I keep putting off this review. I’m no good at writing about clever movies.

Double Take is an 80-minute montage film that juxtaposes footage of Cold War-era newsreel footage with clips from Alfred Hitchcock’s numerous television appearances in the 50s and 60s and also a surreal newly-shot sequence  in which Hitchcock meets his future self in a production office during the making of The Birds. The resulting film has a lot to say about identity, hindsight, political one-upmanship and the concept of doubling.

In other words, it’s very clever. And very good.

Last night I watched The House of the Devil, the indie horror movie that all the cool kids have been talking about recently.

Made with an incredible degree of authenticity in the style of early-80s haunted house movies, House of the Devil has all the Walkmans, grainy cinematography and retro promotional material you’d expect from a horror throwback, but mercifully lacks the knowing irony so abundant in recent retro fare. Instead, we get a subtle, suspenseful and always reverential ode to the way ‘they used to do it’.

Still not convinced? Hear this:

It’s also got Greta Fucking Gerwig in it.

(Incidentally, I love Greta Gerwig so much that I’m almost tempted to resurrect a certain unused tab at the top of this column.)

Starring alongside the Mumblequeen are spot-on newcomer Jocelin Donahue and also that guy from the thing, you know the one… the one in the thing with whatshisname, no not him, the other one… yeah him.

In short, The House of the Devil is a brilliant little film, and it’s hard to imagine horror getting any better in 2010.

FINDING IT

Cinema: It’s getting an exclusive release from this Friday at the Apollo Piccadilly Circus, which is bad news for all you non-London readers but good news for fans of half-decent Central London cinemas.

DVD/Blu-ray/Download: Amazon seem to be suggesting that it came out on March 15th but other sources say its not due til the 29th so I don’t know what to believe. Either way, it’s worth picking up on Blu – the grain looks a treat!

Last word: We are going to put this on our Best of 2010 when we get a spare moment.

The poster has turned up for Chris Morris’ upcoming terrorism satire Four Lions and it’s unspeakably shit. Talk about phoning it in; the typeface alone makes me want to throw my Day Today DVDs straight out the window.

On the plus side, I’ve been sent it in such ludicrously high resolution that I can zoom right in and look at all the names in the credits, including re-recording mixer…

Tremble at his might.

Although, admittedly, the sketch set an impossible standard.

There are only a certain number of times you can look at low-res camera phone snaps of the new Scott Pilgrim poster (currently on display at ShoWest) before the reflections, lack of colour definition and warped perspective start to get annoying.

We thought we’d do a sketch instead.

[If you still want to see the real thing, head on over to the always reliable Daily What.]