Babystar (Germany 2025: Dir Joscha Bongard)

"Can't we just be normal for one day?" asks 16 year old Luca (Maja Bons) of her parents, Stella (Bea Brocks) and Chris (Liliom Lewald). While it may be getting pretty hard to work out exactly what is 'normal' these days, Luca and her family's life is definitely not.

For Stella, Chris and their daughter lead an 'always on' life, live streaming to social media platforms each and every aspect of their existence via their 'Our Bright Life' channel. From Luca's filmed birth and podcasted discussions with her mother (including one excruciating clip where Stella explains periods to her daughter in front of a huge online audience), the brand sponsored family monetise at every opportunity, unashamedly pimping Luca's youth for likes; Chris is on a life mission to look good for the cameras, and their home, an immaculate sterile environment, is custom built for all camera access. "We're being paid for just being ourselves", explains Luca. But who exactly are their real selves?

As we meet the family they are introduced to a group of very young fans who have been bussed out to their country retreat, just a small handful of their 4 plus million subscribers. The childrens' questions alarmingly focus on Luca's body, age and partner status, and it's clear from the start to team handler Julie (Joy Ewulu) that the object of their attention is not entirely happy.

Nevertheless, as Stella and Chris remind her, without their online influencing lives the family would have nothing; they are, clearly, comfortably rich. But even while Luca is seemingly locked into this lifestyle - "your Mercedes Benz doesn't pay for itself" says dad about his daughter's luxury car - it doesn't stop her wanting to achieve her own agency via branded videos. At other times she seems hopelessly infantilised, occasionally still sleeping in her parents' bed after having nightmares.

But Stella and Chris want another child, information which disturbs Luca; whether this is natural sibling anxiety or concern over lost business opportunities is initially difficult to tell, but for whatever reason the news (broken to her in a streamed restaurant scene where Luca is given a cake with the words 'only child' struck through) forces her to leave her family and set up shop in a hotel, a disastrous form of independent living which just makes her even unhappier, as she watches - online, natch - her parents prepare for the birth of their second child.

Billed as a satirical comedy, Bongard's beautifully mounted, glacially observed film is just too prescient to promote laughter; this reviewer watched in quiet dread as Luca's parents, clearly aware of their daughter's antipathy to the new arrival, constantly sought to film her reactions. As the centre of this film Maja Bons is excellent, her character oscillating between child and woman, needy but confident, pulled in different ways by her frankly awful parents and Julie, initially a friend but later just one more manipulator. 

I have a feeling - or make that a fear - that the 'futureshock' aspect of Babystar's setup may soon become a reality, in the same way that Spike Jonze's 2013 movie Her anticipated the arrival of Alexa by less than a year. While I'm pleased that the director gave us a slightly redemptive ending, it's the cold hard reality of commerce and technology that you'll remember here.

Late Fame (USA/France 2025: Dir Kent Lee)

Willem Dafoe, an actor who often relishes big parts in smaller films these days, is Ed Saxberger, a poet whose heyday was 1979, although it's strongly suggested that he was a man out of time even in those days (a blast of the eponymous song by no wave artists 'Mars', dating from more or less the same year, plays as we meet him).

Like many before and after him, Saxberger was unable to sustain a living as a writer and ended up, ironically, working for the postal service, living quietly in a small New York apartment and busily ignoring calls from his sister to come and visit his dying brother.

Returning home one day, Ed gets a visitor; an initially shy, preppy guy from his neighbourhood named Wilson Meyers (Edmund Donovan), who has recognised Saxberger as the poet from 1970s New York whose volume of poems, entitled 'Way Past Go' and long out of print, once wowed the city.

Meyers fan boys the poet and begs him to meet his friends, a group of very well off New Yorkers keen to rekindle the poetic muse in a place that has long outgrown the beatnik generation, who name themselves 'The Enthusiasm Society', which Saxberger describes as "Victorian". Once under the spell of the group, who deify Saxberger and feel that the world should once more know about him, he's seduced into accepting an offer to write some new work for a poetry 'happening' they're organising. He also meets Gloria (Greta Lee), a vampy singer/actress to whom he's instantly attracted and who seems to like him more for what he represents - a link to a bygone age - than as a person.

But the shine quickly rubs off 'The Enthusiasm Society', whose desire to bring culture back to New York seems like one more thing for bored rich kids to amuse themselves with, and Saxberger is gradually sidelined. In their local coffee shop the group's arch enemies are another similarly entitled bunch, a phone addicted collective called 'the influencers', but after a while it's difficult to differentiate between the two similarly attention seeking parties.

"There's no fool like an old fool" is the saying, and Saxberger's brief rise and fall on the back of Meyer and his gang is painful to watch; it may be my slightly advanced years, but I found nothing here to suggest a comedy. Whatever muse visited the poet in his heyday seems to have long departed, but when it comes to talent the rest of 'The Enthusiasm Society' seem happy - although this is a relative word - to recite other dead poets; the whole idea of the group's event feels increasingly thin and borderline narcissistic.

There are some great elements here, notably Dafoe's Saxberger, whose lined face registers every emotion as, plucked from obscurity, he battles with the aims of the society while losing his heart (which one suspects has been closed off for a long time) to Gloria, clearly a woman with her own demons. Lee is similarly impressive as the many faceted, glamorous but damaged actress (a role destined for Sandra Hüller until a scheduling problem intervened, possibly for the best). Unfortunately the rest of the cast seem a little one dimensional; more importantly where the script should fizz it too often just simmers on a low heat (apologies for mixing the culinary metaphors). I also just didn't get the sense of then and now New York; through Saxberger's eyes his city has changed out of all recognition, but we see too little of it (a problem which also beset Marielle Heller's 2018 film Can You Ever Forgive Me? with which this movie shares some thematic elements) and we have to rely on the poet's own voice which, strangely because of his original calling, is rather monosyllabic. I couldn't help but be a little disappointed with Late Fame; it has a great setup but fizzles out, and needed a lot more pep.

Boorman and the Devil (USA 2025: Dir David Kittredge)

It’s been a long-held view that The Exorcist II: The Heretic is one of the worst big budget horror movies, or the most egregious squandering of a star cast, or indeed the least appetising sequel to a major motion picture, ever made. Phew!

For research reasons, in preparation for David Kittredge’s fascinating documentary, I watched TEII:TH for the first time since I originally saw it, at the cinema on a double bill with William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, back in the early 1980s. Yes I’ve been that disinclined to rewatch the thing. I'll save my comments to the end.

As the documentary’s title suggests, John Boorman is your guide through the gestation, filming and critical aftermath of his seventh feature film. Using a series of to camera pieces filmed when the director was 85 – eight years ago – it’s supplemented by interviews with two of the film’s leads, Linda Blair and Louise Fletcher (who died in 2022) and a host of behind the scenes people, including the villain of the piece, uncredited writer and script butcher Rospo Pallenberg, other directors like Mike Flanagan and Joe Dante, and a handful of critics.

Kittredge eases us into the story with a brief career retrospective of Boorman’s career up to 1975, demonstrating his commitment, idiosyncrasy and willingness to stick his neck out (Sean Connery in a mankini for his 1973 sci fi oddity Zardoz, anyone?). 

Although Boorman passed on the chance to direct The Exorcist (apparently Kubrick was also approached), he felt that the script for the sequel – one which was generally felt not to be needed - gave him the opportunity for a more metaphysical look at possession, and a chance to flesh out Regan’s character. The fact that, in the four years since the original's huge financial success, a slew of 'Exorcist' copycat movies had also done great box office, wasn’t entirely coincidental.

Boorman wasn’t particularly happy with William Goodhart’s original script, seeing it as overly intellectual and lacking in ‘jolts’, and co-opted Pallenberg, who in the later stages of the movie took the opportunity of Boorman’s prolonged absence from the shoot through illness to considerably, and more ambitiously, alter the plot.

BatD follows the casting of the film, with Max Von Sydow persuaded back by the prospect of a “beautiful, poetic, healing” script (ahem) and a very unwilling Blair similarly seduced, both by Richard Burton joining the project and a rumoured million dollar salary. The gradual derailing of the project began with the unexpected death of Lee J. Cobb, preventing his Lt. Kinderman character from returning in the sequel, which required a radical script rewrite (the first of many); and the movie’s multi continent location plan being nixed in favour of filming everything on the Burbank sound stages (which, viewed today, together with the use of old school ‘ghost glass’ effects, are probably the most interesting aspects of the film).

A combination of Blair’s constant lateness to the set and Burton’s acting and alcohol related limitations compounded problems, but it was Boorman’s illness, causing a 5 week shoot shutdown, that gave Pallenberg the opportunity for an unauthorised intervention, making character changes in the script and setting out a more ambitious ending, subsequently scrapped because of the need to wrap the movie. 

For me it's the latter half of the film that really lets it down. Nearly forty years on I can forgive the rather random plotting and the sometimes pallid script, because generally TEII:TH looks stunning. Sadly the finale, deemed incomprehensible via endless rewrites and Pallenberg's sabotage, is its most problematic element; that and Regan's tap dancing routine (which the actor fought against including, quite justifiably).

The documentary effectively charts the movie’s nosedive as it moved towards completion; its eventual terrible critical reception is therefore unsurprising, but Boorman’s tenacity and frankly charming ability to find some positives in the work adds an almost upbeat element to this cautionary tale. Boorman and the Devil elevates itself above the usual talking heads documentaries through Boorman’s sage voice but also because it’s both a great – if appalling – story and a salutary lesson for budding filmmakers of all generations.

Boorman and the Devil is released in cinemas from 25 September.

My time in the Steel City - a youthful 1980 sojourn in Sheffield

May 1980: somewhere in Sheffield. "It's Fry, like my name", said Martin, pointing to an old tin sign propped up against the wall of his bedsit, advertising Fry's Chocolates; he was inviting me to see the inherent humour, which I did, but probably not as enthusiastically as he would have liked. The 'Martin' in question is Martin Fry; the same Martin Fry that two years later would be catapulted to stardom as the lead singer of ABC, a million miles away from the confines of this tiny south Yorkshire room. But why was I here? Under false pretenses, basically. Correction: I was there for the right reasons, but I wasn't holding out much hope that what I thought I was there for would come to pass.

Let's backtrack a bit. As a massive fan of independent music in the late 1970s, the more difficult the better, a chance purchase of the first Cabaret Voltaire EP in 1978 opened up new aural doors for me. Difficult, alien DIY machine music, never far from a tune but awkward as hell; a sort of grungier version of The Human League's more polished electronic sound (a group who also released their first single the same year). Both bands lived and worked in Sheffield, a fact I filed away for later use. 

Over the next year I started to read articles about and hear other bands based in that city: Clock DVA; I'm So Hollow; and Vice Versa, the latter whose first EP, 'Music 4', had emerged in 1979. More synths, more strangely catchy tunes, more strident male vocals. I had just published the first edition of my own short lived fanzine, 'DoA', and a friend encouraged me to channel my nascent journalistic enthusiasms further. 

So I wrote to Zigzag, the London based independent music magazine who regularly accepted - and printed - submissions from unknown correspondents, and told them that I was planning on writing a piece covering 'the Sheffield scene'. In early 1980 I then wrote to Vice Versa and Clock DVA and told them I was writing a piece on 'the Sheffield scene' for Zigzag magazine and that I'd like to come up and interview them.

Except Zigzag magazine didn't actually reply to confirm that the piece was a goer.

Fast forward to the spring of that year. A member of Vice Versa, a guy called Stephen Singleton, wrote back confirming that they would love to host me for a week, show me around the sights of Sheffield and introduce me to the other bands there. With his letter he included a cassette of eight songs by his group named, rather appropriately, '8 Aspects'. A date was arranged for the trip; Friday 2nd of May. 

Every morning I awaited the post; nothing from Zigzag. Singleton was the co-creator of Neutron Records, who had not only released 'Music 4' but also, in early 1980, a double ep called '1980:The First Fifteen Minutes' featuring tracks from DVA, I'm So Hollow, local punk legends The Stunt Kites and, of course, VV. It certainly sounded like things were happening in the 'Steel City'.

44 Bowood Road, Sheffield, the address given on the back of the cassette and the first stop on my trip, was Neutron Records HQ. Any ideas I held that Neutron would be a suite of modern offices, staffed by entrepreneurial execs all looking to sign the next big act, were swiftly dashed; it was Stephen's parents' house and I'd been invited for tea. The Singletons, and in fact everyone I met that week, were nothing short of lovely; including Martin Fry, in whose flat it was arranged I would be staying for the duration of the visit. 

I can't remember Martin's address but, like a lot of Sheffield at the time, the rather grotty multiple occupation house in which he lived is likely no more; probably the whole street has been demolished. Martin had a biggish room on the top floor; everyone shared a ground floor bathroom. It wasn't long before I discovered Martin's neighbour, an enigmatic chap by the name of Stephen James Turner, known to everybody as 'Judd'. He was the bass player in a band.

And the name of that band was Clock DVA.

Coming from the affluent south, the first thing I noticed was that very few people seemed to have jobs. Various band members mentioned casual employment in local factories or food processing facilities, but those occupations seemed vague and spoken about in the past tense. Subsistence mainly came from the DHSS, fueling the real work; the music. That and hanging out together in pubs, establishing the social glue (and occasional rivalry) of diverse bands operating in the same location.

Vice Versa had no planned gigs scheduled the week I was in the city. They looked on themselves as 'attaché case futurists', able to turn up at a moment's notice when a promoter required a low maintenance, no fuss fill in group. I would later witness this happening.

Clock DVA

Clock DVA on the other hand were a 'proper' band, who regularly got together in one of Sheffield's numerous ex industrial units. Their space was on West Street, premises once used by master craftsmen in the cutlery industry; I'd been invited to see them rehearse. Standing at the appointed hour outside a building that looked in serious danger of collapse, I met the first band member, drummer Roger Quail, who seemed refreshingly 'normal' (whatever that means. Quail, a chap seemingly blessed with an eidetic memory and/or a collection of diaries - which helped a little with the writing of this piece - now maintains an excellent blog/podcast My Life in the Mosh of Ghosts which is well worth checking out). At the time of meeting I wasn't really aware of the extremity of the band's history (later I read stories of violent confrontations between group and audiences, and one anecdote told of a previous band member taking a machete to gigs to deal with any overly physical reactions to their live set, a not uncommon problem): perhaps it was just as well.

Looking back now, I couldn't have realised at the time how important this moment was for me. There I was, 200 miles from home, a naive kid from comfortable suburban surroundings, sitting on the floor of an old, disused building that, miraculously, had a power supply, watching Clock DVA set up and run through their set, complete with strobe light show. I had previously been given a band tape, 'Group Fragments', which included a (gulp, catchy) song called 'Your (sic) Without Sound'; this 1979 artefact, recorded at Cabaret Voltaire's Western Works studio, represented the last recordings of a group in transition. 'Group Fragments' was all electronics, treated tape and muttered vocals. In the period since its release DVA were in the process of discarding a guitarist, David Hammond, and picking up another, Paul Widger, although he wouldn't start playing with them until later the following month; they'd also acquired a new drummer (Quail) in June the previous year and a sax and woodwind player, Charlie Collins, transforming the sound into something...funkier. Their set was blistering and 'live ready', which was handy as they were due to play in London on the following Friday, supporting Cabaret Voltaire.

To get some idea of what this sounded like, listen to DVA's recordings for Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records label, 'White Souls in Dark Suits' (which were being finalised for release at the time of my visit); shut your eyes and listen to the first track, 'Consent'. That was pretty much what I heard that afternoon and reader, it blew my mind. While there was a continuity of sound from the previous DVA iteration, in many ways it couldn't have been a more different group. This was almost certainly down to the the (relatively) new additions, particularly multi instrumentalist Collins who had joined late the previous year, a mercurial fellow steeped in difficult jazz, both slightly wild and taciturn, inscrutable behind his bushy beard.

Quail seemed young, a gifted drummer perhaps slightly in awe of his fellow band members. The remaining two chaps were the aforementioned Stephen 'Judd' Turner and the equally enigmatic singer Adi Newton, the centre of the band from its 1977 formation onwards; I was to become well acquainted with most of these people in the days to come.

Vice Versa

Vice Versa were three young men, Stephen Singleton, Martin Fry and singer Mark White, two of whom remained pretty serious throughout the week; Singleton was more excitable and ready to laugh. White was a couple of years younger than the band's stated '21 age bracket', reserved and somewhat of an enigma throughout my stay. Fry was avuncular, accommodating and curious; his bedsit was scrupulously tidy with a collection of the sort of books that you would expect to find in a young English Literature graduate's room, and a row of cassettes that included some rare DVA recordings (these would be released many years later on the excellent first volume of the band's archival 'Horology' series). What I didn't realise at the time was that VV had also been through some lineup changes, and Fry was a relative newcomer to the band.

VV interviews all took place in Bowood Road mainly because, like a lot of houses in Sheffield, it had a basement which the band used for rehearsals, a tiny space but, because there were only three of them, adequate for their needs. By this point the band had been functioning in various incarnations since 1977 around the White/Singleton nucleus. Several months after my first visit VV would begin their transformation into ABC after discovering Fry's sonorous tonsils; it may be hindsight but I thought I detected a slight weariness among the band members, but as I hadn't seen them play live, my reference points were the recorded output and our own conversations. It was also 45 years ago, and I must be careful not to create memories. 

VV were, I recall, uneasy interviewees (although to be fair I've never been a great interviewer); they were the first to voice a common concern among some of the (smaller) Sheffield outfits, namely the need to remain separate from and more than slightly mistrustful of that London, although both they and DVA had played there. This clarion call of northern independence was underlined by the 1980 release of two compilation albums, 'Bouquet of Steel', comprising 15 tracks from unsigned Sheffield artists which celebrated the diversity of the local music scene, and 'Hicks from the Sticks', with a wider regional remit and which included three Sheffield bands.

At some point during the week Singleton and White played me some rather formless instrumental recordings which were very different to what I'd heard to date; I can't be sure but I think that these tracks surfaced much later  - with titles - on the also excellent Singleton and White curated 'Electrogenesis 1978 - 1980' VV box set. Later I found out that these recordings were made by the pair before the arrival of Fry; they asked me what I thought of them. I think I was quite diplomatic but I also recall this may have been the first time that the ABC side project was mentioned. Of which more later.

It's at this point that I should mention the spectre of two groups which were active, not only in Sheffield but nationally, while these interviews took place; one, Cabaret Voltaire, have already been referenced, a successful outfit in themselves but also a benevolent force in encouraging new musical projects across the city. The other was The Human League, still with their original lineup. I use the word 'spectre' because both groups weren't really mentioned during the week (despite being well known by the majority of my interviewees), except by a couple of people I met who thought that, because I was 'up from London', I would of course be pointing my microphone in their faces. 

I actually had no intention of talking to either the Cabs or the League, even if they had given me tape time; I was far more interested in the smaller, more independent outfits. But the musical and thematic comparisons between Vice Versa and early Human League were apparent, and the historic interconnection between band members of CV, DVA and The Human League could not be ignored (also, the Cabs had produced demos for most of the outfits I met during the week). Other contemporaneous interviews with band members have shown nothing but support and admiration for both groups so it's strange that they didn't crop up more in our conversations. Maybe it was because both bands had been happy to connect with (or 'sell out' to) London; as mentioned, a thorny subject.

I'm So Hollow

One band who appeared on both '1980: The First Fifteen Minutes' and 'Bouquet of Steel' were I'm So Hollow, a group who borrowed liberally from the Roxy Music songbook and adopted various post punk stylings but also managed to create a sound uniquely their own. Band members were Jane Wilson - vocals and keyboards, Rod Leigh - guitar, vocals, Gary Marsden - bass and Yosef "Joe" Sawicki - drums. I was fortunate to witness the band rehearse in another, this time much bigger basement of a house owned by the parents of a band member, at an address in one of the city's leafier suburbs. As I recall they didn't have a lot to say in interview, letting the music speak for itself, and were a good example of a band only doing it for as long as they wanted to.

So my week wore on; interviews, pubs, more interviews (sometimes comprising a seemingly endless list of cultural reference points), cups of tea in people's houses; more walking. After a few days life seemed to centre around Martin's flat and trips out with Judd, who emerged as quite the character, reckless, funny, fidgety and always armed with a smoke, cheaper than alcohol and as readily available. On one occasion he espied, from the top of a bus on which we were travelling, a skinhead, on foot, wearing flared trousers. Judd goaded him through the open window 'just to see what would happen'. I very much hoped that what would happen was that the skinhead and Judd would not get to meet face to face; my bus companion very much looked like he could handle himself in these situations, but I definitely didn't. In fact it was hard to reconcile 'jack-the-lad' Judd with the rather more sensitive bass playing member of DVA. On a trip to Judd's mum's house she turned out to be an equally warm and funny person who doted on her son (although she and Judd looked about the same age, which was a little confusing).

Prior to Intercourse

The history of the Sheffield post punk scene is inexorably linked to the city's academic establishments, such as the now legendary Now Society ('Nowsoc') gigs at the University, or events put on at Psalter Lane Arts College. I'm taken to one of these places, ostensibly to interview DVA, and where there's a distinct end of term feel; packets of white powder are being freely traded over refectory tables, while in the background I witness students throwing up extensively during a yard of ale competition. I'm also there to meet a chap, who may be a student, called Robert Baker, founder of a dance/happening collective named Prior to Intercourse - or PTI to you - who had links with the 'Clocks' (as nobody referred to them). Baker's dressed in black, pale with a bowl haircut; imagine a slightly more trendy Gareth Keenan from the BBC comedy The Office. He tells me, in a matter of fact way, some of the things he gets up in his spare time which I'm pretty sure are illegal in this country, and certainly unlikely to be found within any University syllabus.

Anyway, there's news! The Fatales, the band scheduled to play at the regular Blitz Club night, held at the legendary George IV pub on Infirmary Road, have pulled out (another account reckoned that the no shows were Dutch band Minny Pops). And the 'attaché case futurists' aka Vice Versa are about to step in. VV had played there just a few days earlier; this and their unpublicised appearance may have explained the sparse audience, but it's my chance to see the chaps in action. They're clearly a tight unit; synths get hammered, the tape machine whirrs and Mark White is a watchable front person; footage of the lads in action is here. At times the three almost achieve syncopation in their dance moves, but mostly it's just lively twitching, a far cry from the cool allure of the League, even if they both sing about discos, lipstick and mad scientists. All very exciting.

As my week comes to an end, there's a problem; as mentioned, DVA are playing in London on the Friday, the day I leave Sheffield; I'm also planning to be at the gig. Vice Versa want to go but their Friday night accommodation plans have fallen through and they can't afford hotels. An approach is made to me; could they stay at my place? So let's clarify things here; I'm 18, and it's my parents' house. To complicate things further, my father was recovering from an episode of poor mental health and had just retired, so it was a big - and very cheeky - ask of the folks for the chaps to bed down at our home in west London. But agree they did. 

Now here's the other thing; VV had arranged to travel down separately on the Thursday evening, meaning that I'd be alone in Martin's bedsit overnight; Martin really had no idea if I was legit or not, and I recall that there was a lot of rumination before he gave in and left the keys to his flat with me. Of course I was to be trusted; nothing wilder than a few cans of Skol, a visit to the local chippie and an episode of The Outer Limits on TV occurred. It was only later that I found out from the man himself that Judd and a visiting friend (remember he was in the next room) were planning to play surprise visit and, in his words, 'mess me up a bit', but decided against it and went down the pub instead. Praise the Lord for the gift of common sense!

After arriving back in west London and checking - in vain - for that Zigzag letter, I later met up with Vice Versa at the University of London, and finally got a chance to see Clock DVA in full gig mode, just days after watching them rehearse. And reader, I fell hard. The five piece were nothing short of electrifying. Newton, a not particularly tall chap, towered on stage in floor length cassock and vertical, Henry-Spencer-from-Eraserhead hair. Many of the songs played during the set would find their way into recorded form, not as expected on the wildly improvised 'White Souls in Black Suits' album, released later that year on Industrial Records, but on 'Thirst', the band's classic second album, recorded later in 1980 and released by Fetish Records in January of 1981.

Clock DVA at ULU 9/5/80

I didn't see much of VV during the evening, although I do recall Fry being distinctly and rather vocally non plussed with Cabaret Voltaire, the headliners, for reasons lost in time (a couple of years later I recall hearing some of that same disappointment when Fry laid into the then new Donna Summer album in a review slot on SFX's cassette based 'The Talking Magazine' - he was passionate about music and didn't hide his feelings). A note about the sleeping arrangements at my parents' place, which may hint at future dynamics; Stephen and Mark slept on the living room floor; Martin took one of the spare bedrooms. I'll leave that one with you. Oh and in terms of what happened to the band next, my dad, despite being opposed to the idea of putting up a bunch of strangers, would dine out on the story for years that his overnight lodgers were to be better known as ABC.

So it was mid May; I was back in London, employed by day at the local Council and spending evenings after work gradually pulling the cassette interviews into some kind of order on the office typewriter, for an extended article which nobody had asked for. And as I worked, the piece morphed from a survey of the Sheffield scene to an article on Clock DVA alone; forgive me, but they just seemed more interesting. Was this a disservice to the other bands who gave me their time (and flat space)? Yes, but I didn't make anybody any promises; well that's how I justified things. Plus I was 18; just a kid really.

So with the article finished and sent to Zigzag (and a couple of music papers - I hadn't heard about exclusivity, obviously, and for some reason hadn't thought to self publish in my own very short lived 'zine) and with the prospect of pissing off a number of musicians if it ever went to print, what do you think I did next? I arranged to go back to Sheffield. I had the DVA bug bad.

Clock DVA and Vice Versa were playing a 'historic' homecoming gig on 25 June the same year, the venue being Sheffield City Hall. I asked, once again, if I could stay at Martin's. I don't recall how long I stayed for, but I was still in London on my birthday (22 June) as I went to the ICA to see Clock DVA and was back on the 27th to see them in London at the long gone Clarendon Hotel in Hammersmith (where they were supported by VV). 

On arrival in Sheffield, my reception from Vice Versa was rather chilly; word was out that I was only there to see Clock DVA, and it was clear I wasn't welcome. This visit is a bit more blurry in the memory banks. I do recall the 25 June gig mainly because of the audience, full of Sheffield A listers like the Cabs, and also Mark White ripping up his regulation overcoat onstage during the VV set as if to make a 'that was then but this is now' statement.

My other memory from that brief trip is lacking in context but did actually happen; Fry - who let's not forget was still a backing singer in VV - standing in front of a mirror, singing into something (please memory let it be a hairbrush), being the star of his own show. It was a private moment, witnessed only be me and his girlfriend at the time; but in hindsight an important one.

And that was it! I came home, tail slightly between my legs, with no sign of a published article and a pissed off band, who'd extended nothing but kindness to me. 

The Detonators, 1980 (your author seated centre)

But a seed had been sown. I went out and purchased a Korg MS-10 synthesizer, started recording songs at home on a reel to reel bought at a local junk shop, and set about finding my own band, in the shape of The Detonators, an existing group from Hounslow who'd recently parted company with their keyboard player. A couple more personnel changes later and, in December 1980, we played our first proper gig at the iconic London Filmmaker's Co-op, then headed off on a brief career playing the smaller clubs of west and south west London. Oh yeah and we used two strobes for lighting; can't think where I got that idea?

But that's enough about my musical endeavours; let's do a bit of 'what happened next'. 

In August 1980 Vice Versa ventured over to Holland to play a gig, and recorded a single while there. During the recording sessions, a swap round of musical duties disclosed that Fry was indeed a singer to equal or even exceed Mark White, with arguably better stage presence; the story is that White immediately quit his role as front person and passed the mic (no longer a hairbrush) to Martin. The remaining handful of gigs played as Vice Versa - and not witnessed by me -  saw Fry front and centre, with White now the backing singer.

The rest is (sort of) history; and which history rather depends on who's telling the story. At its simplest, Fry, White and Singleton wound up Vice Versa, formed the concept ABC and took a step back to learn their craft and listen to a lot of disco and soul records. The first recorded fruits of this reshaping came in October 1981, with the release of the single 'Tears Are Not Enough', written and performed, as the label states, 'by ABC', which is perhaps not entirely the case. In terms of band members, the cover features Fry alone, standing on a staircase, wearing charity shop clothes and looking every bit like an indie lad from Sheffield who'd got da funk. For this release, produced by the late Steve Brown (of 'She Sells Sanctuary' and many others fame) the trio are augmented by bassist Mark Lickley and drummer David Robinson, the former also playing on the band's 1982 debut album 'Lexicon of Love'. There's also clearly a number of session musicians on horns and lead guitars, the assumption being that White played the choppy rhythm guitar that underpins the song. Although Singleton is credited as sax player, his total contribution to the single seems minimal. Without Fry's fabulous vocals, in my opinion the song sounds like generic, rather pedestrian wine bar funk and is the weakest song on their first album 'Lexicon of Love', despite it being souped up by Anne Dudley for the LP.

ABC - Mark 1

And on the subject of that first album, while there's no denying the excellence of 'Lexicon' it's worth pausing to consider that the album was released in June 1982, just two years after I'd seen them in action as Vice Versa. Call me cynical, but aside from Fry's voice and White's guitar, some keyboards and his arranging skills, it was difficult to see how the three former Vice Versa chaps had created this pop classic. It's public knowledge that a lot of the music on the album was performed by session musicians, but I also have a nagging suspicion that some of the songwriting (not the lyrics - Fry was an amazing lyricist) could have been augmented by Trevor Horn, or maybe drummer David Palmer who joined the band after the first single, replacing Robinson, and proved to be a strong songwriter, although his tenure was brief. 

In interview Horn seems to back this up, concluding in a rather codified way that White was “a wonderful guitar player who also wrote music and worked out most of the arrangements on the album”, but that Singleton, showed “a deep understanding of the context of the music on the album and played very sparingly”. Martin Fry has since gone on record with his version of the story; that it was his arrival which triggered the dissolving of VV and the creation of his ABC baby. In another interview Mark White stated that "Martin did NOT come along and change everything as I think he would be the first to say, it was a process of metamorphosis already in progression". 

We'll never know. But what is known is that Singleton didn't last past the second album, 'Beauty Stab', and Palmer chose to leave at this point too. Some years later a VH1 TV special, attempting to reunite ABC for a one off event, includes an interview with Stephen citing big egos as the reason that he left the group; in the same programme Fry suggests, slightly cagily, that Singleton was "ousted" (the only members that turn up for the eventual reunion are Fry and drummer David Palmer; Singleton agreed in principle but then failed to show at the appointed hour). My own take is that Stephen wasn't an ABC level musician and that, as co-creator of Neutron Records along with Mark White (who were the ABC rights holding company at this point), he was bought out, probably for a considerable amount of money. Mark White would also leave ABC some years later in 1991, and is now a fully qualified Reiki healing master with a practice in north London. From 1991 onwards, ABC has been Fry's business.

Adi Newton, Clock DVA, Berlin, 2014

Clock DVA kept gigging in their 'Thirst' incarnation until 1981 following Stephen Turner's sudden death in September 1981 due to an accidental drug overdose; he was 26. Following their disbanding Quail, Collins and Widger formed a group called The Box, eventually fronted by Peter Hope, and were active until 1985. Newton still continues to record and play under the Clock DVA name today, song wise still very much adhering to DVA's obsessional counterculture/ magick/technology/ conspiracy theory template.

The Human League's original incarnation came to an end late in 1980. I won't recite their subsequent history, but they, along with Heaven 17 were the unwritten commercial success story of this piece.

I'm So Hollow never did venture to gig in London, although they recorded a John Peel session there in August 1980, a couple of months after I saw them rehearse. They disbanded a year later, just before the release of their one and only album, the very fine if scratchily recorded 'Emotion/Sound/Emotion', and a fab single 'Dreams to Fill the Vacuum', which still deservedly crops up on compilation albums. ISH's keyboard player/vocalist Jane Wilson, who I recall came across in interview as disinterested but also rather shy, subsequently moved into animal welfare and, as Jane Antcliff-Wilson, wrote a pro vegan animal activism book. You can hear a demo they recorded at Western Works in 1979 here. Rod Leigh went on to join Workforce, a wonky funk band very much in the Fon/Chakk vein, although their only single, 1985's 'Skin Scraped Back', was released on the Cabs' Doublevision label to little acclaim.

And there you have it. My article never did find its way into print, so this account will have to serve as a record of my brief time in the Steel City. Some of the conclusions I've reached in the article may be entirely my own take on events, but it was my experience; I hope no one is offended. I feel very privileged to have met the cast of musicians and creatives about whom I've written, albeit relatively briefly, and the fact that I've been able to recall many of these events over 45 years later is testament to the importance that this very brief time had on my life. It is, indeed, a funny old world.

Tinsman Road (USA 2025: Dir Robbie Banfitch)

While Banfitch is no stranger to the 'found footage' approach to movie making, as evidenced by his 2022 film The Outwaters, here he offers something rather different and elegiac using the same format.

It's October. Filmmaker/photographer Robbie Lyle (Banfitch) has returned home from Los Angeles to the New Jersey house in which he grew up, now only occupied by his mother, Leslie (Leslie Ann Banfitch, the director's own mother). She's pleased to see him, but an overarching grief lies across the home; Robbie's sister Noelle disappeared in the woods some time previously, and despite extensive searching, remains lost.

It's clear that for Robbie, there are hidden emotions, complicated by the fact that his mother failed to tell him of the disappearance for some time after it happened. Leslie attempts to keep herself busy baking and keeping the home running on the off chance that Noelle will return; her missing daughter's bedroom remains exactly as it was when she left. 

But Robbie's mother also holds supernatural beliefs, consulting a local medium and regularly talking about spirits and fairies; Noelle's music box, which mysteriously plays at night, and flickering room lights suggest to Leslie an attempt at contact. His instinct is to film his mother, to document her grief and her increasingly erratic behaviour. 

Robbie's presence at home stirs memories of Noelle in the hand coloured cassette tapes and her own recorded music left behind in her room. Perhaps frustrated by the lack of curiosity shown by the police, and the friendship of two local girls, Heather and Nancy (Heather Middleton and Nancy Bujnowski) whose presence triggers memories of his missing sister, Robbie sets out into the woods to try and find Noelle, whether alive or dead.

There's an intimacy to Tinsman Road, unexpected in a film which plays with the audience a little; the movie's introduction, dedicated to the Lyle family, suggests we're about to see a documentary, which is not the case. Reality and unreality are tied together through montages of Banfitch family home movies, featuring the director as a young boy with Leslie as a younger woman, while at the same time the director creates a clever construction of a fictional family setup. And it's a slow construction, Banfitch breaking one of the first 'rules' of found footage (keep it at 75 minutes or less) by his film running nearly two hours, and daring at times to be prosaic, even boring.

Frustratingly Robbie is rarely glimpsed in front of the camera, but his own grief permeates the footage and his desire for the truth - albeit fictional - is palpable. Tinsman Road won't be for everyone - it's lack of action and pace, right up until the film's jolting final few minutes, can test the patience. But it's beautifully done and often surprisingly affecting bearing in mind how little we know about the characters on screen. Recommended.

Tinsman Road is on UK, Ireland, US, Australia and New Zealand digital platforms from 3 August 2026

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2026 #3: Reviews of The Bloodline of Bathory (UK 2026), Dracula in Space (UK 2026), Pinocchio: Unstrung (UK 2026), Miasma (UK 2025) and Lure (UK 2026)

The Bloodline of Bathory (UK 2026: Dir Bryan Norris) Many of you will have heard of the 16th Century Hungarian noblewoman Elizabeth Báthory, who allegedly tortured and killed hundreds of girls and bathed in their blood to keep her young. But what you probably don't know is that the so named 'Bloody Countess' spent part of her life in Yorkshire; at least that's what Bryan Norris would have you believe. It's also the line spun to entice AirBnBers to try something different; a holiday stay with a murderous past.

Four women have rented the accommodation for what they hope will be a relaxing holiday; what they haven't counted on is that their destination is also a museum to the memory of Bathory, a tour around which they are obliged to suffer courtesy of the enthusiastic landlord/tour guide Martin (Michael Geary), under the watchful eye of a painting of the Countess herself. Also on the tour are a bunch of already pissed lads on a stag weekend who have, supposedly, double booked the rental. While the lads agree to stay in another local house, the girls elect to remain at the Bathory residence where, left to their own devices, they inadvertently - through the death of one of their number, Ambereen (Claudia Gregory) - trigger the resurrection of Elizabeth. Their troubles multiply when they find that they're unable to leave the house; any attempt to escape finds them right back in the room they left, where they team up with the lads and get picked off.

The concept of The Bloodline of Bathory is high; everything else remains pretty low, but by no means unenjoyable. Basically played for laughs (and there's no other way of executing so hokey a setup) within a location that's almost too cramped to contain all of the cast, the first half's overall silliness gives way to a slightly more fraught second, with some pretty good makeup and VFX from the ever resourceful Lumapix Creative Studios, who've brought some icky class to several low budget productions. Many of the cast, including star and producer Natasha Tosini, are regulars of the British Fantastic Film sausage factory, and bring the usual excitable performances you expect from this kind of thing. Overall this has a little more wit than many of its genre stablemates.

Dracula in Space (UK 2026: Dir Gregory William Randolph Jr.) Back in the day - ok the 1980s - a movie like Dracula in Space would have been made in an abandoned warehouse and included a lot of wandering around. Actually scratch that: in the UK there were, and still are, very few warehouses available for rent; and we didn't really make movies like that anyway 40 years ago. And even if such facilities were available, Louisa Warren's Champdog Films, who are behind this, couldn't have afforded the hire charge.

So what we have is the Demeter, a space vessel, departing its mission to intercept a distress signal emanating from a seemingly empty ship. Said ship contains a large coffin sized pod which, when brought aboard, disgorges the 'ruler of the damned' himself, Count Dracula (Marcus Massey). The space age crew know not of the infamous vampire, so the Count is free to feed and enslave according to tradition under cover of near darkness, until the captain of the ship, Harker (Charlotte Reidie) works out that it can be controlled by shining UV light at it.

Imagine, if you will, an ultra cheap sci fi horror movie so dark (lighting, not content) as to disguise the fact that it was filmed in an office corridor (possibly Champdog's premises?) with character names taken from Stoker's novel but with the cast having zero knowledge of the vampire myth. Imagine that movie including a 'synth' (android, not keyboard) among its crew (Felipe Chavez) whose chief skill seems to be speaking even slower and more deliberately than the rest of the cast. Imagine a cast that for over two thirds of the movie just sit around talking. Slowly. DiS is jolly hard work by anyone's standards. It's the second Champdog film this year directed by '3 time Emmy Award-winning writer, director, and producer' (it says here) Randolph Jr, although based on this bargain basement cut up of Alien and Dracula 3000 4's a while off.

Pinocchio: Unstrung (UK 2026: Dir Rhys Frake-Waterfield) According to IMDb this is the 53rd movie by Scott Jeffrey's Jagged Edge Productions in less than ten years, and one look at their projects shows considerable growth in the quality and watchability of their movies.

P:U (say it quickly) may not earn plaudits from newcomers to the JE stable, but those familiar with Scott's back catalogue may conclude that this is his company's best work yet. A fast moving but rather odd mix of comedy, horror, sentimentality and genuinely repulsive makeup effects, Frake-Waterfield (whose previous projects include the first two Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey movies; a third is planned) has appropriated the popular wooden hero of the 19th century novel (and later Walt Disney) and taken it to places that...well, you wouldn't expect.

James (Cameron Bell) is a young boy in the care of his grandfather Geppetto (Richard Brake). James's short life has been an unhappy one, losing his parents and also a friend of his own age, Zach, to cancer. So lonely James is delighted when Geppetto introduces him to Pinocchio, a little boy made out of wood, fully animated and keen to hang out with his maker's grandson. Oh and who looks a bit like Zach.

James takes his wooden friend to school where, contrary to the instructions given by Geppetto, he introduces Pinocchio to his mates. But 'Pin's' own moral and spiritual guidance comes from a witchy soul hanging on the back of a door, the Woods Mother, and a small Cricket, voiced by the Robert Englund. Both remind Pinocchio that in order to be a fully functioning boy, he needs to harvest skin and organs, presumably to replace or upgrade his wooden form. Let the rebuild commence!

The most remarkable thing about the surprisingly confident (and bonkers) P:U is the care with which the effects are rendered. Pinocchio as a creation is a combination of animatronics, puppetry and, despite protestations to the contrary, what looks like a smattering of CGI; it's an effective combination and one that obviously stretched the resources of the team (end credit behind the scenes footage attests to this). Mood wise the film oscillates slightly uneasily between light comedy, YA hi jinx (although with liberal bouts of swearing) and, when Pin gets to do his stuff, some of the most startling and realistic (for the budget) practical gore effects I've seen in quite some time; not for this movie the worn out CGI blood splatter FX common to such low budget productions. Of course the movie doesn't make a lick of sense, and Pin seems able to move around school and hospital alike without being discovered, despite basically being a three foot high ambulatory tree trunk. The somewhat redemptive ending is as tonally weird as the rest of the film, but I didn't care, because I loved it. Like a Full Moon picture realised by Guillermo del Toro, this is hugely daft and very messy fun.

Miasma (UK 2025: Dir James Head) Anyone who thinks that the spirit of good old fashioned English eccentricity is a thing of the past, let me introduce you to James Head's sophomore feature as director, following on from 2022's affectionate M R James parody Squeak and I'll Run to You.

Strap yourselves in for this one. Dr Gerald Antrobus (Tony Stansfield, returning from Squeak) is the manager of a local insane asylum, whose inmates include 120 year old Professor Rex Shepherd (William Fitzgerald, also returning from Head's first feature), a killer of 10 who blames the murders on Spotus, a mouldy demon dog he unearthed while excavating in Little Barking, a small town in Cornwall, along with a farting creature called Miasma.

Antrobus is summoned to the reading of a will belonging to his estranged, now late father, the location being the same Little Barking. Once there, via a spell at a time shifting pub called 'The Loose Stool' (you may detect a certain scatological theme here, and you wouldn't be wrong), he arrives at the home of the executor, General Lord Gordon Waverley (Jonathan Hansler, Bogieville, Frankenstein: Legacy) and his grumpy housekeeper Ms Danvers (Katherine M. Ciani). But there's a snag; the will isn't there. It's hidden in the coffin of his father on Devil's Island, a place guarded by Miasma. And Gerald has to go and retrieve it.

If this sounds to you like a rip roarer, then reader I'm here to disabuse you of that notion; at a bum numbing near two hours, Miasma never roars. Rather, for the first half of the movie at any rate, it crawls. Things aren't helped by having most of the film's first act filmed with static actors against green screen, although things liven up slightly when Cornwall is reached. There is no attempt at pacing here, and Stansfield performs his lines as if he were paid for the gaps between them (actually I'm pretty sure no one got paid). The best thing in this is Ciani as the Yugoslavian housekeeper, whose cloud of depression and much welcome physical comedy seems to have strayed in from another film altogether. Chaps, I'm sure Miasma was a blast to make, but it certainly isn't to sit through; the odd bit of invention aside, it's not as big and clever as it thinks it is.

Lure (UK 2026: Dir Oliver Cox) Cox's debut feature is Saw lite in Berkshire. Really. 

Six young men are separately invited to dinner at the impressively grand house wherein lives equally sprightly Islay (Silvia Presente); all six think that the invitation is personal, but when they arrive they're knocked out, branded, tied up and sat around a table. 

This is clearly no ordinary dinner party. Islay, assisted by her father Edward (Tom Stocker) and mother Camilla (Pippa Winslow) is keen to pick out a suitor and father to her child, and only the fittest shall survive. A prologue suggests that this is not the first time this has been attempted.

Yes this is a setup which gives way to 75 minutes of Saw type games, starting fairly mildly with a quiz (the loser suffering a knife in the leg) and a game of cards. Things swiftly escalate into more cruel eye gouging stuff, as the suitors struggle to a) stay alive and b) outwit their captors.

Lure is pretty harsh; like its inspiration, there's little attempt at (or need for?) characteristation; the chaps are all fairly mercenary sorts, who clearly thought that an invitation to a pretty woman's house meant sex. They are of course swiftly disabused of this (indeed Islay discovers that two of the suitors came armed with condoms), and any hope that the group might escape seems dashed by the fact that an unseen control voice - again Saw like - is in charge of the game. 

Cox's movie is well done but pretty inconsequential; I'm not a fan of the hard edit but it could have been useful here, as a largely static camera forces the overwrought score to do all the hard work. I didn't believe a word of it but then I don't think that Cox was aiming for realism here, perhaps more a warning to young men about the objectification of women.

The Curse (Japan 2025: Dir Kenichi Ugana)

Ugana is fast developing a reputation for injecting new blood - pun very much intended - into J Horror's slightly tired reputation. and for his latest he has knowingly plundered the 'cursed technology' theme, which stretches back nearly 30 years to Hideo Nakata's Ringu.

Riko (Yukino Kaizu) works in a hair salon and, like millions of her generation, spends a large part of her social life on phone apps, specifically Instagram. In the apartment she shares with Airi (Mimi Shao) she expresses concern about recent posts from her friend Shufen (Shih-ting Lin), now living in Taiwan, which seem uncharacteristically angry. Airi suggests that Riko contacts her ex Jiahao (Yu Teng Yang), who remains in touch with Shufen. But he has some surprising news; the girl died six months previously, her corpse found on a beach.

Thinking that their friend's account must have been hacked, Airi contacts 'Shufen' and in return receives an odd video which shows a 'paper doll' (a paper cutout of a body with the photograph of the intended victim for a head) being mysteriously hammered to a bloody pulp; and the photograph is of Riko's flatmate.

This is the jumping off point for a movie that spends its first half hour setting itself up as a familiar - perhaps overfamiliar - story of a curse being transmitted through a modern medium; there's even a suggestion of the traditional long haired yurei phantom. But whereas the films of Nakata - and his ilk - offer a restrained if creepy version of the spook story, Ugana has already shown us a very Aster-like prologue in which a previous victim of the curse, screaming their lungs out while running along a street, ends up in contact with - and decapitated by - a passing truck; he's clearly not messing about.

So Riko journeys to Taiwan, a country perhaps more steeped in tradition than modern day Japan, and of course ends up on the wrong end of a 'paper doll' video. There's a lot of coughed up blood, some rather suspect CGI manifestations, dodgy exorcists and a denouement that suggests the director has something to say about phone culture and the ageing process. 

Despite some rather untidy plot elements and it being slightly all over the place, I enjoyed Ugana's rug pull version of a familiar story; I'm guessing he was having a lot of fun delivering a movie whose real sense of humour only becomes apparent in its closing scenes, a cautionary tale not afraid of its over the topness.

The Curse is available to stream from 13 July.