POST #100 - MY TOP TEN REVIEWS ON SHUKER IN MOVIELAND

 

Doesn't time fly by when you're having fun? It seems like only yesterday when, in order to stave off the mind-numbing tedium of 2020's restrictive but vital Covid-19 virus lockdowns by pursuing a longstanding home-based interest of mine – watching movies – but which previously I had never done much with from a writing perspective, I launched a new, movie-based blog during late July 2020.

Entitled Shuker In Movieland (click here to access its home page), it enables me to review a diverse range of movies that I've watched recently or in earlier times, as well as a few TV shows of particular interest to me. I also have the opportunity to publicise all manner of lesser-known or forgotten films that I've enjoyed but which may be new to my blog's readers.

I'm delighted to say that Shuker In MovieLand has proved very popular, attracting considerable numbers of visitors and hits each day. As a result, operating in tandem with it, I have created what is now a thriving Facebook group too, FFT&F (Favourite Films, TV, and Fiction), which sees new posts by myself and its many members each day.

Now, scarcely four months later from its launch, I am today marking via this present listing my 100^th Shuker In MovieLand post. And what could be more appropriate for such a momentous occasion than revealing the ten reviews posted by me so far that have attracted the greatest number of hits to date? So here they are, in clickable form so that you can access them directly from this page, together with their respective publication dates on my blog:

#1: The Dark (aka The Relic aka The God Rat) (27 July 2020)

#2: Wolfen (18 August 2020)

#3: Border (29 August 2020)

#4: Sssssss (aka Ssssnake) (5 September 2020)

#5: King Cinder (16 August 2020)

#6: Dragons in the Movies (13 October 2020)

#7: The Asphyx (30 July 2020)

#8: Terror Birds (26 September 2020)

#9: The Lair of the White Worm (Versus The Legend of the Lambton Worm) (2 August 2020)

#10: Thale (4 September 2020)

Scrutinising this list, one trend is instantly evident – my blog's readers definitely favour monster movies and creature features! Indeed, the only entry that isn't from this genre is King Cinder, a nowadays-obscure British TV show from the late 1970s focusing upon the adventures of a teenage speedway motorbike rider. I have no idea why this particular show has proved so remarkably popular among my readers, but I'm very glad that it has done, because it was and remains a favourite TV show of mine, bringing back happy memories of my own youth and biker beginnings.

So there you have it, the first Top Ten reviews listing for Shuker In MovieLand! Will its entries retain their places and positions when I prepare a second listing in another 100 posts' time? Or will some or all of them have been displaced by others? Who can say? The only way to find out is to keep on checking in to my blog, reading its reviews, and awaiting the next list, which I very much hope that you will do.

My sincere thanks to all of Shuker In MovieLand's fans and devotees for giving me the encouragement and support to continue with it. Equally, I hope that you will continue to click on my reviews' links and enjoy reading my thoughts and information supplied concerning an equally varied range of movies and TV shows in the future.

Stay safe, and carry on clicking!

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!

 

 

THE ASPHYX

The Asphyx publicity picture (© Peter Newbrook/Cinema Epoch United Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

It took several weeks between buying it, chatting about it on Facebook, and actually watching it, but on 23 November 2019 I finally sat down to view the rare, reconstituted uncut version on DVD of a supremely classy and highly unusual British horror movie from 1972 - yes indeed, The Asphyx.

Based upon an original idea by Christina and Laurence Beers, directed by Peter Newbrook, and starring Robert Stephens and Robert Powell, The Asphyx tells how Stephens's Victorian-era rogue scientist character, Sir Hugo Cunningham, deeply interested in psychical phenomena and early photography, discovers via his photographs that every person at the moment of their death is visited by their very own spirit of death, a spectral entity known as the asphyx, and that if their asphyx can be trapped and held prisoner indefinitely, that person will be immortal. Some wonderful steampunk scientific apparatus to achieve this exceedingly fraught, dangerous task by Cunningham and his assistant Giles (Powell) is featured, but as might be expected, not all goes to plan - indeed, their plans soon go horrifically awry.

Visually, it is a beautifully-filmed Hammer-like feature film in the classic Gothic genre, and its plot a highly original concept in moviedom at the time of its release. Having said that, many years ago I had read a sci-fi novel from 1981 by Ian Watson entitled Deathhunter that utilised a somewhat similar plot line, so for that reason The Asphyx story was not as startling for me as it would otherwise no doubt have been.

My DVD is the collectible 2-disc version, containing both the cut but gorgeously-preserved UK version (its uncut version is lost), and the same version but with several minutes of additional footage inserted that had been extracted from the uncut but less-gorgeously-preserved US version in order to reconstruct the lost uncut UK version - this latter reconstructed version being the one that I watched tonight. The inserts were readily recognisable by virtue of their inferior viewing quality, but that was far less significant than seeing how they fleshed out certain segments of the story.

I first learned of The Asphyx over 40 years ago as a teenager, but never succeeded in catching it on TV, so my viewing of it last November was the fulfilment of a long-held ambition, and did not disappoint - it was definitely well worth the wait!

The entire UK cut version of this movie can presently be viewed for free here on YouTube.

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE! 

My paperback edition of Ian Watson's sci fi novel Deathhunter (© Ian Watson/Corgi Books – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)