It's time to play hardball
Thu, 14 Oct 2004
Violence, relentless nihilism, mindless thuggery — sound like football to you? Not quite, but close. Andrew Burden raises hell with a good ol' football hooligan flick, Alan Clarke's 'The Firm' starring Gary Oldman.

Suicide pills or a deadly virus?
Tue, 28 Sep 2004
Cat Stevens a security threat? Uh, but what about those WMDs, Mr Bush? Or maybe the likelihood that an animal virus will mutate and eat us all alive? In '28 Days Later' the scenario is much more believable than you'd think, says Andrew Burden.

Riding a New York minute
Mon, 13 Sep 2004
The Cultmobile is back! This time riding in the back of a taxi with Robert de Niro in the driving seat, taking in the bloody sights of Travis Bickle's New York. Hop in for the ride...

Bite me!
Mon, 30 Aug 2004
The original 'Dawn of the Dead' was all about zombies, social satire and zombies. Andrew Burden takes a look at the recent remake and finds a pretty decent take on George A. Romero's classic that's honest, fast and has just the right amount of blood — and zombies.

The hills are alive with the sounds of screaming…
Mon, 09 Aug 2004
Gather round, cult movie devotees, for the return of bi-monthly column Cult de Sac. This week Andrew Burden is miffed about the delay of the release of 'Fahrenheit 9/11', and mystified about the spate of movie remakes coming our way. Take, for instance, 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'...

Horror Smack-Down…
Tue, 28 Oct 2003
With Halloween coming up on October 31, it's only fitting that this week's Cult de Sac looks to the genre of horror films — specifically the upcoming 'Freddy vs. Jason', a movie that pits two of cinema’s most famous fiends up against each other in what will at best prove to be a fun outing...

Bunnies on the run
Thu, 16 Oct 2003
Cult de Sac gets in touch with its warm, fuzzy side this week as it takes a look at director Martin Rosen's 1978 animated rendering of Richard Adams' novel, 'Watership Down'. The story of rabbits Fiver, Bigwig and Hazel reads like a road movie for the furry buggers — but it's also a chilling, touching and memorable film that says more about humanity than bunnies...

Lights – Camera – Mayhem!
Tue, 23 Sep 2003
The Coen Brothers can easily be seen as one of America’s greatest filmmaking duos, with films such as 'Fargo', 'The Big Lebowski' and 'O Brother Where Art Thou' to their credit. This week's Cult de Sac revisits 'Blood Simple', their breakthrough filmmaking debut of 1984...

Neo-maxi-zoom-dweebies
Wed, 17 Sep 2003
Like many cult films, John Hughes' 'The Breakfast Club' was and is a defining moment of its time — 1985, to be exact. Featuring actors Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall and Judd Nelson as a bunch of misfits on detention, watching the film today is pure nostalgia, writes Andrew Burden in this week's Cult de Sac.

To Catch a Killer
Thu, 11 Sep 2003
There's something about serial killer films that keeps audiences coming back for more, writes Andrew Burden in the latest edition of Cult de Sac. And the demand for these grim tales of humankind's worst achievements extends to two recent releases — 'Dahmer', based on the life of cannibal serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, and 'Ted Bundy', based on that of America’s most infamous murderer...

Three’s a Crowd
Mon, 25 Aug 2003
There are not many film franchises that make it to a second sequel, writes Andrew Burden. And it's just as well, as third films are generally destined to fail, he says. Read Cult de Sac's list of least favourite third instalments of all time, from 'Halloween 3' and 'Jaws 3' to this year's 'Terminator 3'…

Destiny and a demonic looking bunny
Tue, 08 Jul 2003
While at the National Arts Festival, Cult de Sac finally got to see director Richard Kelly's 'Donnie Darko' on the big screen. It's an intelligent film about a misunderstood teenager who gets to re-evaluate his destiny with the help of a giant, demonic-looking bunny. But like most misunderstood teens, the film tends to be self-indulgent, slamming the bedroom door in your face and sulking...

Trick or Treat Part 2
Tue, 19 Nov 2002
With Halloween taking place next week, cult movie columnist Andrew Burden looks at movie monsters, specifically those from director Bernard Rose’s ‘Candyman’ and David Lynch’s ‘The Elephant Man’. The scariest thing about monsters, he writes, is not that they want to kill us or that they’re ugly as sin, but that they remind us of our own propensity for cruelty, violence and excess.

Trick or Treat Part 1
Mon, 18 Nov 2002
Halloween, coming up on October 31, is all about fun and mischief. It not only provides the perfect title and setting for films like the godfather of all modern slashers 'Halloween', it also simply acts as a celebration of the horror genre generally. In this week's Cult de Sac column, cult movie buff Andrew Burden sources some appropriate material for your Halloween viewing pleasure...

Let me off!
Wed, 13 Nov 2002
What is the world coming to when film-makers see fit to do musical remakes of the likes of 'Reservoir Dogs', asks cult movie columnist Andrew Burden in this week's Cult de Sac. The idea is either complete madness or genius and possibly the beginning of a new trend in film — the ultraviolent musical. He explores some of the possibilities, from 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' to 'The Exorcist'...

The Sins of our Fathers' Fathers' Fathers'
Wed, 13 Nov 2002
In this week's cult movie column, Cult de Sac, Andrew Burden looks at David Fincher's 'Fight Club' (1999), a controversial film about misogyny, consumerism-induced comas and identity crises, as well 1968's 'If...', a slick study of the effects of stifling systems, and which similarly uses physical defiance to represent a shift in mind set...

Reservoir Dogs to the Rescue
Wed, 13 Nov 2002
In the interests of world peace, imagine if we could sit Blair and Bush down with a couple of movies so they could live out their war fantasies on the screen without firing a single shot. Cult movie columnist suggests Quentin Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs' for starters. Read more, plus find out about the first ever Cult de S'academy Awards, open now for nominations...

Bossy Brigade Strikes Back
Wed, 13 Nov 2002
Cult movie columnist Andrew Burden takes issue with small-minded people who request that films be removed from the shelves of video shops because their delicate constitutions are offended. While on a roll, he also rants about movie remakes — they can be good, such as John Carpenter's 'The Thing', but they can also be utterly pointless and even downright bad...

Big Steve's Big Blunder
Tue, 12 Nov 2002
Incensed by the comparisons that have been made between Steven Spielberg's 'Minority Report' and Ridley Scott's 'Bladerunner', cult movie columnist Andrew Burden sticks his neck out (and risks being stoned) to criticise Hollywood's greying Wunderkind, and shows why the latter film remains one of the truly great films of all time.