60 Years Of The PMC - Finger On The Pulse Of Culture

2010 marks the 60th anniversary of the launch of the PMC. Yes, it's impossible to believe, but that's because it is impossible.

To mark this auspicious occasion the PMC will be taking a retrospective of some of the outstanding posts of the past six decades. From Cold War to Coldplay and from Ban the Bomb to Ban the Burka, every decade will be represented, and includes highlights from some of the most talked about of contributors...Bertrand Russell, Hunter S. Thompson, Roman Polanski, Roald Dahl and Limahl from Kajagoogoo,  to name but a few - none of them contributed to the PMC's pages (oh, hold on a second, Limahl had a regular section in the early 80s).

It's 1972 and a new, young film reviewer joined the PMC. Not long out of journalist school, and having been a contributor to the infamous 'Piss Off' comic, he was raring to go with some serious journalism and getting to see various films for free. Oh, his name was Wayne Shooter, for goodness sake.

First posted  30th January 1972

Went to see a great movie last night at Theatre One. It's called 'Cannibalised Day of Blood Reckoning' -  you HAVE to go and see it.

Filmed on 8mm cinemascope gives it a graniness which I can only forsee will, on its own, give it the very meaningful title of 'cult' in about 20 or 30 years time.


The maker, still in film school, assembled an excellent cast of his girlfriend, her friend, and some other friends plus one of their dad's to play the policeman, who gets massacred.

One by one, the cast members get massacred, having run out of gas in the middle of the Louisian Bayous. The bit where the guy gets his head completely smashed in is excellent - you can see his brains! Then a cannibal eats it!!

It's not at all depressing and shows just how far we've come in the field of filmmaking since such soft soapy rubbish of 'Wonderful Life', or such unrealistic, bloodless tripe such as Hitchcock's 'Rope' or bourgeoisie-pleasing offerings like 'the Godfather'  (the Studen's Union Class War rep told me to say that, just before he popped up to his parents' house near Henley on Thames).

Indeed, I feel that this new found ability accurately to present blood on-screen will lead to some vastly superior movies than what has been churned out recently, changing the face of the film industry forever.