Three Films Make A Post: Romance is dead.

Culloden (1964): Once upon on a time at the BBC, someone like Peter Watkins actually got commissioned/allowed to make a film about the Battle of Culloden in the form of a fake verité documentary with a gigantic angry, anti-colonialist, anti-classist streak that was really not par for the course for its place and time. Or any place or time, truly.

From time to time, there’s a certain awkwardness to the proceedings, mostly in those scenes when Watkins can’t or won’t hide the artificiality of the fighting, or when the amateur actors so beloved of certain arthouse filmmakers can’t quite manage to hit the right notes (because they’re not actors). The film’s loathing for those that send others to their deaths without even a twitch of their consciences make this, alas, painfully timeless a film.

Ghosts of East Anglia (2008): This documentary about the ghosts and ghouls of East Anglia by Andrew Gray is mostly an excuse to present various bits of archive footage taken from TV presentations of many decades past. Thus, this is a fascinating treasure trove of “true” supernatural stuff. If you’re as interested in ghost stories of this type and the way they exist in the cultural mainstream as I am, all of this – tales of black shuck, haunted manors and haunted council flats - is highly fascinating and fun; if you’re not, it’s archive footage with a bit of a dramatic presentation around it.

Heart Eyes (2025): A couple hating killer murders only on Valentine’s Day. Not yet a couple Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding) will have to get through their romantic comedy under duress, the occasional spurt of blood, and rather a lot of dead bodies. Meet cutes don’t usually work this way.

You really can’t blame Josh Ruben’s romantic horror comedy for not going all out with both of its genres. The film’s total commitment to its shtick is absolutely admirable, even more so since Ruben’s direction often very cleverly shifts between the stylistic coding of romantic comedy and horror.

As many a high concept movie, this is a bit slight, but then, most holiday based slashers as well as most romantic comedies are, and we don’t necessarily love them less for it.