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The Shining
Aspiring writer, Torrance (Nicholson), takes a job as a winter caretaker at the isolated, snowbound Overlook Hotel to create space in his life for a writing project. The hotel’s macabre past doesn’t put him off the job or raise questions in his mind like, Is this really suitable for my wife and possibly-psychic young son?…
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Pan’s Labyrinth
Del Toro, no stranger to science fiction or tales of the Spanish struggle between Fascism and left wing politics (Blade 2, Hellboy, The Devils Backbone) offers us something different here, skilfully blending history with fantasy. In Second World War fascist Spain Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is faced with a stark choice. On the one hand she…
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The Orphanage
Hitchcock explained the difference between surprise and suspense like this: if people are seated at a table and a bomb explodes, that is surprise. If they are seated at a table, and you know there’s a bomb under the table attached to a ticking clock, but they continue to play cards – that’s suspense. Well,…
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Let The Right One In
Oskar (Hedebrant) is a 12 year old loner, bullied at school he is full of suppressed rage. Eli moves in next door – she’s a bit of a misfit too and they become friends. She encourages Oskar to stand up to the bullies. As the two young people find solace in each other Oskar begins…
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The Queen of Spades
In 1806 St Petersburg, Captain Suvorin of the Engineers (Walbrook) becomes resentful of his rich friend, Prince Andrei (Howard), and the circle of Guards officers who gamble their money at faro, a form of snap in which fortunes can be won or lost on the turn of a card. Convinced by an old book that…
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Peeping Tom
There’s something wrong with Mark, (Boehm). He’s a lonely, unfriendly sort of chap. He has a lowly job at a film studio and makes extra money selling photographs to porn shops. But its his hobby that’s the real problem. He’s obsessed with how people register fear through facial expression and he films young women’s faces…
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The Ghoul
As a detective, Chris, (Meeten) investigates a double murder, the case begins to indicate the best way to follow up leads is to go undercover as a patient seeking psychotherapy for depression. What follows is a sinister story where nothing and no one seems reliable and Chris begins to doubt himself. An intense psychological thriller,…
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Saint Maud
A private nurse for palliative care is convinced that God has a special purpose in store for her. Her new client is a terminally ill choreographer whose cynical bohemianism jars and spars with her own ecstatic asceticism. 31-year old National Film & Television School graduate Rose Glass, who was working five years ago as an…