kruse-2 Reviews

A Climate for Killing (1991)

A slow-burner, excellent movie

[8 October 2007]

If only all B-movies were this good, we'd all be insomniacs. This is a movie that takes its own sweet time, instead of rushing it moves with a measured grace through its scenes. There's nothing flash, nothing fancy, just people being people. Cinematic clichés, like the Sheriff's daughter's hick dumb bully former husband, are nodded to but not allowed to dominate proceedings. It's like that character in particular is bought in just as if to illustrate to the viewer that while this was a movie well aware of what was expected of it, it damn well wasn't going to go there. Different, individual, this is a class act all the way through.

BB

Cimarron Strip (1967–1968)

The memory of it stays with me still...

[4 March 2006]

I still remember the almost mystical episode where a mysterious something was killing folk just outside the perimeter of the town, leaving their bodies so mutilated that no-one could identify whether death was caused by man or beast. Cimarron Strip was like a western version of the Twilight Zone, instead of being the cartoon town which every other show had the Strip was its own place, far removed physically from the rest of the west and far removed in philosophy and execution from the rest of western TV shows. You never knew what complex psychological problem would come riding into town each week. Marshall Jim Crown stalked the Strip like a six-gunned God and town maiden Dulcie was the fairest of the fair. In TV Heaven, they show this every day. They should - there's never been another western like it.

BB