Rack and Ruin

In your prototypical revenge movie, something heinous happens, after which the protagonist spends the rest of the narrative trying to exact vengeance upon the person/people who committed the act... but in this curve-ball of a thriller, Blue Ruin (2013), written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room), that is not the case. Following the struggling Dwight (Macon Blair – Green Room), ever since his parents were murdered, he has been living a form of homelessness out of his beat up, rusting 90s Pontiac Bonneville. Almost as silent as a monk, the first conversation he has had in some time is when he is notified that the man put behind bars for killing his parents ages ago is getting released.

Hovering somewhere between haunting past and menacing present, or perhaps even better described as a fever dream leaning more towards a feverish nightmare, the Sergio Martino (The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail; Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key) 1972 giallo All the Colors of the Dark – sometimes known as Day of the Maniac and They’re Coming to Get You! (both titles also work quite well), transports its audience into a paranoid mystery. This Italian film moves abroad to London, England, following tortured Jane Harrison (Edwige Fenech – Strip Nude for Your Killer; Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key), a woman with a rather rough not wholly revealed past.

Already getting buzz as one of the top films of this past year and perhaps being in line for the Academy Award Best Picture next month, One Battle After Another (2025), written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (and inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineyard”), features big stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio del Toro, and has everything going for it... meaning that it should wow and amaze. Yet, from a screenplay perspective, a lot is missing... despite being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay as well.

You know you’re in for a doozy of a caper when you’ve got dead bodies piling up, a mysterious black cat wandering around (with all that revolves around the creature and its unlucky curses), a disappearing wicker basket (simply suspicious), and a seemingly occultist person wandering around whilst wearing a striking white cape... remember what George Costanza once said in the comedy Seinfeld – “I bet you he is mixed up in this. I don't trust men in capes”. Without further ado, we look at co-writer/director Sergio Pastore’s Italian giallo The Crimes of the Black Cat (1972) – sometimes also known as Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk. Clearly influenced by Dario Argento’s 1970 hit The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and part of the massive gialli boom that happened soon after, things start off in Copenhagen, Denmark (it was actually shot there)

Opening with infinite possibilities, today’s feature could have been a prison set boxing movie, a searing drama about the conditions in an Alaskan jail, or simply a prison break narrative, but instead, it becomes... Runaway Train (1985). A movie that has become a bit forgotten over time (after its initial disappointment at the box office), director Andrei Konchalovsky’s action thriller follows a rough around the edges bank robber, Manny (Jon Voight) – who has attempted to break out of Stonehaven Maximum Security Prison in Alaska several times. A sort of hero figure amongst the rowdy inmates, the obsessive Warden, Ranken (John P. Ryan), has locked him away in solitary confinement for a most punishing three years.