Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972)

Aside from having one of the greatest titles in cinema history, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key is an interesting take on the giallo film.

Oliviero is a washed-up author, obsessed with his dead mother, battling writer’s block with booze, drugs and decadent parties at his crumbling villa, where he regularly humiliates and abuses wife Irina. When one of his flings turns up dead, he becomes the prime suspect. As more murders occur and the paranoia grips Olivero, his life is thrown into even more turmoil by the arrival of his long-unseen niece Fiorina (Edwige Fenech), who takes a shine to Irina. What mysterious secrets could she be hiding? And why is Irina so afraid of their black cat, the one that used to belong to Olivero's mother?

As usual with this genre the plot is a little wild and not always lucid, but the more outré elements simply reflect the increasingly delirious mental states of the characters. In addition, the script benefits from borrowing some ideas from Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Black Cat, meaning the story wraps up in a relatively rational and satisfying way (and having the protagonist live in a crumbling villa feels very Poe as well).

As well as including many of the standard Giallo tropes, such as sex, violent death, knives, and J&B whisky, director Sergio Martino creates a hothouse atmosphere of insanity, decadence and suppressed anger, helped by some excellent cinematography, crazy camera angles and clever editing, particularly during one scene of a motorcyclist having an unfortunate meeting with an oil slick. All of this is supplemented by a lush score from Bruno Nicolai.

The emphasis is less on baroque set pieces (although there is no shortage of blood), more on the destructive nature of the relationships between the characters. Fenech is excellent as Fiorina, her icy cool demeanour providing a good counterpoint to the hysteria of Oliviero and Irina.

Your Vice also predates The Shining in terms of using an alcoholic writer's literary frustration as a metaphor for frustrations in life and relationships.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)

The jukebox musical film, where existing songs are strung together to tell a story is not a new genre. Singin' in the Rain is perhaps the best and best-known example, but the film's reputation owes much to the distinctive directing style, witty script, strong story, and excellent approach to the music and the integration of the songs into the plotline. Sgt Pepper's Lonely-Hearts Club Band is the total antithesis of this, with crummy versions of great songs, shoehorned into a vague and confusing storyline, albeit starring a once in a lifetime cast.

The story revolves around the titular band, led by Billy Shears (Peter Frampton), and his friends the Hendersons (The Bee Gees), and some magical musical instruments that protect the town of Heartland. The band are lured away to Hollywood and the big time by their greedy manager (Paul Nicholas) and a sleazy record company executive (Donald Pleasance), who lure the naive musicians into a life of debauchery and mega stardom. Meanwhile along comes the villainous Mr Mustard (Frankie Howerd) to try and steal the magic instruments and then, I don't know, there is something about an evil scientist, Dr Maxwell (Steve Martin) and a cult leader, Father Sun (Alice Cooper). Oh, and George Burns is the mayor of Heartland. I won't lie, I lost track of and interest in the plot several times.

Musicals seem to be written in two ways. Either the story is written first, and the songs come second, and they, ideally, help drive the narrative forward, or the filmmakers are given a pool of songs to work with which they then must cobble together or shoehorn into a plot. With Singin' In the Rain the writers were given access to all the songs that Nacio Herb Brown had written for MGM musicals over a ten-year period, but these were used to add colour to scenes and move the story on. In Sgt Pepper, the characters are ill thought out and the situations lack any internal logic, with the likes of Mr Mustard and the Hendersons only included so that the corresponding song can be used, and with little in the way of dialogue, the lyrics are left to do a poor job of telling the confusing storyline.

Compounding the story problems is the terrible music, with the Bee Gees faring no better than they had on their previous attempts at covering Beatles songs for a film soundtrack, the bizarre All This and World War 2, (which suffered the opposite problem of trying to attach Beatles songs to an existing story, that of the Second World War), at best, adding nothing to the originals.

However, the film is not without merit, as Steve Martin delivers an entertaining version of Maxwell's Silver Hammer that is in keeping with his "Wild and Crazy Guy" persona of the time, and Aerosmith do a coolly menacing version of Come Together. If nothing else, the film provides an oddball insight into popular culture of the time, and where else are you going to get a cast like that?

Excision (2012)

Excision is an intriguing and disturbing mix of teen angst, suburban tension, and Cronenberg style body horror.

Pauline (Annalynne McCord) is a teenage outcast, obsessed with surgery and losing her virginity, a combination that leads to some erotic and gory dreams. The interest in medicine is not entirely morbid, as Pauline wants to cure her younger sister Grace, who has cystic fibrosis.

This is an excellent, assured debut from writer/director Richard Bates, Jr, who keeps the pace restrained and the gore unhinged. Some scenes are reminiscent of David Lynch, with the juxtaposition of suburban banality and gross disturbing imagery. Pauline is a great character, a mix of unashamed assertiveness and manipulation, and an disturbing innocence. 

There's an first-class supporting cast with Traci Lords as Pauline's uptight religious mother, locked in a permanent power struggle with her wayward daughter and cameos from Malcolm McDowell and John Waters as Pauline's maths teacher and priest respectively.

Carry On Cabby (1963)

The first few Carry On films are largely variations on a theme, with well-meaning bumblers wreaking havoc in a variety of jobs. Carry on Cabby keeps the work based setting, but cuts back on the bumbling to concentrate on the battle of the sexes.

Charlie Hawkins (Sid James) runs a highly successful cab firm, and the cab firm runs his life, much to the chagrin of his neglected other half Peggy (Hattie Jacques). To teach Charlie a lesson, Peggy clandestinely starts her own business, Glamcabs, employing only sexy young women as drivers. As Glamcabs starts to poach Charlie's business, he resorts to sabotage.

This may look like a case of women getting the upper hand, but, of course, this is a Carry On film, so for the women to fight back they have to use sexist methods, and the drivers are picked purely on their looks and legs.

The script is more story driven than later films in the series, favouring a tone that is warm and innocent rather than the knowing smut that would follow. There is a focus on relationships, and subtle little characterisations, such as Charlie helping out ex-army people, a code he sticks to loyally even if it means employing a hopelessly clumsy halfwit like Pintpot (Charles Hawtrey)

The end result is a film played straight and realistically by an excellent cast, and one more grounded in reality, and less cartoonish than the series would become.

Delta Force 2 (1990)

A sequel only in name and star to the 80s original, Delta Force 2 is typical of the shoot first, ask questions later approach to film making taken by its makers, the legendary Cannon Films studios. While the original at least started with serious intent, before spiralling out of control this one starts stupid and doesn't stop.

Chuck Norris reprises his role as Major Scott McCoy, this time going after a South American drug lord Ramon Cota (Billy Drago). He has a partner, Bobby Chavez, which makes the first part feel like a buddy cop film, and once we are introduced to Chavez's ideal family life, we know he is doomed. At this point the film changes to more of a revenge thriller, akin to the James Bond film License to Kill, released a year earlier than this.

The script throws in every dumb cliché and wretched cornball one-liner known to man, and look out for the training montage that seems to be Chuck trying to cripple everyone else in the Delta Force. Not that you need an army when Chuck is on the case, of course.

Delta Force 2 retains the cheap, made for TV look of its predecessor, although as this is the 90s, whereas the first looked like looked like an episode of The A-Team, this looks like an episode of Macgyver. More importantly, like the first Delta Force, the invincibility of Chuck kills any tension, and the endless explosions eventually become tiring.

However, the real star of this show is not the unlikeable and dull Norris, or the pantomime villain Drago. Instead, John P Ryan, steals the show as Norris’ boss General Taylor. His hilarious, unrestrained take on the role makes Taylor more nuts than anyone Norris is trying to gun down or blow up, especially when he decides to go on a killing rampage in a helicopter gunship.

It is worth remembering that, for all the jingoism and flag waving on screen, at the time Delta Force 2 was released, elements of the CIA had their hands dirty, with some of their South American anti-communist friends financing their operations by smuggling drugs to the USA.