Thriller

Magnum Cop

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Magnum Cop
  • IMDb: link

Rereleased on home video as part of the Alpha Video Retrograde collection with VHS-inspired art, 1978’s Magnum Cop returns to DVD. The (poorly) American dubbed version of the Italian film Poliziotto senza paura, our story centers around former cop turned private investigator Wally Spada (Maurizio Merli). After inexplicably spending the first half-hour of the film in overalls, Wally locates a missing young woman who escapes again and turns up kidnapped and held for ransom.

More shyster than great detective or action hero, Wally tells lies both large and small to enlist local help in Vienna to find the girl while uncovering a secret sex trafficking ring of school-aged prostitutes turned out by a high-class stripper (Joan Collins). The film is more notable for Collins’ nude scenes than any plot or action.

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No Exit

/ / Home Video
  • Title: No Exit
  • IMDb: link

No Exit offers your basic braindead low-budget thriller when a group of strangers find themselves stuck together at a visitors center on the side of the highway during a blizzard. Havana Rose Liu stars as a recovering addict who ditches rehab on hearing that her mother is in the hospital. What she discovers is at least one of the people snowed-in with her (Danny Ramirez, David Rysdahl, Dennis Haysbert, and Dale Dickey) isn’t who they are pretending to be.

Rather than confronting the group, our protagonist attempts to play amateur detective. This turns into another in a line of really bad life decisions which will end up getting people killed. Not all that thrilling, and burdened with some lackluster twists, No Exit doesn’t offer much beyond the bare bones of its cliched plot offering a group of characters but providing no reason for us to care about their survival.

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Last Night in Soho

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Last Night in Soho
  • IMDb: link

Writer/director Edgar Wright‘s nostalgic love letter to the 1960s is glamorous spectacle. The story involves would-be designer Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie) who, shortly after starting university in London, begins dreaming life alongside a would-be singer named Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy). The dreams start vibrant and hopeful, influencing Ellie’s actions during the day, but soon turn dark and violent before they spill into Ellie’s life even further.

Despite its lavish beauty, Last Night in Soho is a mess. If not for the great soundtrack, I’d say it would work better with the sound off as the story often gets in the way of the terrific visuals. Sadly, Ellie isn’t all that interesting as a character, nor are her struggles fitting in at college worth screen time. It’s only in the 60s when Sandie’s life takes over does the film come to life. And when the two stories crash together the film becomes a jumbled mess.

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Corridor of Mirrors

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Corridor of Mirrors
  • IMDb: link

The film debut of both director Terrence Young (From Russia with Love, Thunderball) and actor Christopher Lee (albeit in a minor role), 1948’s Corridor of Mirrors is an atmospheric thriller involving an eccentric bachelor (Eric Portman) who falls in love with a young woman (Edana Romney) who eerily resembles a Renaissance painting he keeps in his home. Their relationship mostly involves Mangin (Portman) dressing Mifanwy (Romney) in a variety of dresses and jewelry that fit her perfectly. As she struggles against his control, and the warnings of an older woman (Barbara Mullen) in the house suggesting dangerous ulterior motives in Mangin’s actions, their relationship ends disastrously, and, years later, tragically.

Although it may feel a bit dated in places, the tone and tension of the story hold up well as does Young’s direction and the cinematography of André Thomas. Re-released on Blu-ray and DVD as part of the Cohen Film Collection, Corridor of Mirrors is worth visiting for fans of the era or the genre. …

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The Voyeurs

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Voyeurs
  • IMDb: link

The Voyeurs

The Voyeurs is an thrill-less tale of a naïve couple too cute for their own good (Sydney Sweeney and Justice Smith) who become obsessed watching their neighbor’s (Ben Hardy) sexual antics from their apartment window. Dragged down by a sluggish pace, questionable acting, and an increasingly absurd storyline, the movie from writer/director Michael Mohan is barely salacious let alone the erotic thriller it aspires to be. The Voyeurs is flaccid for most of its two-hour run-time.

After meeting their neighbor’s wife (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), who they’ve watched the photographer cheat on with a revolving door of models he’s brought into the apartment, Pippa (Sweeney) becomes overly invested in what’s occurring across the street leading to a series of bad decisions, and insane twists (each less believable than the last), before the movie mercifully comes to an end.

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