16. Midsommar (2019), dir. Ari Aster

As this is a recent release still screening in some places, I will cut the bulk of this review. That's not to say it's a film that would seriously be ruined by knowing a bit about what happens in it, though. In fact, once the major parameters are established, it proceeds with dreadful inevitability towards its end-point, and that's a lot of how it generates its sense of horror. So if you're sure you'll like it and would prefer to see it unspoiled, go ahead - it's great. But if you're not sure and would like to use this review to help you decide, you won't really lose anything by reading it. And if you've already seen it and want to share views, come hit me up in the comments!

( Rest of the review under here )

17. Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans (2019), dir. Dominic Brigstocke

I saw this one with lady_lugosi1313. We noticed that it was on its last week of screening in Leeds despite only having been released a couple of weeks earlier, and that the cinema wasn't exactly packed out, so I'm guessing it perhaps hasn't done as well as hoped. And that's a pity because I thought it was great on all levels - cast, story, jokes, songs and historical detail.

The setting is the Boudiccan rebellion, and the main storyline follows a Roman boy, Attilius (or Atti for short) who is forced into the army by Nero as a punishment, and a 'Celtic' (I would have preferred 'British', but I get why they did this) girl, Orla, who is desperate to be a warrior but whose Dad won't let her as she is too young. Their utterly wholesome narrative involves her taking him prisoner, them falling (very chastely) in love, and both of them eventually coming to realise that war is actually a bad thing as it tends to end up with people being hurt.

The research was really solid, and what I particularly liked about it was that the script not only reflected a strong knowledge of the relevant source material, but that it also drew direct attention to the nature of those sources and their problems. So we saw a classically-megalomaniacal version of Nero being told that no-one really knew what had happened to Boudicca, and dictating his own preferred version to his tame court historian - who, for bonus meta-referential points was Horrible Histories' real-life historical consultant, greg_jenner. Then, as if that weren't enough, a Roman rat popped up over the closing credits to tell us all about the conflicting historical accounts of the events depicted. The value of that for children just getting to grips with history is immense, and I was so pleased they had taken the time to do it.

I was also pretty impressed by the way they had handled the topics of Roman imperialism and cultural change, both inevitably raised by the historical period and setting. We were shown very clearly that most of the 'Celtic' characters weren't in the least bit interested in Roman 'civilisation', while those who were (as represented by them e.g. incorporating Roman columns into their round-houses) didn't consider having their political autonomy arbitrarily taken away a reasonable price to pay for it. As a children's film, it had to come to a happy ending after Boudicca's rebellion, so we didn't see that being brutally repressed (in fact, most of the final battle was conveyed as a dance-off), and instead the Romans and the 'Celts' reached a cheerful accommodation with one another. But even this was very much about characters who had developed mutual respect for one another's cultures over the course of the film, rather than the Celts coming to appreciate 'what the Romans have done for us'. In short, if a generation of future Classics / Anc Hist students are out there watching this, I should get fewer in my classes assuming that Roman imperialism was a beneficent civilising mission.

There were too many great jokes and inter-texts to list in detail, but obviously it was beyond wonderful to see Derek Jacobi reprise his role as Claudius for a few short minutes, before being bumped off by the machinations of an almost equally wonderful Kim Cattrall as Agrippina. I thought there was a touch of David Morrissey's Aulus Plautius in Britannia lurking behind Rupert Graves' Suetonius Paulinus, too, as well as in the design of the Roman camps and the way Atti was treated after being recaptured from Orla (though this was obviously a very sanitised, child-friendly version of what happens in Britannia). As for jokes, watching in Yorkshire I think my favourite had to be seeing the Brigantes (our local tribe) portrayed with strong Yorkshire accents. Overall a great watch and a most worthy addition to the canon of screen portrayals of Roman Britain.

18. The House in Nightmare Park (1973), dir. Peter Sykes

AND FINALLY (for now), this is a fairly standard narrative about a dysfunctional family bumping each other off for an inheritance with Frankie Howerd thrown in for comic relief, which I watched with lady_lugosi1313 after it was screened on Talking Pictures recently. It wasn't awful, but it dragged a lot more than it should have done given the suspenseful potential of the plot. Frankie Howerd was relatively toned down, perhaps so that he would fit appropriately into a story about family murders, but it ended up feeling like an unhappy compromise - neither funny enough nor horrific enough to entertain. To be fair to it, the sets and a lot of the cinematography were actually very good, and we had fun spotting all the cliches and guessing what was going to happen. But it wasn't a patch on comparable British horror comedy Carry on Screaming.

Since no more need be said about this film, I hereby declare myself UP TO DATE with reviewing at long last. That's basically taken me the whole of the bank holiday weekend, but it was a worthwhile investment. Who knows what crazy things I might get up to now!