
Cosmo Vitelli owns the Crazy Horse West, a strip joint in California. He’s laconic, a Korean War vet, and a gambler. When we meet him, he’s making his last payment on a gambling debt. Then, he promptly loses $23,000 playing poker at an illegal local casino. The guys he owes this time aren’t so friendly, pressuring him for immediate payment. Then they suggest that he kill a Chinese bookie to wipe off the debt. Vitelli and the film move back and forth between the double-crossing, murderous insincerity of the gamblers and the friendships, sweetness, and even love among Vitelli, the dancers, a dancer’s mother, and the club’s singer, Mr. Sophistication.
Read More »
Thriller
Inner Sanctum (1948) Lew Landers, Charles Russell, Mary Beth Hughes, Dale Belding, Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller

A man accidentally kills his fiancée as he exits a train. Just as the train pulls out, he drops her body on the rear platform. No one saw him do it, but someone does see him at the otherwise deserted station: a mischievous, freckle-faced boy. Later, he’s walking along a road when the town’s newspaper editor stops and gives him a lift. The editor tells his passenger that a flood has washed out the bridge. For now, there’s no way out of town, so he takes the stranger to a boarding house. Fate decrees that of all houses, this is the one where the boy lives. The boy thinks he recognizes the new boarder. The new boarder thinks it’s time to get rid of the boy. And a sexy blonde living at the house thinks it’s time to run off with a man she knows is a murderer.
Read More »
Die Lügen der Sieger / The Lies of the Victors (2014) Christoph Hochhäusler, Florian David Fitz, Horst Kotterba, Lilith Stangenberg, Thriller

Investigative journalist Fabian Groys enjoys great freedom since the stories he uncovers make for strong sales. He works for a political news magazine in their Berlin head office. In this context, his arrogance raises few eyebrows.
Read More »
The Terminal Man (1974) Mike Hodges, George Segal, Joan Hackett, Richard Dysart, Sci-Fi, Thriller

As the result of a head injury, brilliant computer scientist Harry Benson begins to experience violent seizures. In an attempt to control the seizures, Benson undergoes a new surgical procedure in which a microcomputer is inserted into his brain. The procedure is not entirely successful.
Read More »
Das Experiment / The Experiment (2001) Oliver Hirschbiegel, Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Berkel, Oliver Stokowski, Drama, Thriller

The movie is based on the infamous “Stanford Prison Experiment” conducted in 1971. A makeshift prison is set up in a research lab, complete with cells, bars and surveillance cameras. For two weeks 20 male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards. The ‘prisoners’ are locked up and have to follow seemingly mild rules, and the ‘guards’ are told simply to retain order without using physical violence. Everybody is free to quit at any time, thereby forfeiting payment. In the beginning the mood between both groups is insecure and rather emphatic. But soon quarrels arise and the wardens employ ever more drastic sanctions to confirm their authority.
Read More »
Le Journal intime d’une nymphomane / Diary of a Nymphomaniac (1973) Jesús Franco, Howard Vernon, Doris Thomas, Anne Libert, Thriller, Exploitation, Drama, Erotic

Linda Vargas picks up Ortiz in a bar where she works in a lesbian show with Maria Toledano. She seduces him, phones the police and kills herself. Ortiz is held on suspicion of her murder. Ortiz’s wife, Rosa, visits a friend of Linda’s, the Countess Anna de Monterey who tells her how Linda went into a spiral of sex and drugs after being assaulted by Ortiz as a young girl at a fair-ground. Linda became the Countess’s lover, then had a disastrous love affair with Alberto, the Countess’ boyfriend. Rosa also meets Maria, who holds Linda’s diary, where she relates how a fake Doctor turned her away from drugs and into a nymphomaniac.
Read More »
Happy Birthday to Me (1981) J. Lee Thompson, Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Virginia Wainwright is a spirited young woman who has returned to a private school having survived a deadly accident and regenerative brain surgery. She is proud that she belongs to the Top Ten – the school’s inner circle with the best students – and attempts to resume a normal life. But her friends are falling prey to a grueling series of murders, and soon there will be no one left to attend her 18th birthday party. Could it be her? Striving to rekindle the memory of her nightmarish accident, Virginia suffers from memory loss and traumatic blackouts. We soon learn the horrible truth behind her accident and what is going on before her birthday party…
Read More »
Izolator / Warsaw Dark (2008) Christopher Doyle, Anna Przybylska, Adam Ferency, Leslaw Zurek, Thriller

Prominent cinematographer Christopher Doyle continues to hone his talents as a director with this thriller set in Eastern Europe and inspired by the as-yet-unsolved murder of a Polish politician in 2001. A young prostitute is spending the evening with a prominent Polish official when he’s suddenly assassinated in Warsaw. In the aftermath of the hit, the triggerman takes the prostitute to an apartment and subjects her to a complex personality replacement program designed to wipe out any memories she may have retained about the evening’s events.
Read More »
Sisters (1973) Brian De Palma, Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, Charles Durning, Horror, Thriller

The Staten Island apartment of lovely model Danielle becomes the scene of a grisly murder that is witnessed by her neighbor, Grace, a reporter. But the police don’t believe her story, so it’s up to Grace to solve the murder mystery on her own.
Read More »
The Haunting of Morella (1990) Jim Wynorski, Nicole Eggert, David McCallum, Christopher Halsted, Horror, Romance, Thriller

A witch is put to death in Colonial America, leaving her husband and infant daughter behind. Seventeen years later, the daughter has grown up and stands to inherit money set up by her mother’s family. Now that the stage is set, the mother wants to return to life by taking over her daughter’s body.
Read More »