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“Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema 1945-1960” is the theme of this year’s Locarno Film Festival Retrospective, unveiled in London on Monday. It follows the festival’s 2024 look back at Columbia Pictures at 100.

Described as “a tribute” to British cinema from that period promising to be “painting a rich and diverse picture of life in the postwar years as reflected in British popular cinema,” the retrospective will feature more than 40 films and is produced in partnership with the BFI National Archive and the Cinémathèque Suisse, with the support of StudioCanal and curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht.

“After the end of the Second World War — and as its overseas empire began to crumble — Britain embarked on the rocky road to national reconstruction and revival,” Locarno organizers said. “Featuring everything from beloved classics by legendary filmmakers like David Lean, Carol Reed, and Powell and Pressburger (themselves the subject of a major Locarno retrospective...

August’s Locarno Film Festival will go British with its latest retrospective: Great Expectations: British Post-War Cinema, 1945-1960.

The retrospective forms a major strand of the film festival’s programming and for many festival goers is a standout and popular attraction. Boasting fresh restorations and rare screenings of difficult to get prints, past seasons have been devoted to filmmakers such as Douglas Sirk or studios such as last year’s retrospective, The Lady with the Torch, which celebrated the centenary of Columbia Pictures.

Great Expectations: British Post-War Cinema, 1945-1960 is organized by the Locarno Film Festival in partnership with the BFI National Archive and the Cinémathèque Suisse, with the support of Studiocanal. The film curator responsible for the last program, Ehsan Khoshbakht, returns this year with Great Expectations. He spoke exclusively with Variety about the lineup and the rules dictating his selection.

What are the criteria for selection?

I chose...

Studiocanal launched a brand new official podcast – and the host might just be familiar to Film Stories listeners.

This is a bit of an odd story for me to write. Basically, well, because I’m in it. I’ll see how I get on.

The rather fine folks at Studiocanal have launched an official podcast, digging into the huge archive of movies under its stewardship. It’s arriving regularly, and as well as focusing on a movie of the month, there’s a broader exploration of other bits and bobs too.

Don’t take our word for it. Here’s Jamie McHale, the head of theatrical marketing at the studio: “We’re thrilled to be launching an official podcast to celebrate our incredible library of titles and upcoming theatrical releases. The in-depth analysis and regular features such as “Dream Double Bills” and “Hidden Gems” from Simon and his guests are...

In many ways, slasher movies represent the horror genre at its purest. Favoring creative kills over cumbersome characterization works like Friday the 13th cater towards exploitation fans first and foremost. These films are exercises in brutality and pushed boundaries in terms of stomach-churning violence. In doing so, slashers like Freddy Krueger and Micheal Myers have become pop-culture icons, frequently overshadowing their thinly sketched victims. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is seen by many as the genre's earliest offering, effectively providing the blueprint for future horror filmmakers. That said, few realize that another psychological thriller beat Hitchcock to the punch earlier that year.

Directed by Micheal Powell, Peeping Tom debuted in the UK on April 7th, 1960. The film starred Karlheinz Bohm as Mark Lewis, a socially awkward camera operator obsessed with fear. He spends his nights hunting down women and murdering them on film, recording their reactions to analyze later. Like Psycho,...

Spanning 750 square kilometers, it would be unwise to commit a crime in Singapore. Not that it’s impossible to commit a crime in the city-state, but it sure is impossible to get away with it. The Southeast Asian nation is one of the most surveilled countries in the world with more than 100,00 cameras watching the moves of its 6 million strong population, which makes the central conflict of “Stranger Eyes” – a missing child – all the more elusive. But as the film progresses, writer-director Yeo Siew Hua intentionally shifts gears from a potential police procedural into a melancholic, existential study of how even in the age of mass surveillance, we seek our temptations and despite being watched by a camera, seldom do we feel seen in any meaningful way.

This narrative friction between seeing and being seen, being realized, and being wanted when there’s no chance of reciprocation is at the core of this taut thriller.

The 1960s changed the thriller genre in big ways. It was a decade of new ideas when filmmakers broke all the rules and went into uncharted territory. Both cinema and the world were changing quickly. The rise of counterculture, political unrest, and a thirsty audience for darker stories forced thrillers of the 1960s to change. In this era, suspense wasn’t just about a good story; it was also about breaking rules, playing with the audience’s mind, and using technology to make them feel like they were in the middle of the action.

Take a look at the original nature of “Psycho” (1960), a film that made the concept of “shock” cinema famous. “Peeping Tom” (1960) took voyeurism and psychological horror to places most filmmakers were afraid to go.

Let’s not forget the revolutionary change in thrillers brought on by adding political drama and paranoia in films like “The Manchurian Candidate...

Christopher Nolan is celebrated for his unique approach to filmmaking, making him one of the most admired directors of our time. Movies like Inception, Dunkirk, and Interstellar showcase his ability to create stories that are both captivating and thought-provoking.

Christopher Nolan | Credits: Wikimedia Commons\HellaCinema, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

Known for his intricate plots and unconventional storytelling, Nolan constantly pushes the boundaries of cinema. What’s less known is how he blended his personal and professional life in Oppenheimer, his Oscar-winning film. In this movie, he gave his eldest daughter a small but meaningful role. While the part wasn’t big, it carried significant weight in the story.

Christopher Nolan Cast His Children in His Films for Cameo Appearances

Christopher Nolan, an acclaimed filmmaker and Academy Award winner, is also a proud father of four children, who have all made small appearances in his movies. Nolan and his wife, Emma Thomas,...

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is one of the scariest, most impressive supernatural horror movies of the last ten years. Directed by Andr vredal, whose career has been mostly focused on horror and dark fantasy, and starring Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch as a father-son duo of coroners in great performances, it's surprising to those who love it how this film remains relatively forgotten. It had generally favorable reviews and, back in 2017, prolific novelist and horror mastermind Stephen King implied some intriguing comparisons when commenting on the movie.

The Autopsy Of Jane Doe: Visceral horror to rival Alien and early Cronenberg. Watch it, but not alone. Stephen King (@StephenKing) January 11, 2017

Comparing The Autopsy of Jane Doe to Alien and early Cronenberg may either seem random or totally accurate at first, and both interpretations can be argued. "Visceral" horror could refer to the cutting of Jane Doe's body and the...

Trick 'r Treat was once nothing more than a cult movie that only the most dedicated horror fans even knew existed. Now, it has become a cultural mainstay, especially in October. Go to any Spirit Halloween, and it's impossible not to find t-shirts, dolls, decorations, and other merchandise dedicated to the movie.

Even those who don't enjoy horror add the film to their spooky season watch lists. The anthology movie is brimming with fall vibes, and this interesting trivia only serves to enhance the viewing experience.

Trick 'r Treat is Based on an Animated Short Film Directed/Written By Michael Dougherty

Name

Season's Greetings

Release Year

1996

Bonus Fun Fact

The 3-minute hand-drawn short took nine months to complete.

Sam is a cute sack-masked character who makes everyone follow the rules of Halloween. He is at the heart of Trick 'r Treat, appearing at first as a little boy wanting candy,...

It seems only right on All Hallows Eve that Jamie Lee Curtis might be cryptically teasing another go-round with the unstoppable Michael Myers in the Halloween franchise. During a brand-new interview, the famed Scream Queen spoke about a number of her upcoming projects, including her reunion with on-screen daughter Lindsay Lohan in next years Freakier Friday. However, the conversation took an intriguing turn when Curtis also insinuated that she might not be done with The Shape just yet. Curtis told Entertainment Weekly:

"I have hung up my bell-bottoms and my pale blue button-down shirt. And I have relinquished [Laurie Strode] to the ages with a warm, 'aloha,' and a thanks for all the years and memories. And yet, if Ive learned anything in my 65 years on the planet, its never say never."

While most genre fans will always associate Curtis with Final Girl Laurie Strode from the Halloween franchise, and rightly so,...

A murderer is tormented by the ghosts of his victims in this frustrating story that doesn’t have the storytelling heft its premise deserves

Here is a horror film with a decent premise. Karter (Venkat Sai Gunda) is an artistic sort – specifically, a photographer, apparently of some renown. He’s also mute. And a serial killer. He’s depressed; he feels trapped by his crimes, but he can’t stop killing, he doesn’t want to go to prison and he can’t quite face suicide. One day, he begins to feel he isn’t alone in his house. It seems the vengeful ghosts of his victims are resting uneasily and have set out to torment him.

But there’s something here that just falls short. It’s a shame that the film-makers were working with such an evidently small budget: the vengeful ghosts are giving Halloween at Alton Towers vibe,...

Horror cinema has long been divided into a variety of sub-genres, from the supernatural to body horror and creature features. However, few categories are as synonymous with horror as much as the slasher. First perfected in the early 1960s with films like Psycho and Peeping Tom, the slasher's formula is simple: a single or group of characters pitted against a malevolent killer, typically one who wears a mask, such as Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees.

While slashers can take a variety of forms, with some embracing the supernatural with seemingly invincible killers, others strive for a sense of brutal realism. Either way, these films remain some of the most iconic and terrifying in the horror genre, thanks to the use of the cat-and-mouse-inspired trope of a killer stalking young people. The 2000s gave fans a surprisingly strong output of these movies following a '90s slump, and some of its gems endure to this day.

Every generation deserves a version of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom to call its own, including and especially one for which there are few aspects of life that can’t be mediated by screens. Indeed, it’s overwhelming just how many ways there are to watch another human being in 2024, many of which don’t necessitate them watching back. Web streams, security feeds, social media–all glimpses into the private lives of others, each with subtly distinct social functions, facilitating both exhibitionism and voyeurism as a matter of daily routine.

It’s around this tension that writer-director Yeo Siew Hua’s Stranger Eyes coalesces. To describe the film as a surveillance thriller wouldn’t quite be accurate, inasmuch as that term conjures images of shady government figures hunched over chunky laptops, scrutinizing an unsuspecting public. Though there is certainly a bit of that, especially in the beginning, when Stranger Eyes...

One of this years best horror outings, the slasher movie In a Violent Nature, is now available to stream on Shudder. And it should make the perfect cinematic experience for Friday the 13th. Written and directed by Chris Nash and made in association with IFC Films and Shudder Films, In a Violent Nature tells the perfect slasher tale while taking a surprisingly unique approach to the way that tale is told. The story (and bloodshed) begins when a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods. Little did the unsuspecting victims know that this is what entombed the corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific crime from decades ago. Oops. Now, Johnny is here...and he wants his locket back.

Not unlike the way many a slasher killer treats their victims, In a Violent Nature flips the slasher movie genre on its head,...

From mad scientists to unintended mutations, nuclear monsters were the darlings of horror in the atomic age. And it makes sense. After all, America was deep in the heart of the Cold War scare (officially starting in 1947). The idyllic facade of the 1950s, picket fences and apple pies, concealed a constant undercurrent of anxiety and fear that the world would end in a nuclear war.

So with atomic power always at the forefront of consciousness, it makes sense that the movies of the time would feature monsters born of atomic fallout. At the same time, man was taking to the stars for the first time, with space exploration opening up a whole new frontier -- and a whole new set of fears. Between aliens from the stars and mutants from our world, a new genre of atomic monsters took over. And while the Godzilla movies would go on to become by far the most famous,...

I think part of our collective fascination with serial killers comes from an empathetic desire to uncover exactly what needs to go wrong for a human being to snap and turn into a murderer. That’s why it makes sense that this form of morbid curiosity lies at the heart of so many successful horror stories, with countless genre filmmakers trying their best to explore the minds of predators.

And in honor of M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller expertly allowing us to see through the eyes of a cold-blooded murderer, we’ve decided to come up with a list highlighting six other serial killer movies told from the killer’s perspective. After all, there are plenty of interesting cinematic killers out there, and not all of them are as charming as Josh Hartnett in Trap.

As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own murderous favorites if...

Horror fans can re-experience 2014's cult film The Babadook when it re-launches with exclusive content. Director Jennifer Kent's indie classic marks its 10th anniversary this year with a limited theatrical run across the U.S.

The 2010s saw mainstream and indie horror flicks break out at the box office; horror fans were spoiled for choice coming up with their shortlist of favorites. Notable titles include Hereditary, Get Out, Frozen, and The Wailing, but one film that redefined the genre was The Babadook, based on the 2005 short film Monster by Jennifer Kent. The Babadook earned critical acclaim when it was released in theaters in 2014, and it has since become a modern horror classic. IFC Films announced The Babadook is getting a second run in theaters starting Sept. 19, 2024, in celebration of its 10th anniversary. The upcoming screening will feature an exclusive Q&a with Kent, who will also be available for select interviews.

Despite being banned from theaters at its initial 1974 release for its shocking violence, Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” remains among the most influential horror films in history — and one that’s inspired countless remakes, sequels, spinoffs, and imitators.

Hooper, who would later direct the cult series “Salem’s Lot” (1979) and the ’80s phenomenon “Poltergeist” (1982), was a documentary cinematographer and an assistant film director at the University of Texas-Austin in the early ’70s. Co-written by Kim Henkel, “Texas Chain Saw” was remarkably only his sophomore feature following his 1969 psychedelic debut “Eggshells,” which Henkel also co-wrote and starred in.

In “Texas Chain Saw,” Sally (Marilyn Burns), her brother Franklin (Paul A. Partain), and their friends go on a doomed road trip in Texas County. On their way to Sally and Franklin’s family slaughterhouse, the journey goes off course when a hitchhiker splatters blood on their Rv, and masked serial...

Fritz Lang’s M is the greatest serial killer movie ever made. Of course, there have been dozens, even hundreds, of films on the subject with various innovations and evolutions along the way from the early days of cinema all the way to the most recent twists on the subgenre in MaXXXine and Longlegs. A few can be counted among the greatest films of all time regardless of genre, but all of them owe at least some measure of influence to M. Whether it is the best or not is a matter of opinion, but there is no real argument regarding its greatness. M is a true cinematic masterpiece, a touchstone of innovation in image, sound, performance, structure, editing, writing, and practically every other element of filmmaking. But as with most great films, audiences have been drawn to it again and again over the past ninety-plus years because of its...

2024 has been an extraordinary year for film preservation, with theatrical premieres of new restorations of “The Searchers” and “North by Northwest” unspooling at festivals and repertory houses while pristine new editions of essential films like Michael Powell’s “Peeping Tom” and Martha Coolidge’s “Not a Pretty Picture” become available for home viewing via 4K and Blu-ray releases. The 1952 adventure film “Bwana Devil” is not held in as high regard as those classics by most cinephiles, but its restoration and Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber are just as significant. The first color 3D feature film, “Bwana Devil” was a game changer in Hollywood history, and Kino’s Blu-ray provides the first chance in decades to see it as it was originally presented — an experience that reveals “Bwana Devil” is a far more exciting film than its tepid reputation would indicate.

“Bwana Devil” was the brainchild of writer, producer, and director Arch Oboler,...

Do you relish the eerie thrill of watching creepy killers in action? Inspired by the creepy af vibes of Longlegs, we’ve curated a list of 12 of the most disturbing serial killer movies ever made. These films plunge deep into the minds of the most twisted and terrifying murderers, delivering spine-tingling suspense that will make you question the very fabric of humanity.

Serial killer movies are all about the psychological thrill, the nerve-wracking tension, and that unshakable sense of dread. We’re not just talking about gore—though there’s plenty to go around. We’re diving into the chilling calm of meticulous murderers, the grotesque enjoyment of their gruesome deeds, and the horrific genius that makes these films unforgettable. If you’re a true crime fan or just love a good scare, these movies are guaranteed to haunt your thoughts.

New Line Cinema 12. The Cell (2000)

The Cell is a...

Martin Scorsese is recognized as a champion of cinema, a man who’s dedicated his life to preserving the seventh art, the former model for the single most 1970s beard ever and our greatest living American filmmaker. What folks usually forget to mention is that the 81-year-old director is also our nation’s unofficial film-history-professor laureate, and his side hustle as both a documentarian and talking-head-for-hire has occasionally allowed Scorsese to share his knowledge, his insights and most of all, his passion for movies from every era and all corners of the world.

The Criterion Channel’s August lineup pays tribute to auteurs of all kinds: directors, actors, and photographers, fictional or otherwise. In a notable act of preservation and advocacy, they’ll stream 20 titles by the Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine, here introduced by the great Richard Peña. More known (but fun all the same) is a five-title Paul Thomas Anderson series including the exclusive stream of Licorice Pizza, as well as a Philip Seymour Hoffman series that overlaps with Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love (a Criterion Edition this month), and The Master, plus 25th Hour, Love Liza, and his own directing effort Jack Goes Boating. Preston Sturges gets five movies, with Sullivan’s Travels arriving in October.

Theme-wise, a photographer series includes Rear Window, Peeping Tom, Blow-up, Close-Up, and Clouzot’s La prisonnière; “Vacation Noir” features The Lady from Shanghai, Brighton Rock, Kansas City Confidential, Purple Noon, and La piscine. Alongside the aforementioned PTA and Antonioni pictures,...

Horror picture "Longlegs" is proving to be a surprising box office success. A lot of credit must go to indie studio Neon's marketing campaign, which was scary enough to get people paying attention, yet restrained enough to not give the whole movie away.

Starring Maika Monroe as FBI Agent Lee Harker, "Longlegs" follows the hunt for a serial killer, played by a well-disguised Nicolas Cage. Cage's killer character is mercifully kept at a distance or off-screen for most of the movie; the rare times we get an up-close look, it's like we're intruding on something devilish.

Director Osgood Perkins' previous films have felt a bit too empty for me. The procedural core of "Longlegs," though, gives the movie enough of a skeleton that I could appreciate Perkins' craftsmanship without it trying my patience. Is "Longlegs" the scariest movie ever? No, but it is the movie equivalent of a page-turner,...

David Hinton with Anne-Katrin Titze (holding up her Mansur Gavriel Square Toe Ballerinas) on Moira Shearer starring in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes: “She was a ballerina, she wasn’t an actress. And Michael insisted, we must have a ballerina!”

David Hinton’s thoroughly captivating Made In England: The Films Of Powell And Pressburger (a highlight of the 23rd edition of the Tribeca Festival) has Martin Scorsese (who is also an executive producer) as our personal guide into the wonderful world of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, which includes production designers Alfred Junge and Hein Heckroth, cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and art director Arthur Lawson.

David Hinton on casting Karlheinz Böhm in Peeping Tom: “It seems such an extraordinarily strange thing to do but it works so perfectly, doesn’t it?”

Starting with The Thief Of Baghdad (co-directed by Powell with Ludwig Berger and Tim Whelan...

David Hinton with Anne-Katrin Titze (holding up her Mansur Gavriel Square Toe Ballerinas) on Moira Shearer starring in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes: “She was a ballerina, she wasn’t an actress. And Michael insisted, we must have a ballerina!”

David Hinton’s thoroughly captivating Made In England: The Films Of Powell And Pressburger (a highlight of the 23rd edition of the Tribeca Festival) has Martin Scorsese (who is also an executive producer) as our personal guide into the wonderful world of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, which includes production designers Alfred Junge and Hein Heckroth, cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and art director Arthur Lawson.

David Hinton on casting Karlheinz Böhm in Peeping Tom: “It seems such an extraordinarily strange thing to do but it works so perfectly, doesn’t it?”

Starting with The Thief Of Baghdad (co-directed by Powell with Ludwig Berger and Tim Whelan...

Lifetime presents a double bill of Parents Gone Wild tonight, with back-to-back episodes showcasing the unpredictable and humorous side of parenthood. In the first episode, “Expect the Unexpected,” airing at 11:00 pm, viewers are treated to a range of surprising and amusing scenarios. A Peeping Tom receives a lesson from a protective mother, defending her […]

Parents Gone Wild: Expect the Unexpected / Parental Misguidance...

In the new documentary directed by David Hinton, “Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger,” Martin Scorsese pays tribute to the work and life of Michael Powell and his filmmaking partner Emeric Pressburger, as he analyzes their incredible body of work through the lens of the profound influence it had on him as a director. In the film, Scorsese also discusses the friendship that developed between Powell and himself in the ’70s and ’80s, and the invaluable guidance the great British director provided at critical moments of his own career.

When Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s longtime editor who was married to Powell before he passed away in 1990, was a guest on an upcoming episode of IndieWire’s Toolkit podcast she made clear there was another side of the Scorsese-Powell relationship that wasn’t as heavily emphasized in the documentary.

“Marty did so much for Michael, it’s not documented...

Given the sense of wonder and promotion of emotion over reason that courses through Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s work, it’s appropriate that David Hinton’s Made in England: The Films of Powell & Pressburger starts with a recollection of a defining childhood moment. The film’s narrator and one of its executive producers, Martin Scorsese describes himself as an asthmatic child confined indoors and thunderstruck by these old films he was seeing on television. Giddy with the memory of being a young boy accidentally coming across fantastical mindblowers like The Thief of Baghdad, Scorsese says there was simply “no better initiation” into what he calls “the mysteries of Michael Powell.”

The film that follows does a thoroughly commendable job of providing that same initiation for unwashed viewers. But because Made in England is structurally a somewhat staid illustrated lecture from Scorsese on Powell’s directing career, and to...

Actor and filmmaker Asia Argento will be guest of honor at this year’s Neuchatel Int’l Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff), a choice the Nifff director sees as emblematic of the festival’s own self-image.

“Asia is an icon,” says Nifff chief Pierre-Yves Walder. “She’s someone we ourselves have grown up with, and whom we watched grow up. She’s established herself as artist who makes few concessions, who practices her profession with absolute freedom and who is always ready to take big risks. She has a punk side and never hesitates, and because of her career – which stretches back to the foundational horror films of her father [Dario Argento] towards something more contemporary – she also bridges versions of Nifff past and present.”

“She also helped spearhead the MeToo movement,” Walder continues, “which led to some very difficult moments. She has had some shadows on her journey, and those are important as well.

The slasher genre ruled horror in the 1980s with countless Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, along with a plethora of clones, but the subgenre is thought to have gotten its start in 1960 with the dual proto-slashers of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom. Those movies changed horror and would eventually lead to the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Black Christmas. However, the tropes of the slasher movie can be seen in cinema all the way back to the 1920s and '30s. And one particular film from 1932 is cited as one of the earliest influences on the slasher subgenre: Thirteen Women. While it's mainly remembered as the one film Peg Entwistle, the woman who famously jumped to her death from the H of the Hollywood sign, appeared in, there is more going on than just a morbid real-life tragedy.

When Michael Powell made “Peeping Tom” in 1960, the reaction was swift and harsh: Critics who had celebrated the British auteur for lush spectacles like “The Red Shoes,” “Black Narcissus,” and “Tales of Hoffman” were appalled to see him wallowing in the sordid story of a young cameraman who killed women and filmed their murders. While Alfred Hitchcock‘s similarly transgressive “Psycho” brought him to a new level of success that same year, Powell’s deeply disturbing and personal film sent him into the wilderness; he worked only intermittently afterward and never with the same level of resources and support that he had once enjoyed.

Thankfully, Powell lived long enough to see “Peeping Tom” reclaimed by the next generation of great directors. Martin Scorsese, whose passion for Powell and his filmmaking partner Emeric Pressburger has been lifelong and well documented, helped fund an American theatrical release and presentation at the New...

Martin Scorsese’s voiceover narration and on-camera presence foregrounds the personal nature of “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger,” an irresistible documentary survey about the formative movies of mid-century British writer/director Michael Powell and his co-writer Emeric Pressburger.

Scorsese didn’t direct “Made in England,” but his insights and relationship with Powell and Pressburger’s movies serve as the clothesline that director David Hinton hangs his movie’s footage on, including clips from both his title subjects’ movies as well as some charming archival interview footage (both Powell and Pressburger are now dead). Even Hinton’s tendency of focusing on Powell over Pressburger makes sense when you consider Scorsese’s presence as the lightly held lens through which the movie presents formative Powell and Pressburger dramas like “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp,” “The Red Shoes,” and “The Tales of Hoffmann.”

“Made in England” begins...

In a Violent Nature has been getting a lot of attention for its concept of taking a Friday the 13th-like slasher, with a masked killer stalking people in the woods, and reinventing it by telling the story from the killer's perspective. While that's a great idea, this 2024 title is not the first to do it. 1960's Peeping Tom had its killer filming his victims as he murdered them. Halloween really made the gimmick popular with that opening scene of a teenage girl being stalked in her own home before being stabbed to death, until the Pov is reversed to show us that the killer was her six-year-old brother, Michael Myers himself. Friday the 13th used it a lot too with the first film in the franchise to play up the mystery of not knowing who the killer is. More recently, The Poughkeepsie Tapes used that angle to terrifying success,...

From their inception with Peeping Tom, Psycho, and the Italian giallo picture, slasher movies have been a staple of horror at large. In the immediate wake of John Carpenter's 1978 thriller Halloween, which didn't follow a formula so much as invent one, horror movies about killers picking people (often teens) off one by one flooded the theatrical and home video market in a way that's hard to overstate.

“All this filming isn’t healthy,” says blind but perceptive Mrs. Stephens (Maxine Audley) late in Michael Powell’s resolutely disturbing Peeping Tom, and every aspect of the film’s rigorously self-reflexive construction seems to bear her out. From the opening shot of an opening eye, to the final shot of a blank screen swathed in black and blood-red gel lighting, Peeping Tom obsessively examines the social and psychological ramifications of overactive cinephilia. This situates Powell’s film as a direct precursor to later 1960s autocritiques along the lines of Federico Fellini’s 8½, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up, and Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool.

Powell and screenwriter Leo Marks originally wanted to make a film about Sigmund Freud and his theories, but word of John Huston’s upcoming Freud biopic put the kibosh on those plans. So instead they came up with the story of Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm), who works...

Outbreak Park: "Lethal Comics and Holy Crow Press present Outbreak Park! The Walking Dead meets Jurassic Park! Writer Allan Amato and artist Andy Belanger bring you their startling vision of a post-post apocalyptic world. Humanity exists in vastly smaller numbers, within fortified enclaves mirroring the early city-states of ancient Greece. While a vaccine inoculating humans against a bite has been created, most of the planet is still subject to roving herds of undead. And equally frightening anarchist wellness Men’s groups..

In New Alhambra, Outbreak Park is built to further research into the undead phenomenon, using docile zombies as teaching tools for the children growing up in the new republic. Lest the near extinction of humanity ever be forgotten, and repeated.

But while humanity is slowly clawing it way back from the brink, underneath the veneer of civilization lies a fervent minority plotting against the yoke; religious zealots that insist...

Stars: Karlheinz Bohm, Maxine Audley, Anna Massey, Moira Shearer, Brenda Bruce, Esmond Knight, Martin Miller, Michael Goodliffe, Jack Watson, Shirley Anne Field | Written by Leo Marks | Directed by Michael Powell

Originally released 64 years ago (!) and a Martin Scorsese favourite, Peeping Tom has already had a UK release from StudioCanal, with a print restored in association with The Film Foundation and the BFI National Archive; and now comes another release, this time in the US courtesy of the Criterion Collection.

My immediate reaction, almost from the opening scene is that for a film that was made so long ago, it has aged extremely well and I imagine it might have seemed quite shocking at the time.

That does seem to be the case as “on its initial release in 1960, Peeping Tom received a savage reception from critics who were dismayed by its controversial subject matter and the sympathy it seems to engender for its murderous protagonist.

In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock shocked audiences with the release of the horror film Psycho. Regarded as the first proto-slasher, along with Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, which came out the same year, Psycho was a slow-burn character study punctuated by some frightening moments of violence. No scene is more terrifying than the infamous shower scene, where our heroine up to that point Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), is stabbed to death in her room's shower at the Bates Motel. It's a scene known for its twist because we didn't expect her to die, and also for the way it's shot, and, of course, that bone-chilling score. If that wasn't frightening enough, in the novel of the same name, written by Robert Bloch and published in 1959, Marion's death is even more bloody and cruel.

Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho remains one of the most iconic horror movies ever, having essentially established the slasher genre along with Michael Powell's Peeping Tom. The film features a seemingly timid man named Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) running his elderly mother's motel. When his mother begins killing guests in their rooms, a victim's loved ones begin investigating, and find that Mrs. Bates has been dead for a while. Norman has been dressing as his mother, hearing her voice in his head, and killing in her name. This extreme story may sound exclusive to fiction, but in fact, multiple real-life murders are linked to Hitchcock's masterpiece.

Legendary film editor Thelma Schoonmaker is honoring the films of filmmaking duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger with an upcoming retrospective at MoMA.

Titled “Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger,” the screening series is presented in collaboration with the BFI and will take place from June 21 to July 31. The program includes more than 50 films — many of which are new restorations — and was curated by conservation experts, archivists, and curators at the BFI National Archive.

Oscar-winning editor Schoonmaker will open the series on June 21 with an introduction to the new digital restoration of “Black Narcissus” (1947). Schoonmaker was married to British director Powell from 1984 until his death in 1990.

Powell and Pressburger’s cultural legacy is most notably recognized in their film “The Red Shoes” (1948), which has inspired sequences in films such as Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” and Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull,” which Schoonmaker edited.

Quick: Name five stars who got their start in horror movies. This is such an easy question, even for much of today’s modern crop of Gen-z talent. So posing it in the 1980s is hardly fair. And yet, that is what Mia Goth’s eternally striving dreamer does at the top of the new MaXXXine trailer from A24.

“Jamie Lee Curtis, John Travolta, Demi Moore, and—” Maxine’s video store clerk buddy rattles off. She cuts him off before what surely must have been Kevin Bacon. At least it’s easy to presume this, because the trailer almost immediately cuts to a shot of a slightly older Bacon, who’s transitioned from big screen heartthrob to cinema statesman, stating, “My employer is a very powerful man.” Once upon a time, Bacon might’ve said the same thing about Sean S. Cunningham. After all, Bacon got his start in Cunningham’s ‘80s schlock classic,...

How many great films does it take to designate a director as a historically significant auteur? Jean Vigo only directed a few shorts and one feature, but they were enough to make him a hero to the pioneers of the French New Wave. Actor-turned-helmer Charles Laughton directed just one movie — “The Night of the Hunter” — but it was such a haunting and singular masterpiece that few would argue that Laughton was one of the medium’s masters. Elaine May stopped directing after four movies, but she’d probably be considered one of the greatest directors who ever lived if she had only made “Mikey and Nicky.”

Christina Hornisher is nowhere near as well known as Vigo, Laughton, or May, but she should be — and now, thanks to a pristine restoration of her sole feature, “Hollywood 90028,” perhaps she will. Released in 1974 after Hornisher earned critical accolades for her UCLA film school shorts,...

When Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre came out in 1974, it was unlike anything audiences had ever seen before. There were outliers, like Psycho and Peeping Tom in 1960, but horror five decades ago was often gothic and centered around monsters, before a wave of religious horror, thanks to 1973's The Exorcist, caused that subgenre to have its moment. This was still a couple of years before Halloween would popularise films about masked men wreaking havoc on innocent people. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was a hit, but a controversial one, as many complained of the film's excessive gore. The controversy speaks to how effective the atmosphere was, for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre actually has little of the red stuff, but makes us think it does with closeups of violence just off-center.

When Alfred Hitchcock directed Psycho in 1960, he was responsible, along with Michael Powell's Peeping Tom the same year, for creating the slasher film as we know it today. Though one of the most influential horror films ever made, Psycho didn't exactly create a wave of copycats right after. 18 years later, however, John Carpenter made a little slasher movie as well, called Halloween. The success of Michael Myers stalking babysitters in the shadows of a suburban night caused a craze of clones. Suddenly, slashers were everywhere. Many directors became inspired by the director and aimed to replicate him, but for John Carpenter, it was Alfred Hitchcock he admired. Halloween, and many of its sequels, are, in many ways, a love letter to Hitchcock and Psycho, from the casting of Jamie Lee Curtis to the names of its characters.

The development of the slasher movie subgenre was an important movement within the evolution of horror cinema and remains an immensely profitable concept to this day. While films specifically designed to scare and disturb their audiences have existed since the earliest days of cinema, the “slasher” villains of the Friday the 13th, Halloween, and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises peaked in popularity in the 1980s. While the subgenre’s inception is often traced to films like Black Christmas, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it was actually Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller Psycho that had the most direct influence on slasher films as they exist today. While the film certainly attracted its fair share of detractors during its initial release, Psycho drew even more controversy during its television re-release due to associations with a real murder.

In the narrator’s seat for David Hinton’s eloquent documentary on the filmmaking duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Martin Scorsese is the ultimate fan. Tracing his all-around movie obsession to his first viewing of the U.K.-based pair’s 1948 tour de force, The Red Shoes, he leads us through a dozen of their features and a few of Powell’s solo efforts, connecting key sequences to memorable scenes in his own work. But beyond its clear explication of the films’ imaginative and technical power, Made in England is also a testament to mentorship and friendship; Scorsese was close to Powell, who died in 1990, for the last decade and a half of the British director’s life, and Powell married Scorsese’s longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, in 1984.

The documentary ignites a longing to see the movies, whether for the first time or the umpteenth (many are available on...

For any film lovers who grew up on, generationally depending, the cinema of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, or the essential ’90s cinephile primer “A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies” — or both, as for this writer — “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger” arrives as an unmitigated treat.

A straightforwardly constructed documentary trawl through the dizzy highs and sporadic lows of the most iridescently fabulous filmography in British cinema, David Hinton’s film would be plenty pleasurable as a mere feature-length clip reel. That it gets longtime Powell and Pressburger champion Martin Scorsese to narrate the proceedings, with the same blend of scholarly authority and avuncular enthusiasm he brought to “Personal Journey,” makes the doc more than the sum of its already attractive parts: a movingly sincere valentine from a filmmaker now due his own equivalent tributes, shortening the distance between youthful discovery and senior nostalgia.

Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos have a sense of comic timing that rivals Nichols and May.

Case in point: When I ask Lanthimos how he became aware of Stone, the 50-year-old Greek director hesitates for a moment before addressing his 35-year-old muse.

“I was aware of her work,” he says. “I thought of her for ‘The Lobster,’ but didn’t use her.”

“Do you want to say why?” Stone asks.

“Do you want me to say?” Yorgos responds.

“Tell him why it didn’t work out,” Stone says. “I’m not embarrassed.”

“The reason I didn’t actually go to her,” Yorgos says, “is because there’s a lisping character in ‘The Lobster,’ and I didn’t want her to be that character. But Emma has a lisp of her own, so I was like, ‘That’s going to be confusing. If someone who’s not the lisping woman in the script has a lisp,...

Without Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the films and career of Martin Scorsese would be very different. “Mean Streets” would be less red (thank those titular “Red Shoes”), the title fight in “Raging Bull” wouldn’t have been preceded by that thrilling oner (thank the duel in “Colonel Blimp”), and we wouldn’t have that audacious flash of yellow in “The Age of Innocence,” an idea swiped from the red-hot climax of “Black Narcissus.”

Scorsese has always been admirably honest about his tendency to steal from the best, and “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger” is at its most fun when Marty talks the audience through how the ironic filmmaking duo’s most striking images reshaped the canon. And what — to him — ultimately made them worth stealing.

These seemingly spontaneous moments are well-illustrated by director David Hinton, a BAFTA-winning documentarian who also made an episode of the...