The official budget for this film was $10 million, the same as I Saw the TV Glow. How is that possible?

$10 million budget? Where did it all go?

I did like the scene in which Owen went to the house of his estranged friend - where he is meant to have been having sleep-overs, when in fact he's been sneaking off to watch The Pink Opaque - and begs the mother to shop him to his Dad, because he's so terrified at the prospect of running away with Maddy.

That aside . . .

I've not seen this version before, but was expecting more from a revision that strips out Penthouse supromo Bob Guccione's retroactive hardcore smut. It claims to be closer to Tinto Brass's original vision, visualised from a script by heavyweight intellectual Gore Vidal, but sadly it's still dull and lumbering, for all its lavish sets and outre spectacle.

A bare-bones rape-revenge tale tricked out with zip-zang-boom visuals and sounds. Even so, it's leaner and better than the director's bloated and unfocused second feature, The Substance (2024).

A would-be scabrous look at creative rivalries, thespian vanities and directorial pretentiousness. Tepid, over-long and - stop me if you have heard this one - with absolutely no idea how to end itself. A problem it addresses by adding further (wholly unnecesary and unedifying) scenes to an already over-extended running time.

A film almost entirely lacking in substance, the majority of whose best scenes are lifted from other, better horror films - be they 'body horror' or not.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet with (laboured) feminst knobs on.

Managed one hour of this disastrous mess of a movie. Never likely to go back and see the remaining hour. Trailer was a corker, but the word of mouth on this one must have killed it stone dead. And deservedly so. Not even Ryan Gosling and Emily's Blunt's on-screen charisma could save it.

I've lost count of how many times I have watched this film, yet it gets better with every viewing.

Bizarrely, in the version screened on Singapore Airlines, all references to Taco Bell were (badly and obviously) over-dubbed with the words Pizza Hut. This despite the fact that the clearly visible sign outside the eatery reads Taco Bell. (You will recall that, following the Franchise Wars, all restaurants in 2032 are now Taco Bells.)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eunsJfxX46I

Bridgeway Cinema, Auckland, New Zealand