The Bollywood thriller Gumnaam (1965) isn’t shy about the sort of films that have influenced it. Adopting the jet-set internationality of the 1960s, it becomes an amalgamation of old-fashioned “old dark house” murder mysteries and pop-art modernism filtered through the ...

Bamboo House of Dolls (Nu ji zhong ying, 1973) is the Shaw Brothers’ oft-mentioned attempt to cash in on the success of The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage, two films shot in the Philippines by director Jack ...

Know what Samuel Fuller was doing right before he sat down to write Brainquake, and you can better understand why Brainquake turned out as bizarre as it did — aside, that is, from simply being a product of the mind ...

A Hyena in the Safe Despite the best efforts of prudes, decency leagues, and opponents of basic human pleasure, film in the 1960s was becoming liberated from the constraints that had been placed upon it. The willingness of the films ...

In 1948, French artist Jean Dubuffet coined the term art brut, which became “outsider art” in 1972 when critic Roger Cardinal imported it to English. Initially, it referred to art created outside of a recognized art school or defined philosophy ...

Since the early 2000s, there has been a small but steady flow of Bollywood film music compilations packed with fantastic funk, go-go, disco, and even the occasional traditional number. Many of these have been assembled by UK-based DJs, Indian or ...

In 1960, French producers wanted to capitalize on the success of three horror films from Britain’s Hammer Pictures: Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958), and The Mummy (1959). All three were shot in lurid color and pushed the ...

As a kid, I was a sporadic comic book reader at best, thanks mostly to growing up pretty far from just about anywhere. Within biking distance, as long as I didn’t tell my parents I was riding that far, was ...

“Do it again,” she…pleads? commands? sneers? “I like it!” And with that line, she robs a weak man of his illusion of control. She subverts a submission — being slapped in the face and begging for more — into an ...

The modest, goofball “old dark house” adventure-comedy The Crooked Circle (1932, H. Bruce Humberstone) occupies an important, if almost totally forgotten, place in history. It was a cheap B-film quickie whose most notable stars were comedians Zasu Pitts (soon to ...