The Christmas TV Strategy Guide 2024 #15

And here we are, the last of the Strategy Guide before normalcy properly returns. And this is a good start, right? Two classic films from the 1950s, two from Hitchcock’s golden period, the five stars noted above for the first one are probably about right as thats the real classic of the two

Another double bill, this time of slightly lesser quality! That might sound a bit harsh as both are decent films; Tremors II loses Kevin Bacon and a bit of the surprise of the first film but the charm is still there which keeps the energy going. Then Memoirs is, well, it is a John Carpenter film but from the tail end of the career. Its not helped by a grump Chevy Chase performance but, despite Carpenter himself not doing it, the score is an absolute banger much better than the film actually deserves

Here’s those damn dirty apes! Not the CG ones we’ve been treated to in recent years, but folks in makeup with Charlton Heston running around in his pants. Oh, its a 60s classic with an ending that pretty much every one much knows by now thanks to the sheer force of cultural osmosis

One of the best Eastwood films of the 70s, and a banger of a prison film. It does that good trick of making prison look really horrible but then also quite nice at the same time. Is that just me? I mean, at the end when Clint’s cell is all nice and no one is trying to attack him anymore it doesn’t seem too bad. I mean, it is bad enough for him to try to escape but thats more down to him wanting to show up the warden rather than a comment on the accommodation

A wild double bill here; remember when I said Fallout was the best of the Mission Impossible series? Well, here you go, proof. Its a big, bombastic, crazy action film and I love it. Then, if you can deal with the immense tonal whiplash, you then get to see Robert Pattinson and Willem Defoe going absolutely bonkers trapped in a lighthouse. Brilliant!

I mean, if you’re going to show Lawnmower Man then you may as well show the sequel straight after it right? Good luck to those willing to deal with this double bill

As time passes this film and its big “all in one shot” schitck seems more like a one trick pony. After that initial trip across No Man’s Land and the trenches it feels like the film has wrung all the tension it can out of the setting, but you still have about an hour or so to go. Its still really good, with every random english actor you can think of showing up at least once

At first I didn’t read this right and clipped it as thought it was The Monster Squad but nope, this is an early 80s British Horror anthology rather than Shane Black x Universal Monsters. Never seen it but seemed interesting, so why not keep it on the list?

And we get to the end of this year’s guide, and ending on a couple of old British films one of which looks bonkers; a Hammer Horror kung fu Dracula film, with Peter Cushing? I mean, you just have to right? It sounds like a right glorious mess. Devil Rides Out is an earlier Hammer film, from the same director as the original Dracula and a script from I Am Legend’s Richard Matheson so some pedigree. Its full of satanists and Christopher Lee as a good guy, so whats not to love?