Switching gears from more percussive electronic fusion scores, the latest album from the Assassin’s Creed Unity video game franchise features a more intimate work by Cris Velasco, featuring a smaller all-orchestra design with somewhat stealthy homages to Bernard Herrmann…
Will Bates’ score for the recent HBO documentary on Scientology is fairly low-key, seemingly allowing the weird details of L. Ron Hubbard’s quack religion – its founding, its controversies, and its litigious behaviour towards any criticism – to govern the narrative…
Bart De Pauw’s screenplay has been adapted three times for the big screen (2008, 2010 and 2014), allowing three composers to tackle the story of a whodunnit involving a group of men who discover a cadaver in a rented loft, and for the 2014 U.S. remake…
Wolfram de Marco’s score for Loft (2008), the latest thriller from Erik Van Looy (Memory of a Killer / De Zaak Alzheimer), is an incredibly addictive suspense score that’s driven by a simple rhythm over which a brooding melody is dragged over and over without any resolution. In place of closure, de Marco gives us a two-note comma so he can reset his rhythmic hook again, adding more percussion textures, discrete synths…
Nuno Malo’s Luv is a rather peculiar score, occasionally using the shrill metallic feedback of electric guitar in tracks like the somewhat somber, almost meditative “Woody’s Coming of Age” over an otherwise lush orchestral background. While the guitar may provide contrast with his elegant orchestrations, it does transgress into a level of distortion that may be excessive for some listeners….
Now Where Were We? Right. Let’s go back to LAST NIGHT (1998)
Don McKellar’s LAST NIGHT (1998) is the first review after a long pause in activities at KQEK.com
Gothic Steele: An Angel for Satan (1966)
Review of AN ANGEL FOR SATAN / UN ANGELO PER SATANA (1966), Barbara Steele’s last Italian Gothic, on Blu-ray from Severin Films
Spanish Giallo I: When a Cannibal is not a Cannibal, but When a Scream is Indeed a Scream
Severin Films showcases the work of Eloy de la Iglesia via two fine Spanish gialli entries: NO ONE HEARD THE SCREAM (1973) + CANNIBAL MAN (1972)
ArtScopeTO 10: Interview with Abstract Painter Donna Wise
For my occasional podcast series ArtScope TO, Abstract Painter Donna Wise discusses her unique techniques, and working during the 2020-2021 pandemic.
Podcast: Jason Pichonsky on Restoring Julian Roffman’s THE BLOODY BROOD (1959) + PHOBIA (1980)
Alongside a podcast with CanCon film historian Jason Pichonsky are revised reviews of Julian Roffman’s THE BLOODY BROOD (1959) + John Huston’s PHOBIA (1980), both from KINO Lorber / Unobstructed View.
Podcast: ANNE WITH AN E composers Amin Bhatia & Ari Posner
Podcast interview with ANNE WITH AN E’s composing team Amin Bhatia and Ari Posner.
Assorted characters collide and interact in the lead-up to Earth’s demise at precisely midnight.
BR: Angel for Satan, An / Un angelo per Satana (1966)
Had Barbara Steele remained in Europe – especially Italy – during the early 1970s, she may well have appeared in giallo thrillers…
BR: Cannibal Man / La semana del asesino / Apartment on the 13th Floor, The (1972)
Cannibal Man has a palpable crime-drama feel – the events unfold after daily title cards – and one can sense Hitchcockian sensibilities…
BR: No One Heard the Scream / Nadie oyó gritar (1973)
After the grisly thriller Cannibal Man (1972), Spanish auteur Eloy de la Iglesia opted for a far less graphic thriller which is part giallo…
DVD: Go-Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films, The (2014)
Produced and released around the same time as Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014), the approach by director Hilla Medalia is a more authorized chronicle…
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