In the future, I will keep trying to sample at least one example of every film genre and category. It’s with some embarrassment that I realized recently I haven’t reviewed a movie from Hammer Studios, so with The Snorkel, I fix that.

The second half of my ‘future’ project dovetails into the first, in that it likewise finds me trying to break out of my US / UK reviewing stranglehold.

Oh, yes: it is true that I occasionally visit Germany and Japan (no ghost-cats, though; what the hell!?); and that I used to drop in on Italy, and China, and France, and Mexico.

Not often enough, though; and not recently. And there are places I’ve never visited, like India.

After all—it’s a great big cinematic world out there…

H-8… (1958)

…in which it turns out that the Eastern Europeans do disaster movies just a little differently…

If you should spot Alone For Christmas in the Wal-Mart bargain bin as I did, it’s best to leave it alone for Christmas or for any other time of the year.

This Roundtable has given me an opportunity to begin doing something that I should have been doing from the very beginning of my site, and that I intend to make a regular feature from now on: examining Australian genre films.

I did in fact make a start on this once before, but the project stalled—

Actually, I can tell you exactly when it stalled: on the 27th January 2010.

And what was it that I then spent nearly a decade avoiding…?

WAKE IN FRIGHT (1971)

[NB: NSFW – a little nudity (although not the kind you’re expecting)]

The comedy Frozen Assets doesn’t just have a bad premise, it takes that bad premise and sinks it to historic cinematic lows.