Marshall's Missing 9th & Aldrich's Mad Widow 3

Neil Marshall follows his messy PA flick Doomsday with a much tighter historical action film called Centurion. Based on the legend surrounding the disappearance of the 9th Roman legion during the British campaign there's plenty of halved heads, amputations and grisly combat as the Romans get their asses handed to them by some rather unruly Picts. It looks stunning and sports a decent cast including Dominic West, Michael Fassbender and David Morrissey but the script is pretty weak and after the initial set up it descends into your standard chase movie nonetheless I quite enjoyed it - a unashamedly genre piece that's restored my faith in Marshall who directed both Dog Soldiers and Descent.

Despite it's Columbo/TV movie production values What Happened To Aunt Alice? is a nicely balanced psychological thriller about a recently widowed snob who'll go to murderous lengths to maintain her fancypants lifestyle. Produced by the esteemed Robert Aldrich it's the 3rd in his series of psycho-biddy pictures which started with Baby Jane and was followed by Sweet Charlotte which I haven't seen. Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon put in impressive performances as the combative female leads and help lift this film above mediocrity and though it's not a patch on Jane it's a competent, enjoyable little chiller.