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2009

★★★★ Rewatched 04 May 2025

I’d rated this as 2.5 stars previously from seeing it when it first came out. Completely over harsh as it’s actually a great thriller about a man retelling his story of making a film (amusingly Women on the Verge…) whilst falling in love with the lead actor, Cruz.

It’s got a lot of the standard Almodovar themes with pseudonyms, multiple timelines, obsessive love, drugs etc. It’s got a gripping storyline and  multi dimensional characters who are flawed but that you also deeply feel for.

Much better than I ed!

1980

★★★½ Watched 27 Apr 2025

Better than I expected after reading some reviews. A pretty anarchic and fun first film from Almodovar. The storyline is fairly simple with Pepi wishing to avenge an assault, primarily by corrupting the already corrupted wife of her assailant! 

It feels more like a series of vignettes and the overall feel is more John Waters than Almodovar for me. But the usual themes are there even in this early film with mistaken identity, drug use, and strong women all running throughout.

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1985

★★★ Watched 05 Apr 2025

Good fun but pretty flabby in places. It’s got a Lost Boys vibe but isn’t as credible. Roddy McDowall is great fun and the comedy sort of makes up for the lack of any genuine scares. Would have benefitted from being a bit shorter. The soundtrack is epic 80s, especially the Sparks song in the nightclub scene. 
Liked it enough to wanna see the sequel

I came back to this review a week or so later. Not sure why I…

1978

★★★★½ Watched 31 Jan 2025

Excellent thriller/horror. It’s a simple story of a coma patient being cared for by a new nurse and you know Patrick is up to no good pretty early on. There isn’t a great deal of mystery about what is going on, but the film is brilliant because Patrick is genuinely creepy. Every time he is on screen, you’re expecting the worst to happen. 

Watched the longest Australian edit but I’m gonna watch the Italian version too just to see how the Goblin soundtrack measures up

7

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