A one-line spoiler-free review of everything I watched in the cinema in June 2025

I’ve ditched the old blurb about “not being a movies person, but anyway…” because since I started going to the cinema regularly in 2022 I’ve turned into the kind of guy who downloads the London Film Festival brochure and meticulously plans what to see. You can find all my one-line spoiler-free reviews here.

House of Wax (1953), André De Toth – Tremendously vivid colour and Vincent Price vamping it up for the ages.

Kiliç Aslan (The Sword and the Claw) (1975), Natuk Baytan – Like House of Wax, this was also a Bar Trash screening, and it was absolutely bonkers, not least because the dubbed version is done by an American cast who genuinely sound like they are reading the script for the very first time and are thinking more about what to pick up for dinner from Walmart later that day.

The Salt Path (2024), Marianne Elliott – Gillian Anderson is a national treasure and alongside Jason Isaacs gives a great and tender performance in this, although as a star of the show the nature and countryside on display shouldn’t be under-estimated.

The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025), James Griffiths – Tim Key being delightfully Tim Key in this which, while appearing to be a slight romcom of a story, actually moved me a lot with its meditations on grief, nostalgia, and heavily implied neurospiciness. But also maybe I was just easily moved at the moment because I have gone mad and am off work sick.

Das Schloß (The Castle) (1997), Michael Haneke – Ummmm, I didn’t see this, because the BFI inexplicably cancelled all its screenings that day due to an incident.

Tornado (2025), John Maclean – A western/samurai movie set in Britain in the 1790s, this was one of those movies that was gripping despite every single character, including the protagonist, being commendably dislikable.

[Kōki in Tornado]

The Masque of the Red Death (1964), Roger Corman – An absolute riot of sadism and satanism with Vincent Price at the helm, plus the inexplicable decision to cast a child in the role of a woman with dwarfism, dub her with a sexy grown woman’s voice, and have a load of men lusting after her. Different times. It was different times.

[Vincent Price in Masque of the Red Death]

Read more of my one-line spoiler-free reviews of everything I’ve watched in the cinema.