The Russia House (1990) – Fred Schepisi

Sean Connery, Michelle Pfeiffer, Roy Scheider, James Fox, John Mahoney, and J.T. Walsh star in the cinematic adaptation of John Le Carre’s novel, The Russia House. Written for the screen by Tom Stoppard, the film was the first, big Western film to be shot on location in the Soviet Union. Featuring a gorgeous score by…

The Equalizer (1985) – The Defector, and The Lock Box

Very quickly The Equalizer has shown that its willing to go dark and gritty, and while there are some dark moments in The Defector, The Lock Box is even darker. The Defector was written by Heywood Gould and first debuted on 2 October, 1985. An old friend, and former agent of the USSR, Felix (Joe…

TAD 2022: The Lair dir. by Neil Marshall

Neil Marshall brings us another bad-ass woman named Sinclair with his latest effort The Lair. Marshall’s films have been much loved by After Dark audiences having previously delivered such solid fare as The Descent, Doomsday (the other Sinclair), Dog Soldiers. Pairing with his lead actress Charlotte Kirk, they penned the script that sees the true…

Road of Bones (2022) – Christopher Golden

Christopher Golden delivers another white knuckle horror thriller with Road of Bones. The tale is set in Russia, on an actual stretch of road known as the Road of Bones and the story follows Teig and Prentiss. Teig is an idea man. He thinks he has an idea for the next big reality show that…

The X-Files (1996) – Tunguska, and Terma

Frank Spotnitz and series creator Chris Carter bring Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) deeper into the mythology arc with Tunguska, which debuted on 24 November, 1996. That duplicitous rat, Krycek (Nicholas Lea) resurfaces, having been freed from the missile silo by an extremist far right group which found him on a salvaging haul….

A Good Day To Die Hard (2013) – John Moore

Bruce Willis returns for a fifth time as New York cop John McClane in an instalment which I desperately hope isn’t the final one in the series because it’s so abysmally bad and you don’t want a series like this to go out on a bad note. Directed by John Moore (who’s past films didn’t…

Narbos Guide to Being a Broomhead (2020) – Pat Mastroianni

Last year in June of 2019, fans from around the world descended in a buzz of excitement and nostalgia on the Westin Toronto Airport hotel for an intimate weekend with the cast and creators of the iconic Canadian series Degrassi Junior High, and Degrassi High. Passionate fans came from as far away as Russia and…

Topaz (1969) – Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock takes on Leon Uris’ novel Topaz in this film adaptation of the same name. It’s not quite on the level of a Tom Clancy techno-thriller, but the subject material, centring around the Cuban Missile Crisis and a Russian spy ring within the French intelligence community is pretty engaging stuff. Unfortunately, for me, it ended…

The Sword and The Dragon (1956) – Aleksandr Ptushko

The next title in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies, as I continue to delve into Dragons and Dinosaurs, takes me to Russia, where the legendary hero Ilja Moromez (Boris Andreyev) is brought to life in the first Russian film to be shot and shown in Cinemacope. It was released in ’56 in Russia, and…

Teenage Zombies (1959) – Jerry Warren

Sometimes bad is so bad that it comes around to being good again, or at least unintentionally funny and enjoyable, and for me that is where the next title in DK Canada’s very enjoyable Monsters in the Movies book falls. This one is just so laughably absurd, trying to marry the teen bopper genre to…