This is part of a series of features exploring British cinema and culture as reflected by the releases in the BFI Flipside series. “But that’s how it always begins. Very small.” — Egg Shen, Big Trouble in Little China It seemed ...

Although he would become known for his crime and cannibal films, when Make ’em Die Slowly Umberto Lenzi was just a sprout of a director, his stock in trade was adventure epics on a miniscule budget. Following his debut, the ...

During the 1950s, and culminating with the glorious boondoggle Cleopatra in 1963, Italian film studios and craftspeople enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with Hollywood that resulted in, among many other things, a whole lot of ornate stuff piling up in prop ...

For most of his tenure in the “historical hellraiser” genre, Umberto Lenzi was able to mask the paucity of his budgets by leaning on existing costumes, sets, and stock footage. On occasion, however, no amount of lavish ornamentation or camera ...

This is the first in a series of features exploring British cinema and culture as reflected by the releases in the BFI Flipside series. A mass of hopped-up teenagers stampede onto a dancefloor, jerking and gyrating to a driving, twangy ...