Movie Oubliette

Melinda Mock and Michael French of RetroBlasting fame answered our bat signal at the eleventh hour to join us for this special festive episode after our original guest had to drop out. And boy, are we glad they did! Yes, it's a bit cheeky of us to cover Tim Burton's snowy sequel to his blockbusting hit Batman (1989) on Movie Oubliette. It's dubious to claim it has been overlooked in the years sinc...

To mark the film's 40th anniversary, we revisit Peter Hyams' 2010 – a brave follow-up to a literal monolith in science fiction film history. In what was then called a 'belated' rather than a 'legacy' sequel, the film adapts Arthur C. Clarke's novel and features a stellar cast of Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow, Bob Balaban and, returning from 2001: A Space Odyssey , Keir Dullea and Dougla...

Actor, writer and producer Amanda Jane Stern – whose psychosexual thriller Perfectly Good Moment has launched on Tubi this month – joins us to discuss David O. Selznick's production of Portrait of Jennie . Based on a popular novella by Robert Nathan that Ray Bradbury said "touched and frightened" him, the romantic fantasy won an Oscar for Best Special Effects in 1948, but was not a success. Set in...

Dan and Conrad find themselves exiled to a leafy island that looks suspiciously like Queensland in this episode, where they explore Martin Campbell's No Escape (1994) – an airy, outdoor adventure set in the distant future of 2022. It stars Ray Liotta as the scarred military vet convicted for shooting his CO after he covered up a war crime, who teams up with fellow inmates Lance Henriksen, Ernie Hu...

Happy Halloween! Duncan Skiles , director of the chilling  The Clovehitch Killer and the forthcoming comedy thriller  Neighborhood Watch , went trick or treating into the oubliette and brought back a Peeping Tom . This proto-slasher from Michael Powell, one half of the famous British duo Powell and Pressburger, emerged in the same year as Hitchcock's Psycho and explores similar territory: a handso...

Stuart Gordon's post-apocalyptic sci-fi featuring gladiatorial battles between giant mechs has to be one of Empire Pictures' most instantly recognisable titles, sitting proudly on video rental stores worldwide. Starring Gary Graham and Anne-Marie Johnson as the brave robot jockeys and Paul Koslo as their ruthless enemy, Robot Jox could be the brightest and breeziest dystopian action movie ever mad...

In our third and final bonus episode covering highlights from the Toronto International Film Festival , friend of the pod Joe Lipsett joins Conrad to review three haunted house movies from this year's programme: Steven Soderbergh's bold ghost P.O.V. mystery Presence , Karrie Crouse and Will Joines' dusty western Hold Your Breath , and Nick Toti and Rachel Kempf's rarely screened found footage chil...

For our second round-up reviews of horror films that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival , special guest Joe Lipsett and I cover four more horror films. We start with two ghost stories: the frosty New Zealand drama Went Up the Hill , directed by Samuel Van Grinsven and starring Dacre Montgomery and Vicky Krieps; and the rambunctious Taiwanese horror comedy Dead Talents Society , d...

Saurian cinema connoisseur Serge Bodnarchuk of Cold Crash Pictures joins Dan as guest co-host for a dinosaur sci-fi horror adventure from 1993. No, not that one. This is Movie Oubliette! It's the low-budget Roger Corman production Carnosaur , starring Laura Dern's mom, Diane Ladd, and Bryce Dallas Howard's uncle, Clint Howard! This adaptation of John Brosnan's novel hit 65 theatres a few weeks bef...

Conrad is joined by Joe Lipsett live and in-person at the Toronto International Film Festival to give early reviews of the horror, sci-fi and fantasy films that premiered at TIFF this year. In this first bonus episode, we're looking at the body horror films on the programme: including Coralie Fargeat's The Substance  (winner of the People's Choice Award), Max Minghella's Shell , Marielle Heller's...

Vincenzo Natali (director of Cube, Splice, Haunter) introduces us to the little known sword and sorcery film, Conquest, directed by splatter gore master, Lucio Fulci. We deliberate over Mace's nunchucks, magical laser bows, bargain bin wolfmen and Ocron's wardrobe choices to decide whether Conquest is an ethereal journey into a ritualistic ruthless fantasy world or rather a fever dream you can't w...

We're exploring the twisted underbelly of suburbia in Wes Craven's 1991 horror comedy The People Under the Stairs. Much like Craven's other non-Nightmare and non-Scream franchise-related outings, this one has remained hidden from popular consciousness despite a warm reception in the box office on its first release and an ardent cult following ever since then. Should The People be freed from their...

Joe Lipsett of the   Horror Queers podcast joins us for a  Long Weekend  (1978), where bickering couple Peter and Marcia venture out into the Australian wilderness for a camping trip they might not live to regret. Colin Eggleston's psychological thriller, written by Everett De Roche (of 'Patrick' and 'Razorback' fame), won prizes on the festival circuit and is fondly remembered by filmmakers like...

Christian Bale backflipped out of the oubliette dual-toting pistols, so we're forced to contend with Kurt Wimmer's Equilibrium (2002) – a sci-fi action extravaganza set in a totalitarian state where everyone has to complete the Kolinahr ritual and avoid content creation of any kind. Also starring Emily Watson, Taye Diggs and Sean Bea (although, of course, not for long), the film faceplanted on its...

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Danny Boyle's debut feature film Shallow Grave (1994) was eclipsed by Trainspotting (1996) and remains largely forgotten outside its native UK. But is the dark comedy thriller worth exhuming? Dan and Conrad pack up their hack saws and head for the woods to explore this slice of 90s Britain!   Follow us on Tiktok , Facebook , Instagram and maybe what's le...

Michael French of RetroBlasting joins us on a quest to Valhalla with  Erik the Viking (1989) – Monty Python alumni Terry Jones' fantasy film starring Tim Robbins, Samantha Bond, Imogen Stubbs, Eartha Kitt, Mickey Rooney and John Cleese. This is the second historical adventure film from ex-Pythons we've covered this year that attempts to avoid treading on the comedy troupe's large coat-tails and tr...

Dan and Conrad venture into Disney's 'dark era' again – this time with a sci-fi twist! It's The Black Hole (1979), the mouse house's answer to the colossal box-office and cultural phenomenon of Star Wars two years prior. And like all dark era flops, it uncomfortably straddles mature themes (an egomaniacal scientist determined to journey through a massive black hole and willing to enslave his entir...

Dan and Conrad join the British Armed Forces for a spot of hiking in the Scottish Highlands, only to find themselves in a siege horror surrounded by werewolves! Yes, Neil Marshall's debut feature Dog Soldiers (2002) has escaped its leash and scampered out of the oubliette for this episode. Often overshadowed by the director's wildly popular follow-up, The Descent (2005) – particularly in the U.S.,...

Marta Djordjevic – aka Marta McFly of McFly's Movie House podcast – joins Conrad and Dan for the delirious 2002 Japanese musical comedy horror  The Happiness of the Katakuris directed by none other than prolific iconoclast Takashi Miike, who lensed 6 films in that year alone! In this case, Miike remakes Kim Jee-woon's disturbing black comedy The Quiet Family (1998) – about a family attempting to c...

We're hopping on a motorcycle with a built-in 8-track player and getting zapped back the wild west for this Patreon's choice episode!  Timerider (1982) stars Fred Ward as the lovable if slightly clueless motorcross racer, Lyle Swann, who finds himself transported back in time to 1877, where he falls in love with the fearless Claire (Belinda Bauer) and attracts the unwanted attention of ruthless ba...

Retrospective reviewer extraordinaire, documentary filmmaker and action movie editor Oliver Harper joins us to probe the dark recesses of  The Shadow (1994) – Russell Mulcahy's would-be summer blockbuster superhero adventure starring Alec Baldwin, Penelope Ann Miller, Jone Lone, Peter Boyle, Tim Curry and Ian McKellan (pre-Sir!). It has an action packed soundtrack from Jerry Goldsmith, a hero with...

We're delving into Disney's Dark Period in the late 70s/early 80s in this childhood nostalgia episode on none other than the cult curiosity The Watcher in the Woods . Directed by John "Legend of Hell House" Hough and featuring Bette Davis in scowling hag mode, this tale of an American family experiencing spooky goings on in an Olde English house is surprisingly effective and perfect gateway horror...

Writer/director and cryptid enthusiast Serge Bodnarchuk of Cold Crash Pictures joins us for a expedition into previous unexplored territory for Movie Oubliette: 1950s Hammer Horror! But The Abominable Snowman (1957) isn't a gothic horror or even a monster movie. It's an atmospheric thriller starring Peter Cushing as a sweetheart botanist with a thing for yetis who foolishly joins a brash American...

The spice must flow! And we have a feeling all kinds of spices were flowing during the making of  Dune  (1984), David Lynch's first faltering steps into the Hollywood mainstream. An ambitious attempt to realise Frank Herbert's seminal science fiction novel as a baroque, epic, intelligent, space opera, blockbuster yielded some indelible images – Sting naked except for a winged codpiece springs to m...

Rob Hill, author of  The Bad Movie Bible , joins us on a medieval adventure into the solo directorial debut of Terry Gilliam:  Jabberwocky (1977). The comedy fantasy features a veritable 'who's who' of British comedy: three Pythons, music hall star Max Wall, Harry H. Corbett of 'Steptoe and Son', John Le Mesurier of 'Dad's Army', Warren Mitchell of 'In Sickness and In Health', and Carry On's Berna...