Ice Cream Man (2026)

Eli Roth’s latest film is an absolute splatterfest of dark horror-comedy. More comedy than horror, for my money, but certainly plenty of gore - though unlike many horror films, it's all set in bright, sunlit days, not dimly lit caverns and nighttime graveyards! The gore is outrageous, the explainer absurd, and the plot, bonkers!

We start in the American town of Bayleen Bay. A mysterious, silent Ice Cream Man - Jonathan Smiley (Ari Millen) - arrives in his truck playing a hauntingly hypnotic jingle and serving treats with bizarre names like Locust Lick and Froggy Swamp Pop to all the kids in the town - well, most of them. Our protagonist, Jared Mayfair (Charlie Zeltzer), avoids the ice cream because he’s lactose intolerant.

It's a typical small-town American scene, albeit with obnoxious brats being mean to each other, following in their fathers' footsteps, playing baseball, and generally being, well, American kids. Their parents mill around the scene and we spend twenty minutes or so getting to know some of them, their situations, domestic backgrounds, key relationships and boyfriend/girlfriend liaisons.

Anyway, that night, the truck's jingle awakens every child who ate the ice cream. The treats put the kids into a mind-controlled trance and they embark on a gruesome murder spree against their parents. So yes, this bit was in the dark after all! It continues the next day at school as the affected kids massacre any adult who gets in their way. Jared, alongside his lactose-avoiding classmates Tommy and Mia, tries to survive an unrelenting 30-minute assault from the bloodthirsty schoolkids wielding everything from garden shears to power tools. Jared’s teenage sister, Lizzie, gets partially paralysed from a small bite, but manages to throw it up and regroup with her ex-boyfriend, Chris.

The gore is grisly and often inventive as limbs get hacked off, heads roll, brains spill and internal organs gush out - to be devoured by what are by now more like zombie-kids! If they're not eating them or force-feeding the unaffected, they're using them for other creative activities like a colon as a skipping rope - you get the idea. Roth is clearly having fun with the effects team and trying to be creative, finding stuff that films of this genre have not done before!

Then we get the ludicrous backstory which flimsily tries to explain who the Ice Cream Man is, what he is, why he's doing what he's doing, and hooking it all into historic aspects of the townsfolk (including Jared's ancestors), along with some light supernatural elements thrown in for good measure. In order to break the cycle of gore and revenge, the key players must indulge in some gore themselves and execute a ritual as instructed along the way. I won't give you any more details on that just in case you want to watch the film and take it any way other than mad comedy-gore, to be consumed with beers!

Needless to say, there's a grand finale with even more blood, guts and gore, and a final ending which kind of leaves things open a little for more instalments if Roth fancies it, I guess. That includes a quite funny post-credits scene which hooks up with a very funny incident during the chaos earlier, with Snoop Dogg repeating "you scream, I scream, we scream, ice cream" as it rolls! Very funny.

The film plays out very much like what we used to call a B-movie and has a low-budget 'feel' (though the budget was apparently $5.5M) with lots of handheld camerawork and pretty wooden acting from the adults (the kind you'd expect in the 1980s American comedy scene). The best performances actually come from the child actors and 80, I'm told, child extras, by far!

While the story is set in a fictional American town, it was shot in Canada with pretty much all the cast being Canadian too - as you can tell from the accents. Digging further into the background, it seems that Eli Roth wrote the script with his friend Noah Belson all the way back in 2002 after Cabin Fever was done. Hollywood studios turned it down repeatedly because they thought it too dark and sinister with kids brutally murdering their parents and teachers! So Roth launched his own indie horror label (The Horror Section) to fund and shoot the film himself.

There are lots of little nods to pick up throughout if you pay attention, like to Hitchcock's The Birds at one point as the kids are gathered all over the playground's climbing frame. And there are also nods to the iOS vs Android phone rivalry along with references to modern-day tech and its reach. But yes, look out for more! It's great fun - and outrageously funny - and ludicrous - but through it all, I really did enjoy myself and found myself laughing out loud many times during the 90 minutes! Now starting to be available in the UK via streaming services and should be 'included' soon, I'd guess.

Triangle (2009)

This film is possibly the most difficult one I have ever attempted to review, because its plot twists are so tightly tied to its core themes. It works both as a mind-bending procedural puzzle and as a dark, psychological myth about guilt, grief and punishment.

We start with a group of friends heading out on a small yacht for a day cruise. The group comprises Jess, Greg, Victor, Sally, Downey and a new friend, Heather. Jess is acting a little out of character but says she's just tired - and indeed, once they get underway, she heads into the cabin to snooze for a couple of hours. She wakes, startled, after a bad dream (which we see), but can't quite remember what it was about.

The day continues for a time as they reach deeper waters. Before long, a really weird situation unfolds: the wind completely drops and as they look to the horizon, a wicked storm approaches. They do what they can at short notice, but the storm is violent and chaos reigns. The boat is capsized, leaving the survivors clinging to the upturned hull - and Heather is nowhere to be found.

Just as they are sitting wondering what to do next, they spot a huge ocean liner heading their way called the Aeolus. They wave furiously, and it pulls alongside close enough for them to hop onto the boarding platform and head up the steps. But when they get inside, the ship appears completely empty. Not a living soul in sight.

From here on in, the film plays out like a Greek tragedy - evoking Sisyphus and Aeolus - turning into a thriller about a person trapped in a task they cannot escape, desperately trying to push a 'boulder' up a hill while hoping for a different outcome. You'll likely know about time-loop films if you're reading this (Groundhog Day, Happy Death Day, Edge of Tomorrow), but it's important to note that this is certainly not a simple 'wake up, die, repeat' setup. The film's gripping thrills lie in how its timelines overlap and collide. Characters encounter different versions of themselves and others simultaneously, making for a truly brain-bending experience!

The ship itself is eerie and feels like a haunted vessel, abandoned and decaying, which makes for a great atmosphere from start to finish. To add to this, Christian Henson’s haunting score (featuring the track 'Lullaby') brings a constant sense of inescapable dread, giving the whole film a feverish, nightmare-like quality.

Melissa George’s performance as Jess is brilliant throughout, depicting raw parental anxiety, exhaustion and deep-seated regret. Underneath the slasher/sci-fi surface lies a deeply tragic story about how far a mother will go to fix her mistakes. The rest of the cast do exceptionally well, too. Thankfully, the director doesn't waste time on excessive setup; we pretty much only see what we need to in order to try to unpick the puzzle and enjoy the mystery.

It has been hard to write this without spoiling the experience, but hopefully I haven't given too much away! It's rightfully renowned as one of the most underrated, clever psychological thrillers of the 2000s. I'd encourage you to go in as blind as possible and pay close attention to every minute of the build-up and the actions of the characters, especially in the first half. And then watch it again to enjoy spotting all the clues you missed the first time around! I did find a 17-minute YouTube video by Thomas Thorogood in which offered a deep analysis of what was going on, if you fancy having a look at that (or can't work it out)!

I did also see plenty of 'triangles' weaved into the visuals, which was a nice nod, and Room 237 with writing on mirrors? Surely The Shining's in there too! A super film, well worth tracking down. It's streaming all over the place now and certainly doesn't feel in any way dated, despite being made over 15 years ago. Highly recommended.

Pressure (2026) - A Guest Review by Chad Dixon

This is a dramatisation, with some historical tweaks, about the most important decision taken that ultimately became the turning point of WWII.

James Stagg (Andrew Scott), is a highly esteemed Met Office expert, recommended by Churchill himself, to become the Head of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force Meteorological Committee. Leaving his heavily pregnant wife after a simple breakfast in their leafy suburban house, he is driven directly to SHAEF which is housed in what looks like a requisitioned stately home.

Arriving in his RAF Group Captain uniform, he's shown directly to the nerve centre of the forecasting team where amongst the 20 or so forecasters are dozens of historical weather charts for the same early June days throughout the previous forty years fill the walls. A cheery atmosphere is led by American meteorologist, USAAF Colonel Irving P. Krick (Chris Messina), who is holding court with jovial anecdotes of all the times he had forecast weather correctly for other WWII campaigns and Hollywood movie shoots in places that Stagg immediately realises are nowhere as volatile and dynamic as the North Atlantic.

Stagg then immediately mobilises the team to get on their phones and collate the latest meteorological data from as many relevant international weather stations as possible to obtain the best accurate up to date forecast. It's just four days before the proposed D-Day date and the first crucial weather report is due. Later, when it's time to present that crucial report to Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser), at the combined Chiefs of Staff meeting, Stagg pulls rank over Krick and because of their absolute disagreement on how to best forecast for the Normandy Landings, denies his request to attend the meeting too.

Stagg's initial report is that there is a good chance that major storms are on the way to the English Channel and the proposed day of invasion is totally out of the question. It doesn't help that the current weather is fine and clear. Obviously the joint chiefs of staff that include a very belligerent and condescending Field Marshal Montgomery (Damian Lewis) are all furious as they state that all the initial preparations are complete and all their various forces are ready to go.

Because of Krick's prior amicable and successful forecasting relationship with Eisenhower, Stagg initially feels isolated that his approach is not being listened to and when bad news comes on the phone about the bombing of a maternity hospital his wife was admitted to, right in the middle of an Eisenhower rant regarding the inconvenient report, he does not let on regarding his personal worry and defiantly stands his ground. Lieutenant Kay Summersby (Kerry Condon), the General's personal assistant is the only one who is empathic to the impossible stress James must be under and so becomes Stagg's ally.

This is a brilliantly told drama with, at it's core, a commanding and Oscar-worthy performance from Scott. All the supporting actors do very well too and Lewis is especially menacing as the overbearing Field Marshall.

The expansive detail of the Supreme Headquarters is a brilliantly recreated intense environment that gives the viewer a real insight into how the Allied War Machine must have been organised and what incredible responsibility certain individuals had. Also well-inserted archive footage of Allied troop organisations on the English South coast spliced in with newly shot scenes really did enhance the understanding of just what an incredible offensive preparation it all must have been. Of course, we all know the eventual outcome of Operation Overlord but seeing this important piece of history that led up to that decision of when to go, really puts in clear perspective the ultimate command Nature has on us mere mortals.

Coherence (2013)

This is a very confusing film! An extremely low-budget sci-fi outing for sure. Apparently, director James Ward Byrkit shot it over five nights in his own living room on a budget of around $50,000. Not only that, but the actors were not given any kind of standard script. Instead, Byrkit gave each of them a set of individual character index cards every day, outlining their character's backstory, personal motivators and secret goals (hidden from the others) for that night's scenes - without telling them what the other actors were going to do! So they had no idea what twists were coming, resulting in genuine surprises and shocks! Fascinating! It's a complex plot relating to a quantum mechanics thought experiment involving the now-famous Schrödinger's Cat, turning it into a claustrophobic, paranoid thriller.

We begin with eight friends gathering for a dinner party at a house in Northern California: Em, her boyfriend Kevin, host couple Mike and Lee, along with Hugh, Beth, Amir and Laurie (Kevin’s ex-girlfriend, whose presence creates immediate tension). They're all quite annoying twenty-somethings, clearly middle-class privileged - you know the type: little fingers raised while drinking wine, dinner parties, expensive clothes and cars. The last people I'd want to hang out with!

Anyway, on this particular night, Miller's Comet is passing extremely close to Earth and strange things begin to happen almost immediately. Em’s mobile phone screen shatters for no reason and mobile reception dies. Hugh mentions that his brother - a physicist - warned him that odd things might happen during the comet’s flyby, citing a historical incident in Finland in 1923 where a comet caused a village to become completely disoriented, leading one woman to call the police claiming the man in her house was not her husband.

Suddenly, a power outage plunges the entire neighbourhood into darkness. Looking outside, the group notices the entire street is blacked out except for one single house a couple of blocks away. Hugh and Amir walk over to the other house to ask if they can use a landline. When they return, Hugh has a bleeding cut on his forehead and is carrying a box. Inside the box, they find a table-tennis bat and photographs of all eight dinner guests - including one of Hugh that appears to have been taken that very night while they were inside!

It soon becomes clear what is happening. At least, if you're a physicist! The pitch-black area in the middle of the street acts as a decoherence boundary (a split zone), apparently. The comet’s passage has collapsed quantum superposition into a real-world reality overlay (obviously)! Instead of one timeline, there are now infinite parallel realities co-existing side by side. Every time a character leaves their house and walks through the dark zone to the street, they don't necessarily return to their original house. They inadvertently cross into an alternate timeline version of the house. So, that's as much of the setup as I'll reveal - any more will start to give away the unfolding events and surprises. Be ready for quirky stuff, paranoia, panic, blackmail and violence!

It's a tidy little thriller which probably spends too much time on the getting-to-know-you stage in the first act as characters yack about their background and life experiences, much of which really isn't needed for the thrills and spills later. Still, no worries - it's short and tight enough at an hour and a half, and apart from that, the pacing is about right. Probably multiple watches would help most people (who are not physicists) to get their heads round it all as the reveals come along!

It's pretty well-acted by the cast, especially Emily Baldoni (Five Feet Apart) in the lead as Em, but also Maury Sterling (Kevin), Nicholas Brendon (Mike), Lorene Scafaria (Lee), Elizabeth Gracen (Beth), Hugo Armstrong (Hugh), Alex Manugian (Amir) and Lauren Maher (Laurie). The handheld camerawork throughout was pretty annoying, but I guess there was a budget constraint here - and maybe also the director wanting the point of view to be, mostly, in amongst the characters to try and get us to feel the tautness. A lot of the film is in the dark after the power is cut and candles come out, which helped the budget too with regards to lighting, I guess, but also certainly adding atmosphere.

Anyway, it's a nifty little thriller, now available to watch all over the place on streaming, so why not test yourself to see if you can keep up, need a second viewing, watch an explainer video on YouTube - or head for night school for a physics degree!

The Death of Robin Hood (2026) - A Guest Review by Chad Dixon

This is a new cinema release from Director Michael Sarnoski (A Quiet Place: Day One). "NOT ANOTHER ONE" I hear you cry..! Yes, apparently there are still stories to be told regarding the infamous bandit of Sherwood Forest. The latest non Englishman cast in the lead role is Hugh Jackman. With a Yorkshire lilt this time, that's definitely an improvement from his countryman's effort in 2010. Of whom performed it with multiple accents that seemed to cover the entire British Isles.

In the autumn of his life and set in the Winter of northern England 1247, we first see the grey bearded Robin by a camp fire at night. His heavy layered clothes filthy with the mud of the landscape. Approached by a desperate young woman begging for food, he throws her a meaty morsel in the whistling wind. Later when he seems asleep, she creeps up on him from behind with the intention to rob or worse but she's met with a lightning dagger to the side of the throat. "I smelled you coming" he murmurs, as he twists the knife and ends her life.

The next morning in the falling snow we see him burying the diminutive body under a pile of rocks. The view from directly above pans away and we see multiple graves on the hillside. This is not the Merry Man of whom we've been told many good stories. He is a ruthless murderer and every death shows on his drawn, grizzly face.

Later that day, a tall, blood-stained man looms menacingly out of the mist. He recognises the silhouette as his old comrade Little John (Bill Skarsgård). "I need your help." He then goes on to spin a tale of a redheaded wife and daughter that he's been forced to leave behind on a small holding not far away, by her angry kinsman. "They are my life." Robin agrees to help and clutching his trusty bow and arrows, they both prepare for a surprise raid under the cover of the coming night.

If you've seen The Northman (2022), starring Bills Brother, Alexander Skarsgård, then that experience should tell you enough about the graphic mud, blood and violence at the beginning of this film. But I don't think that I could have sat comfortably through a full two hours and twenty minutes of that, as it would be a relentless. Even though the fighting is all in context, thankfully the pace changes about a third of the way through when John has to take his badly wounded and delirious comrade to an island of refuge. He says that the Priory of St Clement is run by a prioress who has magical healing powers. Robin is left on the front step of the ancient looking stone facade as John and his young daughter immediately leave to row back to the mainland.

When he wakes the next morning in a quiet room and comfortable bed, his wounds bandaged and a wooden splint on his broken leg, Robin sees properly the kind and young face of the prioress that took him in for the first time. The clean, headscarved and smiling visage belongs to Jodie Comer. She asks his name. He deliberately lies: "Randolph". "Bridget." She replies. A short montage of rehab begins as with a strong wooden crutch we see the bearded man slowly regaining his strength. One day she says "go as far as you please". He slowly hobbles out of the quiet room to explore the castle like priory. The breeze is gentle and the bright sun is warm on his face. It must be Spring now. There are other nuns and children playing in the garden behind the Priory. In his mind he feels it's time for some reflection regarding the choices he has made in his later life.

There is a heavily bandaged leper on the island too played by Murray Bartlett but you only see his eyes. He initially warns Randolph not to harm anyone there, under threat of death, but eventually things become amicable. There is definitely good on-screen chemistry between Jackman and Comer. Both chameleons in the many various roles they've inhabited thus far, they, and the whole cast play totally credible characters in this harsh, mid thirteenth century England backdrop. A special mention for the young actor Faith Delaney who plays John's daughter, Little Margaret, who's return to the island later galvanises Robin's determination to make those positive changes in his remaining life.

The cinematography throughout is excellent and the rugged island location looks especially stunning on the big screen. Without giving away any spoilers the clue is in the title, so nothing really to hide here, but the story is compelling and I'm glad that the master archer aspect still plays an important part. All in all, I felt that this was quite a bit better than the last few Robin Hood centric feature film offerings we've had to endure.

The Dog Stars (2026) - A Guest Review by Chad Dixon

This is the latest Science Fiction cinema release from veteran director, Ridley Scott, who's output seems to be speeding up in his later years. It's 2035 and the World is a few years on the other side of a devastating flu pandemic that has wiped out most of humanity. The remaining survivors have mostly left the big cities and are now scattered thinly throughout the rural areas and wilderness.

Hig (Jacob Elordi), is a mechanic and together with his trusty German Shepherd Jasper, flies regular supply runs to Denver in an old repaired Cessna light aircraft. Based at an abandoned small airfield in Erie, Colorado, which he shares with Bangley (Josh Brolin). He travels more than is necessary as the city was his home with his now deceased wife and infant. They are still constantly on his mind and these visits to his old family house is his only solace in this otherwise unrecognisable empty world.

Bangley is extremely comfortable with this arrangement, as together with a good supply of food and drink, they are well armed against gangs of violent roaming scavengers that periodically come through their location. However, Hig is constantly scanning the radio waves, in hope of finding something better. Maybe a bigger community, like the group of self sufficient Mennonites that live in a lush valley a few miles away that he often drops in on on his way back from Denver. It might feel more like living again rather than just surviving. One day he decides he has to go and loads up enough supplies, takes Jasper and flies off.

This really looks like Ridley Scott has watched a few episodes of 'The Last of Us' and/or 'The Walking Dead' and thought "I'm going to do a feature film in that genre". As a result, this feels just like an extended but much less interesting episode of one of those shows. There are fairly ok performances by everyone that includes Guy Pearce and Margaret Qualley as a father and daughter Hig lands near when his plane has some minor issues. But just like lots of Mr Scott's recent offerings, the script is quite poor so heavily relies on the visuals. Which here are various panoramas of the Rocky Mountains and shot mostly from the air, look breathtaking on the big screen. But otherwise this, just under two hour story is a very mediocre effort.

1,000th Blog Post! The Salmon of Salmagundi!

When I first started writing here (and porting my posts over from Google+ when it closed its doors in 2018), I didn’t set out with a grand plan to get to any particular number - I just ploughed on through when the urge took me and I felt as though I had something to say! There was no calendar, no strategy and certainly no counter running!

I just wanted a space to put thoughts down, tinker with things that interested me and share whatever happened to be occupying my time. Today, this post happens to be number 1,000. If you didn't know, a salmagundi, by definition, is a miscellany - a dish composed of many disparate ingredients mixed together. Looking back across the archive, the blog has certainly lived up to its name. Its name and mine! The Salmon of Salmagundi! I don't have an exact record of when I posted my first post in Google+ but it's now well over 10 years - and possibly 15 - ported across here in the summer of 2018.

If you were to lay out every entry side-by-side, it would look less like a single publication and more like the top of a well-used workbench! A large chunk of those thousand posts has been dedicated to hardware - mobile phones, foldables, e-ink tablets, custom ROMs, obscure gadgets and the endless pursuit of the setup that actually works! We’ve seen the smartphone market evolve from quirky, experimental form factors into polished slabs of glass, only to bend and fold themselves into new shapes all over again. I’ve always found as much enjoyment in taking software apart or tweaking a niche budget device as I have in unboxing a flagship. For every review of a polished mainstream phone, there’s been an entry dedicated to coaxing a few more years of life out of a classic piece of kit, swapping operating systems or testing whether a paper-like screen really lives up to the hype.

Then there is the music. If tech represents the modern, restless itch to see what’s coming next, the music posts have always been about slowing down. Dropping the stylus onto a vinyl record forces a different kind of attention. Over the years, I’ve used these pages to talk through album pressings, soundscapes, audio gear and the sheer tactile satisfaction of physical media. Whether dissecting the production details on a classic album or detailing a pre-amp tweak, those posts have always felt like taking a break from the noise of the digital world to just sit back and listen. My real enjoyment has come from the resurgence of vinyl LPs though and I've had great fun over the years re-collecting what was lost from back in the day - and sharing that nostalgia here.

And, of course, the films and television. My reviews here have never been about chasing whatever blockbuster is currently dominating the multiplex. Instead, Salmagundi has been a place for digging into the side alleys of cinema - indie thrillers, oddball horror, European cinema, lost sci-fi gems and the occasional film that left me wondering what on earth the director was thinking! Writing about film is always a nice counterweight to tech hardware. A phone is measured in gigabytes, battery cycles and refresh rates; a film is measured by whether it kept you gripped for ninety minutes or made you want to drop a brief, honest summary onto the blog the moment the credits rolled. I also, now and again, add a guest review from one of our community pals, who have penned a review of their own and want somewhere online to post it.

Between the major categories lie the posts that don't fit anywhere else - the odd tools, the desk arrangements, the podcast companion notes for Whatever Works and the small observations on day-to-day projects. Those are often the most fun to write. They capture the immediate moment: fixing a piece of audio kit, setting up a new workflow or simply sharing a thought that didn't belong in a formal show recording. And speaking of podcasts, I always publish a list each month here in my blog of what the team and I have been recording and getting out there into podcast land. More spicy ingredients for that Salmagundi!

Reaching 1,000 posts isn't a finish line; it’s just a nice milestone on the road. The core appeal of running a blog like this hasn't changed since post No. 1. It remains a personal, independent corner of the web - free from algorithms dictating what ought to be written and driven entirely by genuine curiosity. To anyone who has dropped by to read a single review, leave a comment, agree or disagree with a film take, or follow along through the podcasts: thank you for your interest and support. Here’s to the next batch of tech, vinyl, films and whatever else happens to land on the desk next week!

Most of what I write here ends up in our MeWe Social Groups as well, so do check those out via the links here on my blog - and feel free to tune into any of our audio podcasts that takes your fancy. We always have a lot of fun, whatever the topic, and you'll be welcome along.

The Well (2023)

Directed by Federico Zampaglione and starring Lauren LaVera (Terrifier 2), The Well is an unabashedly retro throwback to classic Italian splatter-horror and Giallo-influenced creature features! I remember that we covered Deep Red (1975) on The Projector Room podcast some time back, one of Dario Argento's efforts of the ilk – but there's loads more. Check out my podcast co-host Gareth's reviews over on his website.

So, the story starts with Lisa Gray (Lauren LaVera), a talented young American art restorer, heading for the remote, quaint Italian village of Sambuci. Whilst on the bus, she hooks up with three hitchhikers/tourists who are heading for the eerie, misty woods nearby, tents ready for camping. They part company and agree to meet up in a few days, though Lisa warns them that she has her work cut out, so no promises.

Lisa then bumps into a local Italian chap who flirts with her, offers to carry her bags to her destination and tells her that he runs a pub in the town. They agree to meet up for a drink when she has time away from her task. Lisa has been commissioned by the wealthy Duchess Emma Malvisi (Claudia Gerini) to restore a heavily damaged medieval painting that was recently charred in a fire at the family’s grand, decaying manor. Her controlling dad was the greater expert, but couldn't come, so he sent her instead.

Lisa notices that the villagers are deeply paranoid, cold and secretive. She gets to the grand and sprawling manor house, moves in, and begins work on the painting after meeting Emma. The painting turns out to depict a terrifying, monstrous demon surrounded by fire and suffering. As Lisa meticulously cleans away layers of grime and soot, the restoration process unleashes a strange, dark influence over her, plaguing her with vivid nightmares and hallucinations. Emma's daughter, Giulia, behaves strangely and Emma tells her that she has a 'personality disorder'. Incidentally, the actress playing this part is Linda Zampaglione, the director's real-life daughter.

We switch back to the camping group and, as soon as they get set up, they are one-by-one abducted by a strange, as-yet unknown to us, man. We see his hands in one shot, so we know he's human! They are taken to the damp, stone dungeons deep beneath the house and thrown into an eerie stone well - a clear nod to the iconic 'pit' setup in The Silence of the Lambs, I reckon! Down in the dark, the prisoners discover they aren't alone. Lurking at the bottom of the well is a grotesquely deformed, flesh-bound ancient creature (whose scarred, skinless, swollen facial features carry an uncanny resemblance to Mason Verger from Hannibal, by the way)! There's also a gatekeeper figure, almost as grotesque, wonderfully imagined - a huge man who reminded me of The Incredible Hulk (only not green), ensuring that the prisoners do what they are told!

It turns out that the Duchess and her servants are keeping the creature alive by feeding it human flesh and blood. In exchange, the creature bestows supernatural health, longevity and power on the Duchess's family lineage. As Lisa gets closer to finishing the restoration, having previously ignored Giulia's warnings, she unravels the horrifying truth that the painting isn't just a depiction of a myth, but a binding ritual and cursed historical record of the monster trapped below!

What goes on in the dungeon by the gatekeeper and creature leaves nothing to the imagination! Brutal, practical special effects fly. The captives are systematically tortured, butchered and fed to the creature in excruciating detail - featuring disembowelment, severed limbs and raw flesh-tearing - all executed with tactile, rubber-and-blood practical gore rather than digital CGI. Apparently, director Zampaglione deliberately hired Italian FX artists to ensure every throat-slitting, gut-spill and monster transformation was handled with physical props, prosthetics and fake blood!

So, Lisa attempts to save the remaining survivors, leading to a bloody showdown in the catacombs against the Duchess, her sadistic helpers and the ravenous beast itself! The question is whether or not she can do it, but also what chaos will ensue on the way, whether or not under threat of death she can finish restoring the painting by midnight (to ensure that the curse survives for a new and fresh 500 years) and of course, who and what survives and doesn't!

It really is a good fun horror, which, as usual, I chuckle my way through while others hide behind the sofa! I do find it all very funny rather than scary, but that's just me. No imagination, they tell me! The acting is alright, not brilliant; the script is not the best; and it often feels a bit like a low-budget outing - but they've certainly spent money on the gore and physical effects. As well as that dungeon set! That's really nicely imagined and created! You'll find it kicking about on loads of streaming services now - and it's almost all in English by the way, with just a few Italian lines, supported by subtitles.

Don't Let Your GDoc Get Too Old!

I was trying to put a photo into one of our Recording Notes GDoc that is used for one of our podcasts today and it wouldn't play ball. Just shoved a placeholder in. I took it to Gemini and (eventually) it came out that the GDoc was probably first made about 10 years ago. Which was the problem. In case anyone is interested in the technicalities, here they are...

"Google Docs tracks every single edit, deletion and typing change in its Version History. When a document is reused, wiped and overwritten repeatedly over years - especially one created around 2016 - the document's hidden version history database becomes enormous. Eventually, the document metadata becomes so bloated that Google Docs struggles to allocate temporary memory for uploading and processing new media assets, causing new images to instantly crash into that warning triangle placeholder. Starting fresh with a clean document will solve this completely and make the document load much faster for both of you."

Finding Altamira (2016)

I'm back on the Golshifteh Farahani trail again and stumbled into this one, which I'd not heard of before. It's available very broadly across streaming platforms now and well worth a watch. It's a true story about science vs religion in the post-Darwin decades as the power of (particularly Catholic) organised religion did all it could to quash science and men of science looking to further truth, understanding, evidence and facts about the Earth, rather than ancient dreamt-up myths. Note that the film in some regions was dubbed just "Altamira" (without the "finding".)

The story starts in 1879 with our small family of dad, mum and daughter. Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, played by Antonio Banderas (The Other Man, Frida), is a Spanish nobleman and passionate amateur archaeologist who lives a tranquil life in Cantabria, Spain, with his deeply devout wife, Conchita, Golshifteh Farahani (VTC, Hood Witch, The Night Eats the World, Paterson, Alpha, About Elly), and their inquisitive young daughter, María (portrayed by Allegra Allen).

While exploring a local cave system on their land, María ventures deeper into a low-ceilinged side chamber while her father digs for stone tools. Looking up, she notices paintings of galloping bison and other animals on the rock ceiling. Marcelino realises that these paintings must have been crafted by prehistoric humans tens of thousands of years ago - long before modern civilisation was thought to exist. Excited by the find, Marcelino publishes his work, expecting the scientific and religious communities to celebrate the milestone, but instead, the discovery triggers intense pushback from both sides.

Monseigneur (Rupert Everett), an uncompromising religious leader, sees the claim that "prehistoric savages" were capable of high art and lived tens of thousands of years ago as a direct assault on his Catholic belief system. He fears the fallout if taken seriously, adding momentum to the rise of science and Darwin's theory of evolution. In order to attempt to quash the discoveries, he manipulates Conchita’s religious devotion, pressuring her to save her husband's 'soul' and steer María away from Marcelino's "heretical" scientific pursuits. Expected scientific allies prove equally dogmatic. Leading French prehistorian Édouard Cartailhac and Spanish academics publicly condemn Marcelino as an impostor. They argue that Palaeolithic humans lacked the intellectual capacity for true art, dismissing the paintings as a modern hoax forged by an artist friend of Marcelino.

The public humiliation destroys Marcelino’s reputation. His relationship with Conchita is threatened under the strain of her guilt and Monseigneur’s interference. Heartbroken and disgraced, Marcelino locks the cave gates and falls into a deep depression, while María feels responsible for the rift between her parents. Conchita eventually realises that her husband's love for truth does not make him evil, nor does it threaten her belief system. Seeing the toll the scandal has taken on their family, she confronts her own religious rigidity, rejects Monseigneur’s manipulation and reunites with Marcelino in quiet solidarity.

The main three players do a terrific job, especially the little girl playing María - and of course Golshifteh can do no wrong! She doesn't have as much screen time as the equally terrific Banderas, but when she's facing the camera, whatever her role, she seems to me to be totally convincing - a great actress of our time indeed. Rupert Everett plays the monstrous religious man, and he plays it brilliantly scarily, barking out his beliefs! He's a big actor and his character towers over whoever he's judging and tearing a strip off, which he does regularly, especially Conchita!

The sets are very nicely done and the tone of the era is replicated nicely inside their house of privilege, the countryside, the city and the cave in question. The costumes are sumptuous, and director Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan) ensures that lighting, shadow and colours are interestingly portrayed - along with some dreamy scenes of bison that María 'sees'.

So it's a drama based on the facts of the case, though it never meanders into documentary territory. We find out in the latter stages of the film what happens to the people involved and even, finally, jump twenty years ahead in order to witness the long-term fallout regarding the discoveries, and later on, other similar ones. We can read all about the background on Wikipedia of course but if you want to know here, then here's an appraisal.

Years later, similar prehistoric cave paintings are uncovered in France (such as Lascaux and Font-de-Gaulle). Édouard Cartailhac is forced to admit his error and publishes a famous retraction titled "Mea Culpa d'un Électrobiologiste" ("A Skeptic's Mea Culpa"), formally apologising to an adult María and restoring Marcelino’s place in history. It's a tragic tale which forms part of the notable chapters in the history of archaeology. The artwork dates back to the Magdalenian and Solutrean periods (between 14,000 and 36,000 years ago). The artists used natural bumps and contours in the limestone ceiling to give their painted bison, horses and deer three-dimensional volume and movement.

In the late 19th century, the scientific community believed early humans were primitive, ape-like "savages" incapable of abstract thought, let alone masterwork painting using charcoal and red ochre pigments. The preservation was so remarkable that experts believed no paint could survive 15,000 years inside a humid cave without flaking away. It wasn't until 1902, 14 years after Marcelino’s death, that Cartailhac and the French Prehistoric Congress officially acknowledged Altamira's authenticity.

Because the moisture and carbon dioxide from millions of visitors began causing mould and damaging the delicate pigments, the original cave was permanently closed to the public in 2002. Today, visitors to Santillana del Mar can visit the Neocave, a meticulous, millimetre-perfect replica museum built nearby that reproduces the cave paintings exactly as María and her father saw them in 1879.