Movieline Online

A gaslight thriller with film noir and horror elements, The Spiral Staircase (1946) had a gimmick good enough to be remade three times but none of them could top the Robert Siodmak original. The old, dark house scenario traps its cast of characters inside a sprawling mansion where a killer - whose previous victims all suffered from some physical affliction - stalks a mute serving girl shocked into silence from a childhood trauma. Helen (Dorothy McGuire) is understandably nervous after witnessing the latest crime scene. And even more so when her elderly employer, Mrs. Warren, insists she's not safe in their own house, insinuating that the murderer is someone she knows. The Warren brothers are both likely suspects, but so is the seemingly altruistic family physician, Dr. Parry (Kent Smith), who takes an unusual interest in Helen's disability. When a violent storm moves in and the killer's identity is finally revealed, Helen would seem to make the perfect silent victi...

After Psycho II , a film that turned out far better than it had any right to, writer Tom Holland was a relatively hot commodity. So much so that he demanded a shot at directing his own screenplay for Fright Night (1985), one of the most beloved horror flicks of the '80s. But that may never have happened if it wasn't for Scream for Help , an atrociously tone-deaf domestic thriller directed by Michael Winner ( Death Wish ) from Holland's original script about a teenager who thinks her stepfather is trying to murder her mother. Christie suspects her stepfather, Paul, of staging a string of household accidents in an attempt to keep her mother's inheritance all to himself. And after following him around town for days, her instincts are proven correct. But Paul isn't working alone; and his partners won't hesitate to wipe out Christie's family and friends to get what they want. With its uninspired voice-over narration and sleazy marital scheming, Scr...

Imagine if you took that flat, over-lit look of a 1970s sitcom and inserted the most twisted, bizarre scenario you could come up with? The disconcerting result would be The Baby , directed by TV veteran Ted Post, about a family of three scheming women who keep a 20-year-old man-child locked up in a crib. The storyline is unusual enough on its own, but combined with Post’s deadpan visual style (or anti- style) is becomes flat-out disturbing, yet compulsively watchable. Although it’s rated PG, The Baby dances around more images of child abuse, overt sexuality and emotional torture than a David Lynch film. Yet it’s the nuanced performance by former ‘50s starlet Ruth Roman as Baby’s mother, who rules her family like a matriarchal Marlon Brando, that you’ll remember most. Not unlike 1968’s Spider Baby , the Wadsworth’s family ties create a web that hopelessly traps anyone who tries to break them up. The Baby stands alone as one of the most surreal movie experiences of the 1970s. A...

Imagine if you took that flat, over-lit look of a 1970s sitcom and inserted the most twisted, bizarre scenario you could come up with? The disconcerting result would be The Baby , directed by TV veteran Ted Post, about a family of three scheming women who keep a 20-year-old manchild locked up in a crib. The storyline is unusual enough on its own, but combined with Post’s deadpan visual style (or anti- style) is becomes flat-out disturbing, yet compulsively watchable. Although it’s rated PG, The Baby dances around more images of child abuse, overt sexuality and emotional torture than a David Lynch film. Yet it’s the nuanced performance of former ‘50s starlet Ruth Roman as Baby’s mother, who rules her family like a matriarchal Marlon Brando, that you’ll remember most. Not unlike 1968’s Spider Baby , the Wadsworth’s family ties create a web that hopelessly traps anyone who tries to break them up. The Baby stands alone as one of the most surreal movie experiences of the 1970s. And...

For those who rarely dig deeper into cinema history than BuzzFeed best-of lists, 1972's The Hot Rock will be a revelation. How did a heist film starring Robert Redford, based on a novel by the legendary Donald Westlake - with a screenplay by the equally legendary William Goldman - not crack anyone's top ten?! This caper comedy is long overdue for rediscovery, staging not one but four heists as our team of semi-pros attempt to steal - then recover - a precious African diamond. Redford plays recently un-incarcerated thief Dortmunder, the brains behind a four-man operation hired by an African diplomat to liberate the ceremonial stone from its display case in a New York museum. But with each step forward, the plan takes one step back as the stone falls into the wrong hands time and time again, forcing the team to elaborately break into a prison, police station and bank vault to track down their missing property. The audience isn't privy to the planning; the real thrill...

No matter how worldly or open-minded you are as a cinema fan, there's always something lost in translation when it comes to a foreign film. Japanese culture in particular presents an interesting challenge involving traditions, rituals and social obligations that can seem laughably complex. Bloody Speak at Mount Fuji (1955) would seem to complicate the situation even further by being set during the Edo era, the same historical staging area as Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai released a year earlier. But, like Kurosawa, director Tomu Uchida seems to go out of his way to introduce the Japanese caste system, which sharply divided servants from their masters, in such a way that his story has universal appeal. A road movie of sorts, Sakawa Kojuro is a samurai traveling with his two servants, Genta and Gonpachi, to deliver a ceremonial gift. But the road is crowded with fellow travelers en route to a local festival whose stories intersect with Kojuro and his companions. A dedic...

Just because a film is "formulaic" doesn't necessarily mean it's a waste of time. After all, repetition of storytelling techniques is a common device even in literary circles, so why should the cinema be held to a higher standard? But it's those films that deviate from the expected formula, even in small ways, that leaves the most lasting impression...for good or bad. In Italy, the giallo (a sexy, murder mystery) is defined by its body count approach in much the same way as the American slasher film. Yet, The Pyjama Girl Case (1977), produced at the tail end of the genre's lifespan, doesn’t follow the formula as we know it. Based on an actual Australian police case in the 30’s, Ray Milland gets top billing as Inspector Thompson, a retired cop who bullies his way onto a case involving a Jane Doe found shot, beaten and burned on a public beach. Other than a pair of tattered yellow pajamas, the body offers few clues. So few, in fact, that the police pres...