THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES. (1966) A HAMMER CLASSIC REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES. (1966) A SEVEN ARTS/HAMMER FILM PRODUCTION. DIRECTED BY JOHN GILLING. PRODUCED BY ANTHONY NELSON KEYS. MUSIC BY JAMES BERNARD.

STARRING ANDRE MORELL, BROOK WILLIAMS, DIANE CLARE, JACQUELINE PEARCE, MICHAEL RIPPER AND JOHN CARSON.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This is a top-notch zombie horror film from Hammer Film Productions, the company that brought us such cinematic gems as the 1958 DRACULA starring Christopher Lee and THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) with Peter Cushing.

Sir James Forbes is an eminent English physician, beautifully played by Andre Morell, who also portrayed Dr. Watson for Hammer in THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1959) and Professor Bernard Quatermass for the BBC television serial QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1958-1959).

Sir James is disturbed in August 1860 to get a letter from a former student of his, who is now the local doctor in a small Cornish village. People have been…

View original post 826 more words

DIE NIBELUNGEN: KRIEMHILD’S REVENGE. (1924) A FRITZ LANG CLASSIC REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

DIE NIBELUNGEN PART TWO: KRIEMHILD’S REVENGE OR KRIEMHILDS RACHE. (1924) BASED ON THE EPIC POEM ‘NIBELUNGLIED,’ BY ANONYMOUS.

DIRECTED BY FRITZ LANG. SCREENPLAY BY FRITZ LANG AND THEA VON HARBOU.

STARRING MARGARETE SCHŐN, THEODOR LOOS, RUDOLF KLEIN-ROGGE, RUDOLF RITTNER AND HANS ADALBERT SCHLETTOW.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This magnificent movie, the sequel in Fritz Lang’s two-film epic drama, DIE NIBELUNGEN, based on an equally epic poem penned in about the year 1200 in the language known as Middle High German, will take your breath away. I like it even more than Part One, SIEGFRIED.

In Part Two, and it’s called KRIEMHILD’S REVENGE for an excellent reason, Queen Kriemhild of the Burgundian royal family is still devastated by the murder of her beloved husband, Siegfried, by Hagen Tronje, the fearsome one-eyed, bearded warrior of the Burgundian kingdom.

Hagen Tronje is endlessly loyal (even unto death) to the King…

View original post 953 more words

WRITING ‘THE YEAR OF MAX AND JULIET,’ FORMERLY KNOWN AS ‘THE DEVIANTS,’ BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

WRITING ‘THE YEAR OF MAX AND JULIET,’ FORMERLY KNOWN AS ‘THE DEVIANTS.’

BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I started writing this book in the autumn of 2013 and finished it in March of 2014. Back then, it was known as THE DEVIANTS. It was my first full-length novel and I wrote it intending it for publication.

Prior to writing it, I had been penning poems on the subject of bad sex and failed relationships and performing them live in Dublin pubs and other spoken word venues. (Okay, so it was mostly pubs.) I was attending a writer’s group at the time (sporadically, due to childcare issues) and writing stories and poems there too.

I’d also been writing little comic ‘Letter to the Editor’ type pieces under various false names for the METRO, at the time Dublin’s biggest free daily newspaper. Loads of extremely friendly young Brazilian men and women would stand…

View original post 993 more words

THE YEAR OF MAX AND JULIET: FREE, FREE, FREE UNTIL SATURDAY 19TH!!!

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

Max, a bored and unhappy middle-aged man, meets a younger woman, Juliet, by chance in a bookshop. Instantly attracted to each other, they begin an affair. Juliet quickly realises that Max is not like most other men sexually. Lonely, and craving the affection she has been denied throughout her life, she allows herself to become Max’s sexual plaything- and punchbag- in exchange for his love. Max takes full advantage of Juliet’s friendless state and coerces her into doing things that leave her feeling degraded and violated. Afraid of losing Max, Juliet is unable to say no to his demands, and so the game continues until the situation blows up in their faces, and both Max and Juliet have no choice but to confront the consequences of their messed-up love.

View original post

DIE NIBELUNGEN: SIEGFRIED. (1924) A FRITZ LANG CLASSIC REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

DIE NIBELUNGEN PART ONE: SIEGFRIED. (1924) BASED ON THE EPIC POEM ‘NIBELUNGLIED,’ BY ANONYMOUS. DIRECTED BY FRITZ LANG. SCREENPLAY BY FRITZ LANG AND THEA VON HARBOU.

STARRING PAUL RICHTER, MARGARETE SCHŐN, THEODOR LOOS, HANNA RALPH AND HANS ADALBERT SCHLETTOW.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

This stunning two-part film series, based on an epic poem written anonymously around 1200 AD in Middle High German, is a fantasy saga and one of Fritz Lang’s finest films, which is really saying something, as he directed both ‘M’ and ‘METROPOLIS’ as well.

I had to watch each of the two films twice in order to be able to write this review, as there’s so much material and stuff to follow in each of them. The first instalment, SIEGFRIED, is two-and-a-half hours long and tells the story of the eponymous Siegfried, the muscular blonde son of King Sigmund of Xanten.

This film was…

View original post 1,350 more words

#ALIVE. (2000) A NETFLIX KOREAN ZOMBIE MOVIE REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

#ALIVE. (2020) BASED ON ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY, #ALONE, BY HOLLYWOOD SCREENWRITER MATT NAYLOR. DIRECTED BY CHO IL-HYUNG. STARRING YOO AH-IN AND PARK SHIN-HYE.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I’ll probably be fed to the lions for saying this, given that this is a very popular film that’s currently getting good reviews, but I was bored brainless by this Netflix Korean zombie apocalypse movie, and I normally love Korean horror. It’s a bit like TRAIN TO BUSAN, but set in one guy’s apartment as he tries to withstand the aforementioned zombie apocalypse all on his lonesome.

Joon-Woo is the main character. He’s a young male with bleached blonde hair, living in an apartment in Seoul with his parents and sister. He is a video game live streamer. I looked this up. It means that he plays video games while watched online by a live audience. Surely the only thing worse than playing…

View original post 871 more words

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS. (2014) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS. (2014) WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY JEMAINE CLEMENT AND TAIKA WAITITI. STARRING JEMAINE CLEMENT, TAIKA WAITITI, JONATHAN BRUGH, BEN FRANSHAM AND JACKIE VAN BEEK.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I always wince a bit when someone comes at me with a ‘horror comedy,’ as usually I prefer my horror straight, and scary. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when, being made to watch this one with the assurances that it was very funny, I did indeed find it to be very funny, but also warm, witty, and a loving tribute to the vampire genre by a bunch of guys who obviously loved and respected their subject.

It’s a ‘mockumentary,’ along the lines of SPINAL TAP (which parodies the rock music business) and BEST IN SHOW (a spoof on American dog shows), and features four vampires from modern-day Wellington (the capital of New Zealand), sharing a house…

View original post 876 more words

47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED. (2019) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED. (2019) DIRECTED BY JOHANNES ROBERTS. STARRING SOPHIE NÉLISSE, CORINNE FOXX (DAUGHTER OF JAMIE FOXX), SISTINE STALLONE (DAUGHTER OF SYLVESTER STALLONE), BRIANNE TJU AND JOHN CORBETT.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I really enjoyed this shark attack horror film, and would definitely love to watch the original film, this one being a sequel. There’s tons of shark action and the sharks look really real as well, and not all like CGI monsters.

It was partially filmed in England, believe it or not, in the Underwater Studio in Basildon in Essex (why am I only hearing about this now? It sounds so cool!!!) and good old Pinewood Studios in Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire, a mere twenty miles west of Central London. Shure you’d drive that in no time. The rest was filmed in the Dominican Republic, and the film is set in Mexico.

The spelling of ‘metres’…

View original post 929 more words

BAIT 3D. (2012) A DISASTER-SLASH-SHARK ATTACK MOVIE REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris

BAIT 3D. (2012) DIRECTED BY KIMBLE RENDALL. STARRING SHARNI VINSON, JULIAN MCMAHON, LINCOLN LEWIS AND XAVIER SAMUEL.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I really enjoyed this shark-filled disaster movie, even though some reviews proclaim it to be a bit on the lame side. I loved the premise, that of an ordinary Australian supermarket rendered suddenly underwater when a giant tsunami strikes without warning. Well, for the humans in the film, it might have been without warning, but the dogs and the birds knew the score all right, God bless their sixth sense…!

So, anyway, the tsunami strikes the supermarket (well, it strikes the Australian coast, really, but the supermarket’s the only place that concerns us), and it’s a very discerning natural disaster, too. Why do I say this?

Well, because it strikes at the exact moment that a robbery is taking place in the store (it foils the robbery, naturally…

View original post 820 more words