was also hailed as an influential female buddy movie by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum who wrote that many women consider it to be their favourite film about female friendship, and many men too.”

Un chien andalou (1929)

Director: Luis Buñuel

“Seventeen minutes of pure, scandalous dream-imagery…reveals itself at each viewing to be richer and more indefinable, as the sensitivity of its shades of each mood become apparent.” (Raymond Durgnat). Buñuel and Dalí’s provocative first collaboration, a classic of surrealist cinema, is a scabrous study of desire, the subconscious and anti-clericalism.

Mark Kermode says: “Arguably the most celebrated work of surrealist cinema, a satirical gem which, when I first saw it at the Museum of the Moving Image as an unsuspecting young film fan, caused me to faint.”

The Company of Wolves (1984)

Director: Neil Jordan

The gothic landscape of the imagination has rarely been filmed with such invention as it was in Neil Jordan’s second feature. Within lavish, expressive sets, the teenage heroine begins to discover her sexuality and its dark, unsettling power. Wolves become human, humans become wolves. The film’s elaborate structure offers tales within tales, but what really grips is the utterly lucid fantasy.

Mark Kermode says: “Pitched somewhere between arthouse tract and exploitation horror movie, The Company of Wolves drew mixed responses from some baffled critics, but proved an enduring audience favourite. Today, it has become a timeless classic, which is studied by film scholars and adored by film fans alike. If you like your fairy tales to have teeth, this is the film for you.”

Countess Dracula (1971)

Director: Peter Sasdy

Public decency is breached with laudable regularity in Hammer’s 1971 tale, based on the legend of Elizabeth Báthory. Ingrid Pitt plays the widowed countess rejuvenated by virgins’ blood, and Nigel Green her accomplice and lover, Captain Dobi. Indignity is a theme and, for Pitt, a reality: her role was dubbed, and she never spoke to director Peter Sasdy again.

Mark Kermode says: “A bona fide screen icon, at the very height of her dark powers.”

The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)

Director: Val Guest

When the USA and Russia simultaneously test atomic bombs, the Earth is knocked off its axis and set on a collision course with the sun. Peter Stenning (Edward Judd), a washed-up Daily Express reporter, breaks the story and sets about investigating the government cover-up. With strong performances (Leo McKern is a standout), a vivid depiction of the world of newspaper journalism and extensive location shooting on the streets of London, Val Guest delivers one of the best British sci-fi films.

Mark Kermode says: “Today, the film may seem almost quaint, but it’s as captivating as ever.” 

Dead Ringers (1988)

Director: David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg’s multi-award-winning psychological thriller explores the bizarre lives of identical twins, Elliot and Beverly, both played by Jeremy Irons. World-renowned gynaecologists, the twins share everything from their clinic to their women, until they meet Claire (Geneviève Bujold). Beverly falls in love with her, and a schism develops between the brothers for the first time.

Mark Kermode says: “It’s not the visual effects that dazzle, the real magic is in the performances, with Jeremy Irons using the Alexander technique to give Elliot and Beverly different stances, different energy points… The result is overwhelming, at times horrifying, but mostly heartbreaking.” 

Distant Voices Still Lives (1988)

Director: Terence Davies

Set in a world before Elvis, a Liverpool before the Beatles, Terence Davies’ debut feature is a remarkable evocation of working-class family life in the 1940s and 50s and a visionary exploration of memory. Davies’ poetic masterpiece has now acquired the status of a modern British classic.

Mark Kermode says: “Described at one point as ‘a forgotten masterpiece’, Distant Voices Still Lives has grown in stature over the years, and in 2011 it was voted the third best British film in a survey conducted by TimeOut magazine, beaten only by Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now and Carol Reed’s The Third Man.”

Dogtooth (2009)

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Yorgos Lanthimos’ frighteningly relevant but mordantly witty look at a dysfunctional Greek family offers a brilliant if deeply disturbing analysis of the power dynamics of parent-child relationships. Highly original and insightful in its narrative details, and directed with an impressively cool, almost mechanical precision, the film was greeted as a breakthrough in Greek filmmaking.

Mark Kermode says: “Balancing astute social commentary with absurd tragi-comedy, Dogtooth has been read as a dissection of Greek society, both personal and political. Lanthimos retains a Lynchian quality of refusing to discuss his work, saying that, ‘If I wanted to discuss social problems I would have become a writer, but I am a filmmaker it is all I can do’.”

The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982)

Director: Peter Greenaway

Peter Greenaway became a director of international status with this witty, stylised and erotic country house murder mystery. In an apparently idyllic 17th-century Wiltshire, an ambitious draughtsman is commissioned by the wife of an aristocrat to produce 12 drawings of her husband’s estate and negotiates terms to include sexual favours from his employer. Extravagant costumes, a twisting plot, elegantly barbed dialogue and a mesmerising score by Michael Nyman make the film a treat for ear, eye and mind.

Mark Kermode says: “It is weirdly wonderful, from Nyman’s Purcell-influenced score to Sue Blane’s eye-catching costumes. Most importantly the film shows a unique talent getting to grips with narrative cinema that is as engaging and alluring as it is baffling and perplexing.”

The Elephant Man (1980)

Director: David Lynch

John Hurt, unrecognisable beneath the makeup, delivers a tender performance as the severely deformed Joseph Merrick, rescued by Anthony Hopkins’ kindly surgeon from the hell of a circus sideshow to a more genteel world of scientific enquiry. David Lynch’s sensitive study of disability and difference was shot in lustrous black and white by veteran cinematographer and ex-Hammer director Freddie Francis.

Mark Kermode says: “There was nothing John Hurt couldn’t do, but it is a role in which his famous face was all but hidden and his mellifluous voice almost unrecognisable that ironically garnered some of his greatest reviews.”

Face (1997)

Director: Antonia Bird

Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone star in a stylish and exciting crime thriller from acclaimed director Antonia Bird (Safe, Priest). A close-knit gang of professional thieves plan an intricate heist but begin to turn on each other when things go wrong.

Mark Kermode says: “A cracking but often overlooked crime thriller from 1997, featuring a sharp script, a stellar cast, and a dynamite soundtrack. Directed by Antonia Bird, Face one of the UK ’s most versatile and sorely missed filmmakers, Face is an ace heist-gone-wrong thriller that was correctly hailed by London’s Time Out magazine as a ‘muscular, raw and aggressive slice of vividly authentic populist cinema.’”

Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Not a shot is wasted in this bold reworking of Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (1955), which unfolds with gripping simplicity: one evening in Munich, an elderly cleaning lady (Brigitte Mira) escapes from the rain into a bar frequented by immigrants. To her surprise, the jukebox plays an old German tango and a handsome young Moroccan (El Hedi ben Salem) asks her to dance…

Mark Kermode says: “Sit back and experience a film that seems even more relevant today than it did in 1974.”

Fitzcarraldo (1981)

Director: Werner Herzog

One of Werner Herzog’s most acclaimed and audacious films, Fitzcarraldo tells the incredible story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (played by Herzog regular Klaus Kinski), an opera-loving fortune hunter who dreams of bringing opera (specifically Caruso) to a remote trading post on the heart of the Peruvian jungle.

Mark Kermode says: “‘I live my life or end my life with this project’, declared Herzog, and he wasn’t kidding. No wonder Fitzcarraldo remains such an overwhelming experience.”

Godzilla (1954)

Director: Ishiro Honda

The original Godzilla is arguably the definitive monster movie – both a bold metaphor for the atomic age and a thrilling powerhouse of pioneering special effects. It stars Takashi Shimura as the revered palaeontologist who uncovers the horrible secret at the heart of the monster, a long dormant Jurassic beast awoken by the atom bomb. Don’t miss the film that instilled Japan – and the world – with an unquenchable appetite for destruction.

Mark Kermode says: “While the scenes of destruction viscerally recall the destruction of America’s nuclear strikes, the dialogue offers a surprisingly thoughtful meditation on the guilty responsibilities of scientific advancements… reveal in the mastery of this superb creature feature.”

Hadewijch (2009)

Director: Bruno Dumont

Céline, a young novice nun, is rejected by her convent as is attracted by the conviction and charisma of a Muslim religious teacher and activist in this provocative drama from Bruno Dumont (Camille Claudel 1915). Recalling the work of Robert Bresson, Hadewijch is an uncompromising film with an ending that will provide much debate among viewers. Exploring the themes of city and country, faith and fanaticism, it’s a unique and powerful study.

Mark Kermode says: “Make no mistake, Hadewijch is not for everyone, but if you are looking for something different, it’s challenging, arresting and thought-provoking fare.”

Hands of the Ripper (1971)

In Edwardian London, a series of gruesome murders match those of the Whitechapel Ripper, revealing an unlikely suspect. Hammer’s second stab at the Ripper (after 1949’s Room To Let) is an atmospheric curiosity anchored by its star. Angharad Rees gives depth and colour to the role of Anna, the young woman exploited by her twisted guardian (Dora Bryan), a medium haunted by visions of infamous Victorian killer. Peter Sasdy made this a particularly bloody affair, with results that still shock over four decades later.

Mark Kermode: “For all the film’s shortcomings, Sadsy brings a dash of Argento-esque style to the increasing splatter, ensuring that the hands of the Ripper continue to grip audiences even today.”

Highway Patrolman (1991)

Director: Alex Cox

Highway Patrolman charts the harrowing transition from idealism to grim realism in an intense and brilliantly played character study that offers a fascinating and gritty insight into corruption and embittered disillusionment. Alex Cox’s Spanish-language film remains a high-point in an undervalued career, and it’s ahead of its time too, anticipating the wave of Mexican crime and corruption films that would follow in the 21st century.

Mark Kermode says: “A Mexican drama from British director Alex Cox, who made his name with the cult classic Repo Man, and cemented his reputation as the new rose of post-punk cinema with Sid & Nancy. It was described by the Los Angeles Times in 1991 as ‘Cox’s finest film to date.’”

Immoral Tales (1974)

Director: Walerian Borowczyk

Walerian Borowczyk presents a history of sexual taboos, comprising four stories around unmentionable practices such as incest, bloodlust and bestiality that recur throughout history. Featuring historic characters such as Lucrezia Borgia and Erzsébet Báthory, Immoral Tales was considered an affront to decency upon its release, scandalising the London Film Festival in 1973 and becoming mired in censorship controversies for much of the decade.

Mark Kermode says: “Today it remains divisive, with scholars referring to it as Borowczyk’s least substantial work while others succumb to its bawdy pleasures. Art or exploitation? Watch it and decide for yourself.”

Interior. Leather Bar. (2013)

Directors: James Franco, Travis Mathews

James Franco and Travis Mathews recreate explicit footage cut, and rumoured to be lost, from one of the most notorious features ever made – Cruising (1980), starring Al Pacino as a cop who goes undercover to hunt out a serial killer preying on New York’s homosexual S&M community. Inspired by the mythology of this controversial film, the directors explore the limits of sexual and creative freedom.

Mark Kermode says: “Interior. Leather Bar. is not for everyone, but for anyone fascinated by Friedkin’s cause celebre it is by turns infuriating, indulgent and intriguing.” 

The Ipcress File (1965)

Director: Sidney J. Furie

Living a low-key life in a London bedsit, and happier whipping up an omelette than whipping out his pistol, Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) was altogether a new breed of secret agent – a million miles away from the elitist ethos of James Bond. In this splendidly understated 1960s spy thriller, with a terrific John Barry soundtrack, Palmer can’t trust anybody, as he tracks down a traitor within his own department.

Mark Kermode says: “By 1999, it was ranking at number 59 in the BFI ’s Top 100 list of Best British Films of the century, ahead of classics like The Dam Busters, Passport to Pimlico, Oliver, Hope and Glory, and The Wicker Man. Watch the film and see why.” 

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

When an old woman (Dame May Whitty) goes missing on a train from Switzerland, a British girl (Margaret Lockwood) is convinced there has been foul play, but all the other passengers deny having ever seen her in Alfred Hitchcock’s hugely enjoyable comedy thriller. Director Francois Truffaut, a huge admirer of Hitchcock, named The Lady Vanishes as his favourite film by the master of suspense.

Mark Kermode says: “So successful was The Lady Vanishes that it persuaded the producer David O. Selznick to sign up the director for a seven-year contract, sending Hitchcock to Hollywood where he would make some of the most celebrated screen thrillers of all time.” 

The Lodger (1927)

Alfred Hitchcock’s first thriller, about a man accused of being a serial killer, was a huge critical success upon its release in 1927, with trade journal Bioscope stating: “It is possible that this film is the finest British production ever made.” It boasts many staples of Hitchcock’s later work, including the themes of murder and suspicion, an obsession with blonde women and Hitchcock’s first ever cameo (as a newspaper editor).

Mark Kermode says: “The film offers early evidence of the director’s longstanding association between sex and murder, ecstasy and death, introducing fetishistic tropes that would become defining moves in Vertigo and Psycho.”

Maîtresse (1976)

Director: Barbet Schroeder

A young innocent falls for a leather-clad dominatrix in Barbet Schroeder’s controversial film, at once a conventional love story and a dark study of fetishism. It stars Gerard Depardieu as Olivier, the young innocent who falls for the mysterious maitresse Ariane (Bulle Ogier). Only released at the time in a handful of club cinemas in 1981, the film was cut by almost five minutes and finally awarded an X certificate. This fully uncut version was first passed in 2003.

Mark Kermode says: “When the film first came before the BBFC in 1976 it was banned outright, with one examiner noting that, ‘this sort of depiction of sexual pathology goes way beyond what we can certificate for showing in a public cinema…’ Yet that same examining conceded that ‘the film is very well made, with good acting performances from two of France’s leading stars…’ but concluded ‘…opulent excrescence, for all its glitter, remains excrescence.’”

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

First mooted as a project to foster an improvement in Anglo-American relations, Powell & Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death emerged as a timeless romantic fantasy. David Niven plays Peter Carter, a young airman seemingly doomed before his time and trapped between life and death, between a Technicolor Earth and a monochrome heaven.

Mark Kermode says: “Breathtaking cinematography from Jack Cardiff, superb locations work at places like Saunton Sands in Devon, and an intriguing camera obscura subplot featuring the photophilic themes that would appear in Powell’s later film Peeping Tom, all combine to make this an utterly flawless classic.” 

Le Mépris (1963)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard’s sardonic look at the world of filmmaking boasts superb performances by Michel Piccoli as a compromised writer, Brigitte Bardot as his bored wife, Jack Palance as a manipulative producer and Fritz Lang as himself, about to film Homer’s Odyssey in Cinecittà and Capri. Raoul Coutard’s camerawork and Georges Delerue’s music enhance the beauty and poignancy.

Mark Kermode says: “A tale of artistic compromise and marital strife, Le Mépris is a playfully self-reflexive affair, the poster of which focused on the pillowy charms of Brigitte Bardot, but which in fact offered something altogether edgier, more angular and anarchic.”

Mother (2009)

Director: Bong Joon-ho

A widow (Kim Hye-ja) resides with her mentally challenged son (Won Bin) in a small South Korean town, where she scrapes out a living selling medicinal herbs. Mother and son are plunged into a nightmare when the body of a murdered young girl is discovered. Circumstantial evidence indicates the son’s involvement, and he becomes the prime suspect during the sloppy police investigation. The fourth feature from cult director Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Snowpiercer) is a startlingly original account of maternal feelings in all their terrifying intensity; blackly comic and exquisitely shot.

Mark Kermode says: “Having scored Korea’s biggest box-office hit with The Host, Bong wanted to do something completely different for the follow-up. From the surreal opening – from which the fate, tragedy and madness of the subsequent narrative is subtly laid out – that difference is clear and present.”

Nosferatu (1979)

Reconnecting German cinema with its Weimer forebears via Murnau’s iconic Nosferatu, Herzog’s vampire film references its 1922 predecessor but has a distinctive temperament. Nosferatu, played by the stunning Klaus Kinski, is modelled on the monster of the earlier film, yet his obsession with Isabelle Adjani’s character of Lucy Harker reveals a certain pathos, even as his army of rats brings plague and delirium to a prosperous small town.

Mark Kermode says: “‘It was clear that there would never be a vampire of his calibre again’, said Herzog some years later, insisting that in four centuries to come Kinski would remain the definitive embodiment of this mythical creature. Well, we may only be four decades away from Herzog’s Nosferatu, but so far Kinski still looks unsurpassable.”

Ordet (1955)

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s beautifully photographed tale explores the religious intolerance and familial tensions within a Danish farming family. Based on a 1932 play by Danish playwright and Lutheran country priest Kaj Munk (1898-1944), Ordet is a tale of miraculous resurrection brought about by human love. Dreyer achieves its powerful effects in deceptively simple ways, and has produced, in its closing moments, one of the most extraordinary scenes in all cinema.

Mark Kermode says: “A hit with the public and the critics alike, Ordet won the Golden Lion at Venice, shared a Golden Globe for foreign language film and is one of the highlights of the Dreyer collection on BFI Player Plus.” 

Pasolini (2014)

Director: Abel Ferrara

Written and directed by cult filmmaker Abel Ferrara (Driller Killer, Bad Lieutenant, Welcome to New York), this dark, daring drama tells the story of the fateful final days of the controversial filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. Starring Willem Dafoe (The Last Temptation of Christ) as the great auteur, Pasolini is a powerful and evocative look into the dark world of one of film’s most controversial figures, as seen through the eyes of one of modern cinema’s most surprising directors.

Mark Kermode says: “The blend of politics, religion and blow jobs is pure catnip for Ferrara, although those not versed in the controversy surrounding Sálo might want to do a little background reading to fully appreciate what is going on… This show belongs to Ferrara and Dafoe, both of who seem besotted with a bygone age, in which a filmmaker promoting his new movie could talk to the press about philosophy, poetry and politics and the whole world would listen.”

Peeping Tom (1960)

Director: Michael Powell

Much criticised at the time of its release, Michael Powell’s psychological study of a shy camera technician, who films for his home movies the death throes of the women he kills, is now widely regarded as a dark classic. Less a straightforward serial-killer thriller than a Freudian meditation on how and why we watch movies, it is rich in its thematic resonance – and in in-jokes about the film world.

Mark Kermode says: “With its lurid Eastman coloured hues, and its daringly confrontational POV camera work, Peeping Tom remains a startling uncomfortable watch to this day. Watch, but be warned: to do so is dangerous.” 

Prick Up Your Ears (1987)

Director: Stephen Frears

A celebration of outrageous British playwright Joe Orton’s irreverent and charismatic talent, starring Gary Oldman as Orton and Alfred Molina as his lover, Kenneth Halliwell. It is the controversial story of one of the young turks of the 1960s – from working class boy to national celebrity, from sexual innocent to grinning satyr, from penniless student to peer of the Beatles and icon of London’s swinging 60s. Orton made his success by mocking the rules of the establishment and lived his life ignoring them.

Mark Kermode says: “Having already earned plaudits for My Beautiful Laundrette, director Stephen Frears would go on to helm such hits as Dangerous Liaisons, Dirty Pretty Things, The Queen and Philomena. But this early hit remains one of his best works – rich, ribald and worthy of repeat viewing.” 

Radio On (1979)

Director: Chris Petit

Chris Petit’s cult classic is one of the most striking feature debuts in British cinema – a haunting blend of edgy mystery story and existential road movie, crammed with eerie evocations of English landscape and weather. Stunningly photographed in monochrome by Wim Wenders’ assistant cameraman Martin Schäfer, Radio On is driven by a startling new wave soundtrack featuring David Bowie, Kraftwerk, Lene Lovich, Ian Dury, Wreckless Eric, Robert Fripp and Devo, and reveals an early screen performance by Sting.

Mark Kermode says: “Radio On is a genuine British classic, which perfectly captures the unsettling architecture both cultural and physical of country seen through the windscreen of a two-tone vintage Rover.”

Rashomon (1950)

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Credited with bringing Japanese cinema to worldwide audiences, Akira Kurosawa’s breakthrough tells the story of a murder in the woods from four differing perspectives. With its snaking bolero-like score and poetic use of dappled forest light, Rashomon is a work of enduring ambiguity.

Mark Kermode says: “As the various stories unfold we come to question what is true and what is false, and whether darkness really does lurk at the heart of mankind, and whether honour may triumph over – or be defeated by – treachery.” 

Red Desert (1964)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

Antonioni’s mid-career masterpiece – his first film in colour – tells the story of Giuliana (Monica Vitti), a young woman suffering a mental and emotional crisis and embarking tentatively on an affair. Red Desert is a stunning film from the great Italian auteur, a deserving winner of the Golden Lion at the 1965 Venice Film Festival and a high point of post-war European cinema.

Mark Kermode says: “With its evocative electronic music and its startling off-kilter vistas, there is a hint of science fiction about Red Desert, where Vitti becomes the woman who fell to earth… yes, this is a world of pollution and poison, both physical and emotional. But it is also a world of fable and fantasy, of imagination and hallucination – worldly and otherworldly. Or to put it another way, it is a film by Antonioni.”

Red Road (2006)

Director: Andrea Arnold

Jackie (Kate Dickie) is a CCTV operator and gets a perverse satisfaction from observing the lives of others, until one day a man from her past appears on her monitors – one whom she never wanted to see again. Now she has no alternative but to confront both the man, and the demons inside herself. Andrea Arnold’s (Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights) superb debut feature was voted one of the best British films of the last 25 years in a poll conducted by The Observer’s Film Quarterly.

Mark Kermode says: “Despite diverse comparisons with the cruelty of Michael Haneke, the social realism of the Dardenne brothers and the visual poetry of Lynne Ramsay, Arnold’s style is distinctively her own and has continued to grow through her subsequent, critically acclaimed features, Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights and, most recently, American Honey.”  

The Red Shoes (1948)

Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Described by Martin Scorsese as “the movie that plays in my heart”, and a direct influence on Kate Bush, who was attracted by its portrayal of crazed passion, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s film is a moving masterpiece. Moira Shearer stars as a ballerina torn between her love for her husband and the strenuous demands of her art. The extraordinary 15-minute performance of the Red Shoes ballet at the film’s climax is one of the most famous sequences in British cinema.

Mark Kermode says: “The Red Shoes is a dizzying blend of dazzling dance and daring darkness.” 

Rome, Open City (1945)

Director: Roberto Rossellini

A landmark of Italian neorealism often cited as one of the greatest films ever made, Roberto Rossellini’s portrait of life under the Nazi Occupation remains remarkable for its sheer immediacy, tension and power. Made in extraordinarily straitened circumstances immediately after the liberation of Rome, the film follows a partisan leader as he attempts to evade the Gestapo by enlisting the help of the the underground resistance.

Mark Kermode says: “Ubaldo Arata’s visceral cinematography blends the grit of reportage with the heart and soul of a drama as the people of Rome struggle with the constraints, compromises and collusion of life during wartime.” 

Symptoms (1974)

Director: José R. Larraz

The official British Palme d’Or entry at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, Symptoms is a sophisticated modern gothic horror film exploring the themes of sexual repression and psychosis. José Ramón Larraz’s dark and stylish film tells of a young woman (Lorna Heilbron) who is invited by her girlfriend (Angela Pleasence) to stay at her remote English country mansion. Events take a disturbing turn when a menacing groundskeeper (Peter Vaughan) interrupts their time together, and a woman’s body is found in the mansion’s lake.

Mark Kermode says: “Symptoms opened to rave reviews but quickly became a cult oddity rarely seen in cinemas or on TV . Only when the title flagged up as one of the BFI ’s Most Wanted was the negative located by Deluxe, providing the source of a new digital transfer.” 

That Sinking Feeling (1979)

Director: Bill Forsyth

Before Gregory’s Girl, Bill Forsyth made this equally hilarious caper about a group of unemployed teenagers who hatch a plan to steal a job lot of stainless steel sinks. Forsyth’s authentic depiction of 1970s Glasgow youth culture makes for an unfairly neglected slice of British cinema.

Mark Kermode says: “A British comedy with more urban grit and whimsical wit than anything else that was around at the time. When it played the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1979, That Sinking Feeling became the toast of the town.”

This Filthy Earth (2001)

Director: Andrew Kötting

This Filthy Earth is the story of sisters Kath and Francine, whose lives are disrupted by two men – a brutal villager greedy for the girls’ land and a gentle stranger who offers the possibility of escape. This Filthy Earth is the second feature from Andrew Kötting, whose debut film, Gallivant, won him Channel 4’s best new director award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1996.

Mark Kermode says: “Epic and untamable, Kötting’s films have rarely obtained commercial success. Despite early rave reviews, he has shown no interest in working within the mainstream, preferring instead to plough his own field. Thank God, as This Filthy Earth demonstrates that cinema needs more filmmakers cut from Kötting’s uncompromising cloth.” 

Underground (1928)

Director: Anthony Asquith

Underground tells the story of the lives and loves of four young working people in 1920s London. Parallels with life in the metropolis today are poignant, and it is fascinating to see the locations – the pubs, shops and underground – in which the drama unfolds. It’s assured filmmaking with the occasional impressive flourish – a trademark of Anthony Asquith’s directorial style.

Mark Kermode says: “This is a film that I want you to watch with your ears, an early 20th-century silent, with a superb 21st-century score by the incomparable Neil Brand.” 

Unrelated (2007)

Director: Joanna Hogg

On a Tuscan break a fortysomething woman finds herself unable to socialise with her adult peers and is instead drawn to the company of a group of partying teens, including a young Tom Hiddleston (in one of his earliest roles). But after discovering she can never really be part of either group, she undergoes a deep existential crisis. With its unusual and unapologetic focus on the lives of the middle classes, the debut film from Joanna Hogg (Archipelago, Exhibition) heralded the arrival of a major new British talent.

Mark Kermode says: “With just three films in a decade, Hogg is hardly prolific, but her style is acute, incisive, so utterly distinctive that all her features are worth the wait.”

La Vallée (Obscured by Clouds) (1972)

When Viviane (Bulle Ogier), a chic young diplomat’s wife, meets an intriguing adventurer (Michael Gothard) and his hippy friends in the wilds of Papua New Guinea, different worlds collide. Barbet Schroeder’s striking second feature explores the limits of experience and freedom, journeying into the Great Unknown accompanied by Pink Floyd’s especially composed soundtrack, later released as the album Obscured By Clouds. The film is an authentic tribute to the liberating spirit of adventure.

Mark Kermode says: “It has a far more cynical attitude towards its colonial adventures than some critics give it credit for. Watch the film for yourself and ask yourself, ‘Can you see the valley?’”

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Living review: Bill Nighy delivers an almost startling transformation in this beautiful period drama

In a performance tipped for oscar attention, the british actor sheds his trademark, twinkling charisma like snakeskin, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Oliver Hermanus. Starring: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke. 12A, 102 minutes.

Ikiru , in its plaintive modernity, may not be the most widely recognisable of Akira Kurosawa’s films. It can’t be slotted so neatly beside the savage violence and heroic ideals of his historical films, Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957) or Ran (1985). But the 1952 drama’s message, that a worthy legacy can be built from the tiniest and most fleeting of things, has endured. It’s encapsulated in the single image of a dying bureaucrat (played by Takashi Shimura) singing to himself as he sits on the swingset of the playground he helped build. Decades later, it’s an image that’s been reframed but barely rethought by South African director Oliver Hermanus, Nobel Prize-winning screenwriter Ishiguro Kazuo and actor Bill Nighy with Living . But, like the bureaucrat’s cherished swingset, that vague feeling of inconsequence shouldn’t make much difference. What does it matter if a film isn’t necessarily built to last? Living still has its compelling beauty.

Hermanus’s film is set in the Fifties, making it a period piece rather than a contemporary portrait as Ikiru was. It also takes place halfway around the world in London. Nighy’s bureaucrat, Mr Williams, is dying of stomach cancer. He’s spent the majority of his life in the same job at London County Hall, its monotony as constant as the piles of paperwork that pen him into his desk. It’s a necessary bit of mess, his young employee Ms Harris (Aimee Lou Wood) warns him, since without them “people suspect you of not having anything very important to do”.

Following his diagnosis, Mr Williams seeks existential comfort not from his own son, who he insists “has his own life”, but from a Brighton louche (Tom Burke) and the cheery Ms Harris. He invites the latter out to the movies and then for a drink, while confessing that he doesn’t feel able to go home (read: be alone) quite yet. She worries he’s developed a strange infatuation. But in reality, Mr Williams seems convinced that proximity to youth might be able to stave off his own mortality. “I have no special quality,” Ms Harris insists. He will have to seek meaning elsewhere.

Much of the artfulness of Living does, in part, feel borrowed from Ikiru . Here the chaotic symphony of city life is rendered not through car horns but the steady beat of commuter footsteps, surging back and forth along the same daily paths. Those towering paper stacks slice through frames, isolating its characters, who are sometimes made to look as small and crushable as ants. Hermanus ruminates on these images a little more than Kurosawa might. He already knows their power, and allows cinematographer Jamie D Ramsay to bathe them in a soft, milky light.

• ‘I used to eat a four-pack of Magnums and a four-pack of Soleros in one sitting’: Bill Nighy on sugar cravings, Method actors, and never retiring
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Crucially, we are not told of Mr Williams’s condition up front, as Ikiru does through its introductory narration. Instead, we’re introduced to him through the eyes of Mr Wakeling (Alex Sharp), a new hire at the office – specifically, in a shot of Mr Williams as seen through a train window, appropriately framed by a circle of morning frost. Nighy, too, has shed his trademark, twinkling charisma like snakeskin. What lies beneath is something almost spectral in its stillness, a man already half-dead and certainly deserving of Ms Harris’s secret nickname of “Mr Zombie”. It’s an almost startling transformation for the actor, a standout performance of an already much-lauded career. His contributions help guide Living on its muted but no less emotive journey to that singular image of a man, renewed, alone on a swingset. Hermanus is more than happy for his film to live in the shadows of Kurosawa’s. There’s still much to savour.

‘Living’ is in cinemas from 4 November

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‘Abigail’ review: ‘Swan Lake’ meets ‘Dracula’ in bloody horror movie

Movie review.

If ever a movie was critic-proof, it is “Abigail,” the new horror film from the directing team that calls itself Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) about a murderous preteen ballerina vampire. So I attended not because I thought anyone would care what I thought — surely the audience for blood-drenched movies about murderous preteen ballerina vampires knows who they are without needing my help — but because I was curious about the logistics involved in being a ballerina vampire. Would it be difficult to take class because of the distractions created by bloody blisters in pointe shoes? Is it hard to get blood out of a tutu? Would “Swan Lake” even make sense, because wouldn’t a vampire swan-turned-human be unable to resist biting herself?

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None of these questions are answered, alas, in “Abigail,” a movie that doesn’t concern itself much with logic. Basically, we have a crew of kidnappers of varying intelligence levels (you can, almost immediately, guess the first one who’s going to be bloodily bumped off) who snatch the 12-year-old ballerina daughter (Alisha Weir) of a wealthy underworld figure and hold her for ransom overnight. Because this is a movie, the overnight stay takes place in an enormous Gothic mansion full of doors that slam shut, scary elevators that look like cages, and opportunities for people to be separated from their heads. And — fun plot twist! — the kidnappers do not know at first that this angelic-looking bunheaded kiddo is actually a vampire. “A ballerina vampire ,” says one of them pointedly, in case we didn’t get it. At least she still had her head.

If you have seen the trailer for “Abigail,” you already know everything that’s going to happen in this movie, other than that we learn that ballerina vampires, in bloody pursuit of their prey, will often take a moment to execute a lovely pirouette mid-swoop. (This is not particularly efficient, vampire business-wise, but it’s picturesque.) The cast — which includes Dan Stevens, in case you want to hear Cousin Matthew of “Downton Abbey” talking like a second-string Gotham City villain — does its best with lines like “What do we know about vampires?” (short answer: not much). Most important: The volume of bloodletting is undeniably impressive and frequently explosive, and the filmmakers effectively employ a lot of creepy remixes of the “Swan Lake” theme. Should there be a sequel — and vampires never truly die, right? — here’s hoping Abigail brings some swan friends with her next time.  

With Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Alisha Weir, William Catlett, Kathryn Newton. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, from a screenplay by Stephen Shields and Guy Bisick. 109 minutes. Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore throughout, pervasive language and brief drug use. Multiple theaters.

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Mark Kermode: 50 films every film fan should watch

The UK’s best-known film critic, Mark Kermode offers up 50 personal viewing recommendations, from great classics to overlooked gems. The reviews presented below are the words of Mark Kermode.

• Movies or TV
• IMDb Rating
• In Theaters
• Release Year

1. The Arbor (2010)

Unrated | 94 min | Documentary, Biography, Drama

Portrayal of the late Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar.

Director: Clio Barnard | Stars: Manjinder Virk , Christine Bottomley , Natalie Gavin , Parvani Lingiah

Votes: 2,134 | Gross: $0.02M

Somehow the disparate elements form a strikingly cohesive whole, conjuring a portrait of the artist and her offspring that is both emotionally engaging, stylistically radical and utterly unforgettable.

2. Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (1980)

R | 123 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

A psychiatrist, living in Vienna, enters a torrid relationship with a married woman. When she ends up in the hospital from an overdose, an inspector becomes set on discovering the demise of their affair.

Director: Nicolas Roeg | Stars: Art Garfunkel , Theresa Russell , Harvey Keitel , Denholm Elliott

Votes: 9,617

Seen in flashback through the prism of a woman’s attempted suicide, this fragmented portrait of a love affair expands into a labyrinthine enquiry into memory and guilt. One of director Nic Roeg’s finest films. Roeg himself reported that a friend refused to talk to him for three years after seeing the film. Today, Bad Timing still divides audiences: monstrosity or masterpiece? Well, watch it and decide for yourself.

3. Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Not Rated | 93 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance

A beautiful young woman takes her father's place as the prisoner of a mysterious beast, who wishes to marry her.

Directors: Jean Cocteau , René Clément | Stars: Jean Marais , Josette Day , Mila Parély , Nane Germon

Votes: 28,072 | Gross: $0.30M

Personally I think Mexican filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro, the maestro of the modern screen fairytale, said it best when he declared La Belle et la Bête simply to be the most perfect cinematic fable ever told.

4. Black Narcissus (1947)

Not Rated | 101 min | Drama

A group of nuns struggle to establish a convent in the Himalayas, while isolation, extreme weather, altitude, and culture clashes all conspire to drive the well-intentioned missionaries mad.

Directors: Michael Powell , Emeric Pressburger | Stars: Deborah Kerr , David Farrar , Flora Robson , Jenny Laird

Votes: 27,645

Black Narcissus is a vividly sensual work, which looks unlike any other British film of the period. Oscar wins for Jack Cardiff’s cinematography and Alfred Junge for production design confirm it as a technical triumph, but it is still so much more than that. It is a work of extraordinary power and passion from Powell and Pressburger.

5. Blithe Spirit (1945)

96 min | Comedy, Fantasy

A man and his second wife are haunted by the ghost of his first wife.

Director: David Lean | Stars: Rex Harrison , Constance Cummings , Kay Hammond , Margaret Rutherford

Votes: 8,005

A spicy screen comedy filmed in blushing technicolour…, why David Lean is still considered one of Britain’s greatest directors.

6. Bullet Boy (2004)

R | 89 min | Drama

In one of East London's most volatile neighborhoods, pride, rivalry and revenge are the only codes on the street. Touted as a British Boyz in the Hood, Bullet Boy is a gripping and ... See full summary  »

Director: Saul Dibb | Stars: Ashley Walters , Luke Fraser , Leon Black , Clare Perkins

Votes: 2,741

Ashley Walters rose to fame as one of So Solid Crew but impresses here in his first lead acting role, anchoring Saul Dibb’s stark and compelling urban drama. Both Dibb and Walters have travelled far since the days of Bullet Boy, but this urgent, low-budget British drama remains a defining moment in both of their diverse careers.

7. Capricorn One (1977)

PG | 123 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

When the first manned flight to Mars is deemed unsafe and scrubbed on the launch pad, anxious authorities must scramble to save face and retain their funding - and so an unthinkable plot to fake the mission is hatched.

Director: Peter Hyams | Stars: Elliott Gould , James Brolin , Brenda Vaccaro , Sam Waterston

Votes: 24,712

After the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, it was easy for audiences to believe that governments were corrupt and recordings could be doctored – it is no wonder that so many people took Capricorn One at face value.

8. Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)

Unrated | 193 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

A mysteriously linked pair of young women find their daily lives preempted by a strange boudoir melodrama that plays itself out in a hallucinatory parallel reality.

Director: Jacques Rivette | Stars: Juliet Berto , Dominique Labourier , Bulle Ogier , Marie-France Pisier

Votes: 6,353 | Gross: $0.03M

A comparative commercial hit on its release, Céline and Julie Go Boating has since gone on to become a much sought after cult item and has influenced everyone from David Lynch to Susan Seidelman. It was also hailed as an influential female buddy movie by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum who wrote that many women consider it to be their favourite film about female friendship, and many men too.

10. The Company of Wolves (1984)

R | 95 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

A teenage girl in a country manor falls asleep while reading a magazine, and has a disturbing dream involving wolves prowling the woods below her bedroom window.

Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Sarah Patterson , Angela Lansbury , David Warner , Graham Crowden

Votes: 18,399 | Gross: $4.39M

Pitched somewhere between arthouse tract and exploitation horror movie, The Company of Wolves drew mixed responses from some baffled critics, but proved an enduring audience favourite. Today, it has become a timeless classic, which is studied by film scholars and adored by film fans alike. If you like your fairy tales to have teeth, this is the film for you.

11. Countess Dracula (1971)

PG | 93 min | Horror

In 17th-century Hungary, elderly widow Countess Elisabeth Nádasdy maintains her misleading youthful appearance by bathing in the blood of virgins regularly supplied to her by faithful servant Captain Dobi.

Director: Peter Sasdy | Stars: Ingrid Pitt , Nigel Green , Sandor Elès , Maurice Denham

Votes: 4,813

Public decency is breached with laudable regularity in Hammer’s 1971 tale, based on the legend of Elizabeth Báthory. Ingrid Pitt plays the widowed countess rejuvenated by virgins’ blood, and Nigel Green her accomplice and lover, Captain Dobi. A bona fide screen icon, at the very height of her dark powers.

12. The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)

Unrated | 99 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi

When the U.S. and Russia unwittingly test atomic bombs at the same time, it alters the nutation (axis of rotation) of the Earth.

Director: Val Guest | Stars: Edward Judd , Janet Munro , Leo McKern , Michael Goodliffe

Votes: 6,201

When the USA and Russia simultaneously test atomic bombs, the Earth is knocked off its axis and set on a collision course with the sun. Today, the film may seem almost quaint, but it’s as captivating as ever.

13. Dead Ringers (1988)

R | 116 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller

Twin gynecologists take full advantage of the fact that nobody can tell them apart, until their relationship begins to deteriorate over a woman.

Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: Jeremy Irons , Geneviève Bujold , Heidi von Palleske , Barbara Gordon

Votes: 53,550 | Gross: $9.13M

It’s not the visual effects that dazzle, the real magic is in the performances, with Jeremy Irons using the Alexander technique to give Elliot and Beverly different stances, different energy points… The result is overwhelming, at times horrifying, but mostly heartbreaking.

14. Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)

PG-13 | 84 min | Drama, Music

The lives of an English working-class family are told out of order in a free-associative manner. The first part, "Distant Voices", focuses on the father's role in the family. The second part, "Still Lives", focuses on his children.

Director: Terence Davies | Stars: Pete Postlethwaite , Freda Dowie , Angela Walsh , Dean Williams

Votes: 5,161 | Gross: $0.69M

Described at one point as ‘a forgotten masterpiece’, Distant Voices Still Lives has grown in stature over the years, and in 2011 it was voted the third best British film in a survey conducted by TimeOut magazine, beaten only by Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now and Carol Reed’s The Third Man.

15. Dogtooth (2009)

Not Rated | 97 min | Drama, Thriller

A controlling, manipulative father locks his three adult offsprings in a state of perpetual childhood by keeping them prisoner within the sprawling family compound.

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos | Stars: Christos Stergioglou , Michele Valley , Angeliki Papoulia , Christos Passalis

Votes: 110,340 | Gross: $0.11M

Balancing astute social commentary with absurd tragi-comedy, Dogtooth has been read as a dissection of Greek society, both personal and political. Lanthimos retains a Lynchian quality of refusing to discuss his work, saying that, ‘If I wanted to discuss social problems I would have become a writer, but I am a filmmaker it is all I can do’.

16. The Draughtsman's Contract (1982)

R | 108 min | Comedy, Drama, Mystery

A young artist is commissioned by the wife of a wealthy landowner to make a series of drawings of the estate while her husband is away.

Director: Peter Greenaway | Stars: Anthony Higgins , Janet Suzman , Anne-Louise Lambert , Hugh Fraser

Votes: 11,082

It is weirdly wonderful, from Nyman’s Purcell-influenced score to Sue Blane’s eye-catching costumes. Most importantly the film shows a unique talent getting to grips with narrative cinema that is as engaging and alluring as it is baffling and perplexing.

17. The Elephant Man (1980)

PG | 124 min | Biography, Drama

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of kindness, intelligence and sophistication.

Director: David Lynch | Stars: Anthony Hopkins , John Hurt , Anne Bancroft , John Gielgud

Votes: 258,345

There was nothing John Hurt couldn’t do, but it is a role in which his famous face was all but hidden and his mellifluous voice almost unrecognisable that ironically garnered some of his greatest reviews.

18. Face (I) (1997)

R | 105 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller

In the face of demise in his values, a socialist in England decides to form a gang and rob banks for a living.

Director: Antonia Bird | Stars: Robert Carlyle , Ray Winstone , Steve Sweeney , Gerry Conlon

Votes: 4,802

A cracking but often overlooked crime thriller from 1997, featuring a sharp script, a stellar cast, and a dynamite soundtrack. Directed by Antonia Bird, Face one of the UK’s most versatile and sorely missed filmmakers, Face is an ace heist-gone-wrong thriller that was correctly hailed by London’s Time Out magazine as a ‘muscular, raw and aggressive slice of vividly authentic populist cinema.’

19. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

Not Rated | 92 min | Drama, Romance

A lonely widow meets a much younger Moroccan worker in a bar during a rainstorm. They fall in love, to their own surprise and to the outright shock of their families, colleagues, and drinking buddies.

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder | Stars: Brigitte Mira , El Hedi ben Salem , Barbara Valentin , Irm Hermann

Votes: 23,844

Sit back and experience a film that seems even more relevant today than it did in 1974.

20. Fitzcarraldo (1982)

PG | 158 min | Adventure, Drama

The story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an extremely determined man who intends to build an opera house in the middle of a jungle.

Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Klaus Kinski , Claudia Cardinale , José Lewgoy , Miguel Ángel Fuentes

Votes: 38,563

I live my life or end my life with this project’, declared Herzog, and he wasn’t kidding. No wonder Fitzcarraldo remains such an overwhelming experience.

21. Godzilla (1954)

Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

American nuclear weapons testing results in the creation of a seemingly unstoppable dinosaur-like beast.

Director: Ishirô Honda | Stars: Takashi Shimura , Akihiko Hirata , Akira Takarada , Momoko Kôchi

Votes: 39,599 | Gross: $2.42M

While the scenes of destruction viscerally recall the destruction of America’s nuclear strikes, the dialogue offers a surprisingly thoughtful meditation on the guilty responsibilities of scientific advancements… reveal in the mastery of this superb creature feature.

23. Hands of the Ripper (1971)

R | 85 min | Horror

As a young child Jack the Ripper's daughter witnesses him kill her mother. As a young woman she carries on the murderous reign of her father. A psychiatrist tries to cure her with tragic consequences.

Director: Peter Sasdy | Stars: Eric Porter , Angharad Rees , Jane Merrow , Keith Bell

Votes: 3,023

For all the film’s shortcomings, Sadsy brings a dash of Argento-esque style to the increasing splatter, ensuring that the hands of the Ripper continue to grip audiences even today.

24. Highway Patrolman (1991)

Not Rated | 104 min | Crime, Drama

Against his father's wishes, Pedro, a naive kid from Mexico City, joins the Federal Highway Patrol. His simple desire to do good rapidly comes into conflict with the reality of police work.

Director: Alex Cox | Stars: Roberto Sosa , Bruno Bichir , Vanessa Bauche , Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez

A Mexican drama from British director Alex Cox, who made his name with the cult classic Repo Man, and cemented his reputation as the new rose of post-punk cinema with Sid & Nancy. It was described by the Los Angeles Times in 1991 as ‘Cox’s finest film to date.’

25. Immoral Tales (1973)

Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Romance

An erotic collection of short stories, an anthology comprised of tantalizing tales about sexual desire and its diverse manifestations.

Director: Walerian Borowczyk | Stars: Lise Danvers , Fabrice Luchini , Charlotte Alexandra , Paloma Picasso

Votes: 5,448

Today it remains divisive, with scholars referring to it as Borowczyk’s least substantial work while others succumb to its bawdy pleasures. Art or exploitation? Watch it and decide for yourself.

26. Interior. Leather Bar. (2013)

Not Rated | 60 min | Drama

Filmmakers James Franco and Travis Mathews re-imagine the lost 40 minutes from Cruising (1980) as a starting point to a broader exploration of sexual and creative freedom.

Directors: James Franco , Travis Mathews | Stars: Val Lauren , Christian Patrick , James Franco , Travis Mathews

Votes: 2,710 | Gross: $0.04M

Interior. Leather Bar. is not for everyone, but for anyone fascinated by Friedkin’s cause celebre it is by turns infuriating, indulgent and intriguing.

27. The Ipcress File (1965)

Passed | 109 min | Drama, Thriller

In London, a wisecracking spy investigates the kidnapping and brainwashing of British scientists while dealing with the constraints of his agency's bureaucracy.

Director: Sidney J. Furie | Stars: Michael Caine , Nigel Green , Guy Doleman , Sue Lloyd

Votes: 17,578

By 1999, it was ranking at number 59 in the BFI’s Top 100 list of Best British Films of the century, ahead of classics like The Dam Busters, Passport to Pimlico, Oliver, Hope and Glory, and The Wicker Man. Watch the film and see why.

28. The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Not Rated | 96 min | Mystery, Thriller

While travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Margaret Lockwood , Michael Redgrave , Paul Lukas , May Whitty

Votes: 57,136

So successful was The Lady Vanishes that it persuaded the producer David O. Selznick to sign up the director for a seven-year contract, sending Hitchcock to Hollywood where he would make some of the most celebrated screen thrillers of all time.

29. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)

Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

A landlady suspects that her new lodger is the madman killing women in London.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: June Tripp , Ivor Novello , Marie Ault , Arthur Chesney

Votes: 13,379

Alfred Hitchcock’s first thriller, about a man accused of being a serial killer. The film offers early evidence of the director’s longstanding association between sex and murder, ecstasy and death, introducing fetishistic tropes that would become defining moves in Vertigo and Psycho.

30. Mistress (1976)

Not Rated | 112 min | Drama, Romance

A common thief (Depardieu) breaks into the house of a professional dominatrix (Ogier), and begins to help her "train" her clients. Though this world is alien to his experience, he finds ... See full summary  »

Director: Barbet Schroeder | Stars: Gérard Depardieu , Bulle Ogier , André Rouyer , Nathalie Keryan

Votes: 2,424

When the film first came before the BBFC in 1976 it was banned outright, with one examiner noting that, ‘this sort of depiction of sexual pathology goes way beyond what we can certificate for showing in a public cinema…’ Yet that same examining conceded that ‘the film is very well made, with good acting performances from two of France’s leading stars…’ but concluded ‘…opulent excrescence, for all its glitter, remains excrescence.’

31. A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

PG | 104 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance

A British wartime aviator who cheats death must argue for his life before a celestial court, hoping to prolong his fledgling romance with an American girl.

Directors: Michael Powell , Emeric Pressburger | Stars: David Niven , Kim Hunter , Robert Coote , Kathleen Byron

Votes: 24,832

Breathtaking cinematography from Jack Cardiff, superb locations work at places like Saunton Sands in Devon, and an intriguing camera obscura subplot featuring the photophilic themes that would appear in Powell’s later film Peeping Tom, all combine to make this an utterly flawless classic.

32. Contempt (1963)

Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Romance

A French writer's marriage deteriorates while working on Fritz Lang 's version of "The Odyssey", as his wife accuses him of using her to court favor with the film's brash American producer.

Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Brigitte Bardot , Jack Palance , Michel Piccoli , Giorgia Moll

Votes: 36,023 | Gross: $0.04M

A tale of artistic compromise and marital strife, Le Mépris is a playfully self-reflexive affair, the poster of which focused on the pillowy charms of Brigitte Bardot, but which in fact offered something altogether edgier, more angular and anarchic.

33. Mother (2009)

R | 129 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

A mother desperately searches for the killer who framed her son for a girl's horrific murder.

Director: Bong Joon Ho | Stars: Kim Hye-ja , Won Bin , Jin Goo , Yun Je-mun

Votes: 71,613 | Gross: $0.55M

Having scored Korea’s biggest box-office hit with The Host, Bong wanted to do something completely different for the follow-up. From the surreal opening – from which the fate, tragedy and madness of the subsequent narrative is subtly laid out – that difference is clear and present.

34. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

PG | 107 min | Drama, Horror

Count Dracula moves from Transylvania to Wismar, spreading the Black Plague across the land. Only a woman pure of heart can bring an end to his reign of horror.

Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Klaus Kinski , Isabelle Adjani , Bruno Ganz , Roland Topor

Votes: 40,487

It was clear that there would never be a vampire of his calibre again’, said Herzog some years later, insisting that in four centuries to come Kinski would remain the definitive embodiment of this mythical creature. Well, we may only be four decades away from Herzog’s Nosferatu, but so far Kinski still looks unsurpassable.

35. Ordet (1955)

Not Rated | 126 min | Drama

Follows the lives of the Borgen family, as they deal with inner conflict, as well as religious conflict with each other, and the rest of the town.

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Stars: Henrik Malberg , Emil Hass Christensen , Preben Lerdorff Rye , Hanne Aagesen

Votes: 17,397

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s beautifully photographed tale explores the religious intolerance and familial tensions within a Danish farming family. A hit with the public and the critics alike, Ordet won the Golden Lion at Venice and shared a Golden Globe for foreign language film.

36. Pasolini (2014)

18+ | 84 min | Biography, Drama

A kaleidoscopic look at the last day of Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1975.

Director: Abel Ferrara | Stars: Willem Dafoe , Ninetto Davoli , Riccardo Scamarcio , Valerio Mastandrea

Votes: 4,554 | Gross: $0.03M

The blend of politics, religion and blow jobs is pure catnip for Ferrara, although those not versed in the controversy surrounding Sálo might want to do a little background reading to fully appreciate what is going on… This show belongs to Ferrara and Dafoe, both of who seem besotted with a bygone age, in which a filmmaker promoting his new movie could talk to the press about philosophy, poetry and politics and the whole world would listen.

37. Peeping Tom (1960)

Not Rated | 101 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller

A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.

Director: Michael Powell | Stars: Karlheinz Böhm , Anna Massey , Moira Shearer , Maxine Audley

Votes: 39,229 | Gross: $0.08M

With its lurid Eastman coloured hues, and its daringly confrontational POV camera work, Peeping Tom remains a startling uncomfortable watch to this day. Watch, but be warned: to do so is dangerous.

38. Prick Up Your Ears (1987)

R | 105 min | Biography, Drama

Biographer John Lahr is writing a book about playwright Joe Orton. Joe and Kenneth meet at drama school and live together for ten years as lovers and collaborators. Both want to be writers, but only one of them is successful.

Director: Stephen Frears | Stars: Gary Oldman , Alfred Molina , Vanessa Redgrave , Wallace Shawn

Votes: 6,536 | Gross: $1.65M

Having already earned plaudits for My Beautiful Laundrette, director Stephen Frears would go on to helm such hits as Dangerous Liaisons, Dirty Pretty Things, The Queen and Philomena. But this early hit remains one of his best works – rich, ribald and worthy of repeat viewing.

39. Radio On (1979)

104 min | Drama, Music, Mystery

In 1970s Britain, a man drives from London to Bristol to investigate his brother's death, and the purpose of his trip is offset by his encounters with a series of odd people.

Director: Christopher Petit | Stars: David Beames , Lisa Kreuzer , Sandy Ratcliff , Andrew Byatt

Votes: 1,176

Radio On is a genuine British classic, which perfectly captures the unsettling architecture both cultural and physical of country seen through the windscreen of a two-tone vintage Rover.

40. Rashomon (1950)

Not Rated | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

The rape of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband are recalled from the perspectives of a bandit, the bride, the samurai's ghost and a woodcutter.

Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune , Machiko Kyô , Masayuki Mori , Takashi Shimura

Votes: 180,335 | Gross: $0.10M

As the various stories unfold we come to question what is true and what is false, and whether darkness really does lurk at the heart of mankind, and whether honour may triumph over – or be defeated by – treachery.

41. Red Desert (1964)

Not Rated | 117 min | Drama

In an industrial area, unstable Giuliana attempts to cope with life by starting an affair with a co-worker at the plant her husband manages.

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni | Stars: Monica Vitti , Richard Harris , Carlo Chionetti , Xenia Valderi

Votes: 17,628

With its evocative electronic music and its startling off-kilter vistas, there is a hint of science fiction about Red Desert, where Vitti becomes the woman who fell to earth… yes, this is a world of pollution and poison, both physical and emotional. But it is also a world of fable and fantasy, of imagination and hallucination – worldly and otherworldly. Or to put it another way, it is a film by Antonioni.

42. Red Road (2006)

Not Rated | 113 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Jackie works as a CCTV operator. Each day she watches over a small part of the world, protecting the people living their lives under her gaze. One day a man appears on her monitor, a man she thought she would never see again, a man she never wanted to see again. Now she has no choice, she is compelled to confront him.

Director: Andrea Arnold | Stars: Kate Dickie , Tony Curran , Martin Compston , Natalie Press

Votes: 13,629 | Gross: $0.15M

Despite diverse comparisons with the cruelty of Michael Haneke, the social realism of the Dardenne brothers and the visual poetry of Lynne Ramsay, Arnold’s style is distinctively her own and has continued to grow through her subsequent, critically acclaimed features, Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights and, most recently, American Honey.

43. The Red Shoes (1948)

Not Rated | 135 min | Drama, Music, Romance

A young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina.

Directors: Michael Powell , Emeric Pressburger | Stars: Anton Walbrook , Marius Goring , Moira Shearer , Robert Helpmann

Votes: 39,137 | Gross: $10.90M

The Red Shoes is a dizzying blend of dazzling dance and daring darkness.

44. Rome, Open City (1945)

Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Thriller, War

During the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1944, the Resistance leader, Giorgio Manfredi, is chased by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a way to escape.

Director: Roberto Rossellini | Stars: Anna Magnani , Aldo Fabrizi , Marcello Pagliero , Vito Annichiarico

Votes: 28,956

Ubaldo Arata’s visceral cinematography blends the grit of reportage with the heart and soul of a drama as the people of Rome struggle with the constraints, compromises and collusion of life during wartime.

45. Symptoms (1974)

R | 92 min | Horror

A young woman is invited by her girlfriend, who lives in an English country mansion, to stay there with her. The estate, however, isn't quite what it seems--and neither is the friend who issued the invitation.

Director: José Ramón Larraz | Stars: Angela Pleasence , Peter Vaughan , Lorna Heilbron , Nancy Nevinson

Votes: 1,744

Symptoms opened to rave reviews but quickly became a cult oddity rarely seen in cinemas or on TV. Only when the title flagged up as one of the BFI’s Most Wanted was the negative located by Deluxe, providing the source of a new digital transfer.

46. That Sinking Feeling (1979)

PG | 93 min | Comedy, Crime

Ronnie, Wal, Andy and Vic are four bored, unemployed teens in dreary, rainy Glasgow. Ronnie comes up with a great idea. He has noticed that stainless steel sinks are worth a lot of money ... See full summary  »

Director: Bill Forsyth | Stars: Tom Mannion , Eddie Burt , Richard Demarco , Alex Mackenzie

Votes: 1,282

A British comedy with more urban grit and whimsical wit than anything else that was around at the time. When it played the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1979, That Sinking Feeling became the toast of the town.

47. This Filthy Earth (2001)

111 min | Drama

The tragic story of two sisters whose lives are disrupted by two men. Amidst a landscape of rural hardship and a community consumed with superstition, events unfurl which threaten their sibling bond.

Director: Andrew Kotting | Stars: Rebecca Palmer , Shane Attwooll , Demelza Randall , Xavier Tchili

Epic and untamable, Kötting’s films have rarely obtained commercial success. Despite early rave reviews, he has shown no interest in working within the mainstream, preferring instead to plough his own field. Thank God, as This Filthy Earth demonstrates that cinema needs more filmmakers cut from Kötting’s uncompromising cloth.

48. Underground (1928)

84 min | Drama, Romance

A working-class love story set in and around the London Underground of the 1920s. Two men, gentle Bill and brash Bert, meet and are attracted to the same woman on the same day at the same ... See full summary  »

Director: Anthony Asquith | Stars: Brian Aherne , Elissa Landi , Cyril McLaglen , Norah Baring

This is a film that I want you to watch with your ears, an early 20th-century silent, with a superb 21st-century score by the incomparable Neil Brand.

49. Unrelated (2007)

Not Rated | 100 min | Drama

A woman in an unhappy relationship takes refuge with a friend's family on holiday in Tuscany.

Director: Joanna Hogg | Stars: Kathryn Worth , Harry Kershaw , Emma Hiddleston , Henry Lloyd-Hughes

Votes: 2,946

With just three films in a decade, Hogg is hardly prolific, but her style is acute, incisive, so utterly distinctive that all her features are worth the wait.

50. The Valley (Obscured by Clouds) (1972)

101 min | Drama

Consul's wife, Viviane took part in an expedition to New Guinea. She falls in love with Gaetan, the leader of a group of explorers, whose objective is to reach a mysterious valley.

Director: Barbet Schroeder | Stars: Bulle Ogier , Jean-Pierre Kalfon , Michael Gothard , Valérie Lagrange

Votes: 1,445

It has a far more cynical attitude towards its colonial adventures than some critics give it credit for. Watch the film for yourself and ask yourself, ‘Can you see the valley?’

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, mark kermode reviews "life itself".

LIFE ITSELF opened in London and all over the United Kingdom this past weekend. Acclaimed British film critic, Mark Kermode, penned a four-star review of Steve James' documentary about Roger Ebert for The Guardian . On the BBC Radio program, "Kermode and Mayo's Film Review," Kermode also delivered a wonderful  five-minute analysis  of the film while naming Ebert as "the great American humanist film critic." 

In his written review, Kermode calls " Life Itself ," "a lovely, insightful film" that's "a splendidly watchable tribute to a truly cinematic life. I laughed, I cried; I was inspired and uplifted. Thumbs Up!" He also calls Roger's wife, Chaz, "a magnificent presence – an example of the best in human nature, a subject to which Ebert returned compulsively in his writing." The radio review delves much deeper into the precise reasons why Kermode holds Ebert in such high esteem, praising him for his ability to merge his expertise on film with his cumulative life experience, making each review a work of personal and expressive art unto itself. 

For a full list of venues currently screening "Life Itself" in the U.K. click here . For a list of venues in the U.S. screening the film, click here .

View the full radio review below.

Matt Fagerholm

Matt Fagerholm is the former Literary Editor at RogerEbert.com and is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association. 

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Movie Review: A heist movie that gleefully collides with a monster movie in ‘Abigail’

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Alisha Weir in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows William Catlett, Melissa Barrera, Kevin Durand and Kathryn Newton in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Melissa Barrera and Alisha Weir in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Alisha Weir and Kathryn Newton in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Angus Cloud, Kathryn Newton, Alisha Weir, Kevin Durand, Dan Stevens, Melissa Barrera and William Catlett in a scene from the film “Abigail.” (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

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If you always thought your garden-variety heist movies could do with a bit more blood-sucking vampire, have we got a flick for you.

“Abigail,” featuring a 12-year-old tutu-wearing member of the undead, is way better than it should be, a gleeful genre-smashing romp through puddles of gore.

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and producer Chad Villella — part of Radio Silence Productions — have cracked the modern horror code with such hits as “Ready or Not,” “Scream” and “Scream VI.” They do not disappoint with “Abigail,” even perhaps opening a new, bloody revenue stream. (And wait for the phone call scene, a nod to “Scream.”)

“Abigail” starts with an odd assortment of mercenaries — played by “Scream” veteran Melissa Barrera, “Downton Abbey” star Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, William Catlett and the late Angus Cloud .

The six — representing the muscle, sniper, computer expert, getaway driver, medic etc — are hired to kidnap a rich preteen (nicknamed “Tiny Dancer”) and hold her for ransom. The rules are: No names. No backstory. No grabass, which is a weird request, if we’re being honest. All this group needs to do is detain the target for 24 hours until rich dad pays $50 million in ransom.

Why are six professional underworld characters needed to snatch and detain a sweet preteen, still wearing her tutu? That’s easy: Not all of them are going to survive to claim their share of $7 million. That’s because Abigail (Alisha Weir, awesome, stay away from me, no seriously) is really into, well, neckwork.

“I’m sorry about what’s going to happen to you,” Abigail sweetly tells the kidnappers. We have some idea — and it’s going to be great. Suddenly, the rambling estate they’re holding her becomes a prison. The tables are turned.

The script written by Stephen Shields (“The Hole in the Ground”) and regular Radio Silence collaborator Guy Busick (“Ready or Not” and the “Scream” movies) — gleefully mines humor in the horror. Laughing a moment after a body fully explodes is normal here.

“This whole thing is a trip,” says one of the gang. Believe them. “Something doesn’t add up,” says another. Believe that guy, too.

Garlic, sunlight, spears and crucifixes are employed to try to stop Abigail, who has hijacked the heist movie and turned it into a run-for-your-life thriller. She’s a very smart 12-year-old who turns hardened mercenaries against each other.

Barrera, who had been so central to the life of the “Scream” franchise, shows why she’s so good at horror — funny, sarcastic, vulnerable, athletic, soulful and very convincing with a stake in her hand.

Angus Cloud, Kathryn Newton, Alisha Weir, Kevin Durand, Dan Stevens, Melissa Barrera and William Catlett. (Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures via AP)

Stevens, who famously left the aristocratic “Downton Abbey” for better roles, may wonder what he’s doing here now, bathed in blood fighting a preteen vampire, but does an admirable job, definitely in on the camp.

But it’s Weir in the titular role who carries it, doing pirouettes and leaps as she chases the bad-guys-now-good guys to the theme of “Swan Lake” with blood dripping down her throat, rotten teeth and feathers in her hair. “I like to play with my food,” she says.

Run faster!

“Abigail,” a Universal Pictures release that hits theaters Friday, is rated R for “strong bloody violence and gore throughout, pervasive language and brief drug use.” Running time: 110 minutes. Three stars out of four.

MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Online: https://www.abigailmovie.com

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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Mark Kermode

The exorcist.

Last Updated

October 22, 2019

The Exorcist is known for being absolutely terrifying, but film critic Mark Kermode argues that it’s also a masterpiece. He was too young to see the movie when it was released and had to wait six years before he could watch it in a theater. Decades later, he has made documentaries about The Exorcist , written long essays and a book about it, and even became friends with the movie’s director and screenwriter. But he says every time he watches the movie, he’s still taken back to the experience of transcendence and magic he experienced when he watched the movie for the first time.

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Image by Julia Kuo , © All Rights Reserved.

Mark Kermode is the chief film critic for The Observer , host of the podcast Kermode On Film , and co-host of Kermode & Mayo's Film Review on BBC Radio 5 Live. His books on film include Hatchet Job , It’s Only A Movie , and How Does It Feel? A Life of Musical Misadventures .

Lily Percy, host: Hello, fellow movie fans. I’m Lily Percy, and I’ll be your guide this week as I talk with Mark Kermode about the movie that changed his life, The Exorcist . Don’t worry if you haven’t seen it because we’ll give you all the details you need to follow along. And hopefully — if you’ve been too scared to see it — we’ll have changed your mind by the end of this conversation.

[ music: “ Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10 (Sehr Langsam Und äusserst Ruhig)” by Anton Webern ]

Everything that I read about The Exorcist over the years, just as a movie fan and that I heard about from people who watched the movie, everything about it was about how shocking it was, how scary it was. But no one ever told me how good it was. This is a movie that, quite frankly, is a masterpiece in movie making. And that’s something that I wasn’t prepared for when I watched it for the first time.

[ excerpt: The Exorcist ]

[ music: “String Quartet” by Krzysztof Penderecki ]

The Exorcist takes place in Georgetown in Washington, D.C., and it revolves around a twelve-year-old girl and her demonic possession. It’s terrifying because it’s a child that you’re watching — and Satan speaking through a child — but it’s also terrifying because there seems to be no way to help her. Her mother tries her best, goes to doctors, psychiatrists, and then finally turns to the Catholic Church as a last resort, to a priest named Father Karras, trying to figure out what exactly is living within her own daughter.

My brother, who’s a big movie fan as well, has been trying to get me to watch The Exorcist since I was a teenager. And the only person who could really do this for me, who could get me to sit down and watch this movie from beginning to end, is my living movie prophet, Mark Kermode. He hosts the podcast Kermode on Film, and is the co-host of my favorite podcast, Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review from the BBC. He’s also kind of been the foremost expert on The Exorcist . He’s made documentaries about The Exorcist ; he’s written about it, long essays and books; and he also even became friends with the director, William Friedkin, and the screenwriter, William Peter Blatty. This is a movie that Mark lives with, and for him it’s a movie that has not only changed him as a person but has also changed the way he views movies.

Ms. Percy: I’d like you to just go back in time for a couple of seconds — ten seconds, and I’ll watch the clock— and I’d like you to go back in time. I’d like you to close your eyes and think about that first time that you saw The Exorcist . Think about how old you were, where you were, and how it made you feel. And I’ll chime in when those ten seconds are up.

So tell me what memories came up for you.

Mark Kermode: Well, I mean, the weird thing is, this is something that I think about pretty much every day. [ laughs ] When The Exorcist first came out, I was 10 years old. And I remember really clearly going to school on the tube train, and there were posters for the film everywhere. And the poster was that iconic image of Max von Sydow standing outside the house on Prospect Street, just in a black silhouette with — in England, the light behind the poster was yellow; in America, you had these posters with the purple tops. So I knew the image, and it struck me to the core.

And our news programs were full of stories that had basically come over from America, about this film that had had this extraordinary effect on audiences : that people were being carried out of screenings; that people were having hysteria and fainting, and the whole country had gone on a possession jag. And the novel was everywhere — I mean, absolutely everywhere. It was paperback novel, which had a white banner across it which said, “See the movie. It’ll be the most electrifying thing that ever happened to you.” So I was seven or eight years away from being able to see the film, because they were quite strict about it. There were some movies, some X-rated movies that nobody really cared whether you went to see them. But movies like Clockwork Orange or The Exorcist , they were very strict about.

So I then had the best part of six years obsessing about a film I had never seen. The idea of it terrified me — absolutely terrified me, put the fear of God into me. I remember so clearly how scared I was by the idea of it. But I was also completely fascinated by it. And so, I read the book. I read the screenplay that William Peter Blatty had published in his book — William Peter Blatty on The Exorcist — which had his original screenplay and then a transcript of the finished film. I obsessed about The Exorcist , and I basically —

Ms. Percy: [ laughs ] This is what you were doing instead of chasing girls.

Mr. Kermode: Pretty much, because what I did when I was kid was I went the movie. That’s what I did the whole time. So I basically had seen the film before I ever saw the film. And then, what finally happened was, I must’ve been 16, maybe 17, and I went to a late night double bill to see The Exorcist. So by the time The Exorcist is about to come on, it’s about midnight.

Ms. Percy: Oh, wow.

Mr. Kermode: And the film starts, and it starts with the Warner Bros. logo, which comes up, and there’s this sound, which is actually the sound of Friedkin and Jack Nitzsche, I think, rubbing their fingers over a glass of wine. You know, that kind of wooo — that sort of thing, the glass theremin sound.

[ music: “Iraq” by Krzysztof Penderecki & Jack Nitzsche ]

And then we begin with this sequence in Iraq, and I am in palpitations, because the Iraq sequence is a brilliant scene setter, but it goes on for a while. But I remember so clearly, sitting in the cinema and looking around at other people, thinking, “Look — over there, there’s a middle-aged lady. She’s gonna be OK, so you’ll be all right. And look over there — they don’t look particularly hard. If they —” I was in fear of my life. And I remember, years later, when I became friends with Friedkin when I was making documentaries and things, and he said, “The thing you have to understand is that after the first reaction to The Exorcist , people were scared before they got into the cinema.” He said it was like walking down a street that you’d read in the paper, there was a murder there the night before. He said, “They were scared before they got into the theater.” Well, I’d been scared for six years before I got into the theater.

Ms. Percy: So I have to ask, what toll does that take on you as a kid, and also, how do your parents react to watching you obsess in this way? Did they say, “You can’t see this”? I believe you grew up Anglican, if I’m not mistaken.

Mr. Kermode: Yeah — I was brought up as a Methodist, and then I’m Anglican now because — well, I’m C of E now, which is Anglican. There’s a joke about the Church of England, which is, “You don’t lose your faith. You just can’t remember where you left it.” So my parents knew that cinema was the thing that I was interested in, but they also knew that I was really, really interested in horror. And when the horror thing began, I’d come downstairs at night and watch old Hammer reruns on our black-and-white television, with the volume turned down so that my mum and dad couldn’t hear. And they weren’t down on it in any way. So I think what they thought was, if you’re interested in anything, that’s a good thing.

And I’ve always said this — there’s a great vilification of horror movies. People always “Oh, they’re bad for kids,” or “They do terrible things.” If you are a slightly lonely child — and I wasn’t unhappy-lonely; I was very happy in my own company, and my ideal thing would be to go, on my own, to the cinema to watch a movie — horror movies, they do speak to you.

And I’ve met so many people over the years, because I’ve spent a lot of time working in the field of horror films, who have that same thing. They either work for you, or they don’t. And if they don’t, you can’t explain it. It’s like if somebody says, “What do you think of opera?” I go, well, to me, opera is — I can appreciate it, but I don’t “get” the thing.

Ms. Percy: Yeah, it doesn’t speak to you.

Mr. Kermode: And it’s the same with horror movies. The difference is, no one tells you that if you listen to opera, you’re gonna turn into a serial killer. And then we’d go to these horror late-nighters, where there would be a lot of individuals, who — we’d never really talk to each other, because we were sort of slightly socially awkward people. But you’d kind of see the same faces over and over again, and you sort of felt a kinship. If you were a bit of an outsider, horror movies were like your friends.

Ms. Percy: I love the way — and I have to say, I’m such a huge fan of your writing…

Mr. Kermode: Thank you.

Ms. Percy: … so I will be quoting you back to yourself a lot. I hope you’re comfortable with it.

Mr. Kermode: As my wife once said, I don’t fish for compliments, I troll for them.

Ms. Percy: [ laughs ] I love that. Well, I have been, I confess, a person who has never really given horror its due. And reading you write about it, there’s this wonderful way that you say, “People talk endlessly about the damaging effects of horror movies, but too little is heard about the life-affirming power of being scared out of your mind, and in those very rare cases, out of your body. You ask me if I think there is more to this world than the grim realities of aging, disease, and death, of mourning and loss, and I will refer you to that first viewing of The Exorcist , during which my imagination took flight, my soul did somersaults, and the physical world melted away into nothingness around me. I don’t think that there’s a spiritual element to human life. I know it because I have experienced it firsthand, and I have horror movies to thank for that blessing.”

I love that.

Ms. Percy: Tell me a little bit more about that experience, what you’re talking about, that aliveness, that presence that you had, being taken away by The Exorcist .

Mr. Kermode: That experience — years later, I would talk to Bill Blatty, who wrote The Exorcist , and Bill had some sort of conflicts about how the film was received, what the film meant to people. He was very concerned that, because certain key sequences had been taken out of it, that the message of it wasn’t clear. And the message, from his point of view, was very clear. It is, it will all be alright in the end. God is in his heaven; there are angels, because there are demons — you know, if there are demons, then there are angels. And he was very, very clear about it. And Bill was a very religious man, and that was what the story was about for him.

But he said — we were talking quite candidly at one point, and he said, “The thing is, when you watch that film, you are alive; you are having an experience. And whether that experience is good or bad, you are alive, and you are aware of it.” And what it means is that there is a thing that horror movies can do — and to some extent this goes into roller coasters, all that sort of stuff — it makes you alive by confronting you with the spectacle of something else.

But it’s more than just, oh, you’re experiencing something dangerous in a safe environment; it is, in the genuine sense of the word, transcendent. Now, from my point of view, that sort of almost out-of-body experience that I had, watching The Exorcist , was wholly positive, wholly positive, because it was a form of transcendence. And there are moments when cinema does that to you, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a horror movie or whether it’s a love story or whether it’s a thriller or science fiction — it’s something that makes you think there is more to this world than this chair that I’m sitting in and this auditorium that I’m sitting in.

And the other thing that I think is really important — one of the purposes of this discussion is the movie that changed me, that taught me something — and one of the things that The Exorcist taught me was, people take away from that experience what they bring to it . And Friedkin has always said this. He said, when I saw the film, I saw God. Other people saw it, and they saw the devil. I’ve seen that film a million times, and every time, I take different things away from it. But what I think’s important is that, for me, it was — I brought so much to it. Six years of stuff, I brought to that screening, and the film, literally like a prism, shone it back at me. And it didn’t drop a beat.

And I — that’s why I think it’s such an impressive film, because for somebody to go to a movie with such baggage, and for the film to go, pa-dum — it works like a spell, because there’s something about it, the way — it’s like a piece of music. You can’t really explain why a brilliant piece of music — you can say, “Well, there’s — this contrapuntally does that —”

Ms. Percy: You can analyze and critique.

Mr. Kermode: But it won’t get you to the ultimate answer, which is why does that film work.

Years later, I went to Georgetown, and I walked up those steps. And I walked to the front of where the house should be — obviously, it’s different in real life. And again, it was that incredible feeling of, I’m walking into something that I’ve already been into. And that déja vu — that is an uncanny experience, and uncanny experiences tell you that there’s more to life than just this.

[ music: “ Polymorphia” by Krzysztof Penderecki ]

Ms. Percy: If you’re enjoying my conversation with Mark Kermode, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It really helps people discover This Movie Changed Me , and we also just love hearing what you think. As always, thank you for helping us build our movie-loving empire.

Ms. Percy: I love that you brought up that quote from William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist , that The Exorcist is a film that gives you what you bring to it, because I grew up in an Evangelical household. My parents were Catholic in Colombia, in Latin America, and they converted in their college years to a Protestant denomination. And when this movie was re-released in the theaters when I was in high school — I’m 37, and it was released in 2000 again — I remember they talked about how I could never see this movie, because people had gone mad, and they put so much fear into me about this movie that I just was terrified. I have such pain for you, those six years that you spent, [ laughs ] thinking about this.

But what I love about what you’re saying is that when I finally saw it — which, by the way, was the first time, this week, because of you —

Mr. Kermode: Oh, wow. I’m so sorry. [ laughs ]

Ms. Percy: No, I’m so grateful to you, for two reasons: First of all, it’s an amazing movie.

Mr. Kermode: It really is.

Ms. Percy: No one ever told me that. No one told me that in addition to terrifying you, it was also gonna be this work of art. I had no idea. And the second thing is that watching it, I felt like my faith was strong enough to sustain me through the experience. [ laughs ] It was holding up this mirror to me in that beautiful way, as you said, that I was bringing to it what I wanted to, and it gave me the sense of, “I am gonna be OK, because if there are devils, then there are angels — and human beings are complex, and we get through it.”

Mr. Kermode: And the interesting thing is that from a theological point of view, the story is immensely encouraging. As you know, if you go into it with a Catholic perspective, it’s pretty straight down the line: the forces of good triumph over the forces of evil. Karras commits the ultimate sacrifice, and he is redeemed and saved, as is the young girl. And so that’s the story.

If you don’t believe in the theology of it, the film works on an equal level, just as a film about something that is happening — because the whole point of the film is, it’s not her. There’s so much of that film is looking at other characters. It looks at Ellen Burstyn as she recoils in terror. It looks at the doctors as they are baffled and amazed. It looks at Father Karras as he hears the demon taunting him. There’s almost more concentration on all the characters reacting to what’s happening than what’s happening. And that’s kind of the key to it.

That’s why Exorcist II is the stupidest film ever made, because in Exorcist II , it’s, oh, no, it is all about her.

Ms. Percy: Exactly.

Mr. Kermode: That’s what it’s about.

Ms. Percy: So let’s just forget everything we’ve established. [ laughs ]

Mr. Kermode: Just throw all that out the window. That’s all nonsense. 

 Ms. Percy: I love that you brought up how the characters are portrayed. I was so impressed with how Chris, the mother, played by Ellen Burstyn — you believe how terrified she is about her daughter, because the movie takes all of that time — that slow burn you talked about — in setting up her life, her intimate relationship with her daughter. You just really understand and know this woman. And so, when this happens, when you see her daughter become possessed, you just feel so much for her.

Mr. Kermode: One of the most important sequences in the film is a very, very incidental sequence when Chris is putting Regan to bed, and Regan’s got a cover of the magazine. It’s a magazine image of her and her daughter on the front of it.

And they have a little, incidental conversation. She says, “Oh, I don’t like that cover. You look so mature.” And it’s a couple of minutes long. But you absolutely believe that they are mother and daughter and that they have history, that they have a past, that they have shared quips and foibles.

It also sets up — one of the brilliant things about the film is, everything in it is prefigured by something else. So that moment when she looks at the magazine, she says, “Oh, you look so mature” — there is something in the film about “you’re not my little girl anymore.”

Ms. Percy: And Regan is the little girl played by Linda Blair.

Mr. Kermode: Regan is the little girl played — played brilliantly by Linda Blair, brilliantly played by Linda Blair —

Ms. Percy: Who I had to Google, “is she OK?” after seeing this movie.

Mr. Kermode: Yeah, she’s great. No, and I have met Linda Blair. A sounder, nicer, more down-to-earth, solid person you would —

Ms. Percy: [ laughs ] Thank God.

Mr. Kermode: Just a top — all-round top person and a really hardworking actress and brilliant in that film.

But it’s those incidental details that mean that when stuff starts kicking off, you feel that horror. When Chris is talking to the doctors, and they’re saying, “Well, maybe it’s…” and she says, “99 doctors, and all you can tell me — did you see what she was doing? She’s acting like she’s a —” And then, when she says, “You show me Regan’s double, same everything now, the way she dots her I’s, and I know, I’d know in an instant that it’s not my own. I’m telling you that that thing is not my daughter.”

And that works, because half an hour, 45 minutes before, you were seeing her and Regan behaving exactly like a mother and daughter. So all the way through the film, it’s — all the scenes that seem incidental are really doing the heavy lifting so that when the other stuff happens, the stuff that everyone talks about, it works because of everything that’s gone before. It’s just genius.

Ms. Percy: As a person of faith, I really appreciated that they started with doctors, and the medical scenes were included, because it goes to this idea of how you can’t prove faith. You can’t prove any of what’s happening to her, and she has to go to a priest for help. She tried every logical thing she could, and it didn’t work. And that, to me, almost feels like often, when I have conversations with atheists, I’m like, I get it. None of this is logical. [ laughs ]

Mr. Kermode: And of course, the great irony of the film is that Chris, who is nominally an atheist, goes to the priest, and she is trying to convince the priest that her daughter is possessed, and the priest doesn’t believe her. So it’s like — the role reversal is brilliant. The Catholic priest doesn’t believe that the kid is possessed, and the atheist mother does. And it’s one of the great ironies at the center of the film, is that it’s — you don’t even notice it’s happened, that she, who doesn’t believe in any of this stuff, is saying, “I think my daughter’s possessed,” and he, who does believe in all this stuff, is saying, “Come on, we’re gonna have to get into a time machine and take you back to the Dark Ages, because we don’t do this anymore.”

Ms. Percy: [ laughs ] Yes. And this is why, from what I’ve read, when that film came out, the Catholic Church actually thought it was a great ad for them. [ laughs ]

Mr. Kermode: Well, I know for a fact that there was a huge number of people who came straight out of the cinemas from seeing it and went straight into a church.

Ms. Percy: [ laughs ] The reasons probably varied. [ laughs ]

Mr. Kermode: Yeah, but again, I would talk to Bill Blatty about this — I miss Bill terribly. He was a brilliant — such a funny man; he was a comedy screenwriter, and he had happened to write The Exorcist . But he was the kind of person, if you wanted to engage him in a theological discussion, it was great, because he enjoyed nothing more than that.

And his feeling about it was that what the film did was, it at least got people thinking about theology in a secular age. And it’s true. Find me another film, outside of a Hammer or a Dracula or something like that, in which the hero — well, the two heroes — are priests.

Ms. Percy: I’m so curious — there are so many layers to this movie, clearly. There’s the layers that you find in the sense of how it was made and the true masterpiece element of the filmmaking, which you, as a film critic, can find; and a film scholar. But I’m so curious as to what it continues to give you and what you continue to bring to it. You say, yourself, you’ve seen it hundreds of times, and you keep going back to it. Does it give you a new perspective on your faith? Does it give you perspective on being a parent? What things do you bring to it now that you didn’t when you first saw it as a kid?

Mr. Kermode: It’s so hard to say. I think that every time I see it, I’m reminded of the first time I saw it. It is, for me, a kind of primal experience. I think it’s interesting that — I write about horror movies quite a lot. And I used to get this thing — people used to go, you go to church? And I go, yeah, yeah. And they went, well, how can you be into horror movies and go to church? And I was like, how long have you got? It’s like, seriously? The most violent film I’ve ever seen in my life is The Passion of the Christ .

Ms. Percy: Oh, my God, yeah. [ laughs ]

Mr. Kermode: I have literally never seen a more violent film than that.

Ms. Percy: Agreed.

Mr. Kermode: Here’s the thing. You don’t obsess about The Exorcist as long as I have without being fundamentally interested in questions of faith, OK? And when I was younger, I used to do a lot of angsting about trying to figure everything out and — but — how and why and blah blah blah blah blah. And as you get older — well, as I get older — what I think is this: Most of my life — I’ve gone to church, and it’s always worked for me. I don’t presume for one minute to understand the mysteries of the cosmos, and I’m no longer wrestling with any of that stuff, because I think that there is more to the world than this, and beyond that, I think that you should try and be decent and honest and fundamentally not spend your life screwing people over. Whatever anybody else believes is absolutely up to them. I don’t think it’s important to know or not to know. I don’t need or want proof of things. But a film like that, that has that kind of effect, just reminds me that there’s magic in the world; I mean, magic — proper magic.

Ms. Percy: It’s what makes going to the movies a church in itself, right? I agree with you; I know you’ve written about that, as well. And for me, I didn’t grow up going to a church building, ever; we met in the house that my parents lived in. But going to the movie theaters, for me, is a church. That’s the church experience for me. And it is because you’re amongst other people; you’re alone together, and when you can experience the transcendence that something like The Exorcist gave you and that I experienced this week when I watched it …

Mr. Kermode: Oh, I’m so glad. [ laughs ] That’s great.

Ms. Percy: It is magic.

Mr. Kermode: It is. It is. It’s never let me down. It’s never let me down after all these years.

[ music: “Tubular Bells” by Mike Oldfield ]

[ music: “Fantasia for Strings” by Hans Werner Henze ]

Ms. Percy: Mark Kermode is a presenter, writer, musician, and my favorite living movie prophet. I can’t recommend Mark’s work enough — I first discovered him through the wonderful BBC radio show and podcast Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review, and he now also hosts his very own podcast — Kermode on Film . Mark’s work and the church of Wittertainment sustains me, so I say a very Minnesotan hello to Jason Isaacs.

[ music: “Are You Scared” by Oiki ]

The Exorcist was produced by Hoya Productions and distributed by Warner Brothers. The clips you heard in this episode are credited entirely to them. The soundtrack was released by Warner Brothers Records and should be classified as a music genre we’re calling “hella creepy.”

Next time on This Movie Changed Me, we’ll be talking about the beautiful Pixar movie, Coco . You can find it streaming in all the usual places, including Netflix. Prepare to have the soundtrack stuck in your head for weeks.

The team behind This Movie Changed Me is: Maia Tarrell, Chris Heagle, Tony Liu, Kristin Lin, and Lilian Vo. This podcast is produced by On Being Studios, which is located on Dakota Land. And we also produce other podcasts you might enjoy, like On Being with Krista Tippett and Becoming Wise . Find those wherever you like to listen, or visit us at onbeing.org to find out more.

I’m Lily Percy — and I promise you, if you watch The Exorcist , you will be ok.

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Abigail review: One of the year's most bloody – and bloody enjoyable – horrors

It's out now in cinemas.

In their first original horror movie since 2019's Ready or Not , Radio Silence turn their self-aware lens onto the vampire genre in Abigail , delivering the bloodiest movie of 2024 and one of the year's most bloody entertaining horrors too.

It's almost a shame that the first trailer revealed the killer twist as the movie is in no rush to get to it. On the off chance that you don't know though, we'd probably recommend you stop reading here (bookmark this to read later, of course) and just go along for the ride.

All you really need to know is that if you enjoyed their previous work, including their segments for the V/H/S movies, then Abigail delivers their usual blend of meta gags, gore-soaked set pieces and surprises that subvert classic tropes.

Still here? Then we'll assume you've seen the trailer. Abigail starts with a group of bad eggs, brought together by Lambert ( Giancarlo Esposito ), kidnapping the titular 12-year-old girl ( Matilda the Musical 's Alisha Weir) from her home after ballet practice.

They take her to an isolated mansion as arranged by Lambert, and all they need to do is spend 24 hours there to collect a $50 million ransom from the girl's father. Simple: until one of them turns up decapitated.

Because Abigail is no ordinary girl – she's a vampire. Or, more specifically, she's a "ballerina vampire" as Sammy ( Kathryn Newton ) puts it.

Before the blood starts to liberally flow though, the writers (Stephen Shields – who co-wrote 2019 horror standout The Hole in the Ground – and regular Radio Silence collaborator Guy Busick) take their time establishing the criminal gang.

The dynamics are efficiently outlined shortly after they lock up Abigail in her temporary home. Joey ( Melissa Barrera ) is our de facto 'hero' as she's there to basically stop the others from hurting Abigail, while Frank ( Dan Stevens ) is the main 'villain' as he's a dirtbag who will do anything to get the money.

In the middle are hacker Sammy, ex-army guy Rickles (William Catlett), stoner driver Dean (the late Angus Cloud ) and the muscle Peter (Kevin Durand). None of them are good people, exactly, but it's such a talented cast that you're fooled into thinking you might want to hang out with them for one night – even if they might steal your wallet at the end of it.

If you already know who Abigail really is, though, the attempts to build tension and mystery fall a bit flat. You're really just waiting for the bloodshed to start and with the first act out of the way, Radio Silence duly deliver.

We've known from Ready or Not that the filmmakers love to explode a body, and they take that to another level here with terrific practical effects. The movie is so drenched in blood that you'll swear the cinema carpet is squelching on your way out.

Like Ready or Not and their Scream outings, Radio Silence are less interested in scaring the shit out of you and more in ensuring you have a great time. There are jump scares early on, but this is more of a crowd-pleasing horror outing that messes with the genre in the same way that Abigail likes to play with her food.

Alongside pop-culture references and self-aware gags, Abigail puts a unique spin on expected vampire-movie tropes. When she reveals herself, the movie sets out its stall with a standout sequence that sees stakes, garlic and a cross not exactly performing as expected.

Key to it all is an excellent performance from Alisha Weir. She proves as convincing when Abigail is pretending to be a scared 12-year-old as she is when Abigail is gracefully ripping her prey apart, and Weir's quick turns in demeanour and tone are when the movie is at its most chilling.

It's not easy to add a unique twist to the pantheon of iconic on-screen vampires, but Abigail is a memorable creation who's brought to life brilliantly by Weir.

Thanks to the seemingly spoilerific trailer, you also might think you know exactly where this tale is heading. Fear not though, there are still surprises to be had and twists to be revealed as the story never quite pans out as you'd expect.

There will absolutely be scarier horror movies this year, but come the end of the year, there's every chance Abigail will prove to be the most enjoyable.

Abigail is out now in cinemas.

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Movies Editor, Digital Spy  Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor.  Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies , attending genre festivals around the world.   After moving to Digital Spy , initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.  

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Abigail review – Dracula’s daughter gets kidnapped in fun-sucking horror

There’s some low-stakes pleasure to be had in the first half of the gory new film from the team behind Ready or Not and Scream but things fall apart disastrously

L ast year’s handsome gothic horror The Last Voyage of the Demeter and bombastic Nic Cage comedy Renfield allowed Universal the opportunity to present known IP as something fresh, at least on the surface, stories involving Dracula but told in ways we hadn’t seen before. They represented a nifty marketing strategy for a back catalogue of classic monster movies but both worked better as loglines than finished films – Dracula on a boat, Dracula as a bad boss – and audiences proved as uninterested as critics, the stench of old property distracting from the promise of something new.

As the studio preps a new take on The Wolf Man with next year’s Christopher Abbott-led Wolfman and Robert Eggers’ remake of the Dracula-inspired Nosferatu, here comes Abigail, a poppy reimagining of the little-remembered 1936 horror Dracula’s Daughter. In the contemporary take, she’s a ballerina (Matilda’s Alisha Weir) who gets kidnapped by a group of unaware criminals, hired to keep her locked in a grand old house for 24 hours while ransom money is obtained. But early on, recovering addict and single mother Joey (Melissa Barrera) figures out that something is up and starts to realise that the scared little girl in their care might not be so scared after all.

Abigail comes from Radio Silence, the team who broke out with 2019’s smug yet successful Ready or Not , a gimmicky thriller about a new bride forced to play a deadly game of hide and seek that started with real fizz before turning flat. There’s a similarly precipitous dip here, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett again crafting a fun conceit with returning writer Guy Busick (here writing alongside Stephen Shields), but without the follow-through. It has the same arch comedy-horror tone, as gory as it is goofy, but it’s missing the touch of a real comedy writer (making it the second film this year after Godzilla x Kong where Dan Stevens has to play comic support without the support of his screenwriter). Set-ups for jokes are left as just that and our wait for any form of payoff starts to mirror the plot at large, our wait for a premise to become a real movie proving similarly endless.

What’s frustrating is that, like Ready or Not, it’s directed with more flair and menace than the majority of studio horror released at this time – grand and sleek and, glory of glories, well-lit (!). It’s also set in the kind of sinister remote mansion that recalls an Agatha Christie whodunnit, something the film references with a copy of And Then There Were None, cluing us into another source of inspiration. But as a mystery, the film is a cop-out, guiding us to a big reveal that never really arrives (we’re left with a cascade of “so whats”) and instead, we’re offered the distraction of gore, as if another exploding body might help us to forget that we’re on a long road to nowhere (the runtime is a bloated 109 minutes).

Barrera, who also starred in the same team’s two recent Scream films, is an appealingly earthy heroine, even if she’s cursed with illogical decision-making and, by the end, some discordantly sappy dialogue. Kathryn Newton, who recently suffered through Lisa Frankenstein , is ever-likable (the tone of her sadly underseen 2020 comedy slasher Freaky is something the makers of Abigail should have looked toward) and as the evil child at its centre, Irish actor Weir is a total marvel, a convincingly ferocious and sour little monster even if she’s a little defanged during a messy and maudlin finale which dares to give us important parenting lessons from a vampiric demon.

As the plotting falls apart and the wheels truly come off, there’s nothing that strong direction and a work-hard cast can do to keep Abigail from sucking. There’s a lot of blood here but very little else.

Abigail is out in US and UK cinemas on 19 April

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