Three Films Make A Post: This murder is set on repeat.

Time Cut (2024): You can’t convince me this thing wasn’t written by ChatGPT following a prompt like “write a script to a nostalgic time travel slasher”. That’s the only explanation to characters quite this generically lifeless, dialogue quite this empty and bland, and a plot this shamelessly cobbled together from other, generally better or at least more interesting films.

This is the sort of thing that gives Netflix originals a bad name, but there’s really nothing in the Netflix approach that explicitly forbids a filmmaker to make a good movie or at least one that shows an occasional sign of life – many manage, after all.

He Sees You When You’re Sleeping (2024): I am a bit disappointed that this Christmas thriller/murder mystery pretending to be a Christmas slasher is by far my least favourite of the films directed by indefatigable British low budget indie horror director Charlie Steeds.

On the other hand, given the man’s output (this is film number three or four this year, depending on who is counting), they can’t all be winners. This one suffers from a somewhat limp script (by lead and frequent Steeds collaborator David Lenik) that clearly wants to be sharp and snarky and clever, but can’t quite hit the right notes – certainly not in the dialogue, which isn’t helped by a cast that often simply isn’t quite up to it.

Appointment with Death (1988): On the other hand, I still enjoyed this lesser Steeds quite a bit more than this limp Peter Ustinov Poirot directed by Michael Winner for Cannon films.

You’d think Winner would have sleazed up the material a bit – something I rather like to see done to the works of Christie (but then, I’ve never been a fan) – but instead, this is a mix of about forty percent tourist footage of Israel and sixty percent draggy, unrhythmic dialogue, snoozed through by an on paper fantastic cast. Even Peter Ustinov – a man typically not letting go of any scenery coming his way – seems bored and disengaged, and if you manage to make Ustinov look bored, you’re doing something very wrong indeed.