One of the more unsettling true crime stories of the past 50 years is the murder of Barbara Ann Butler, a young woman who was found dead in her automobile in an Ohio parking lot in the early 1970s, a case that remains open. This story was the basis for The Girl on the Volkswagen…

For over half a century, we have seen many filmmakers engage in an act of chasing after Alfred Hitchcock – obviously not in the literal sense, but rather in how there have been concerted efforts to follow the guidelines he meticulously set down in his long and prolific career, with the term “Hitchcockian” becoming one…

One of the more notable (albeit not too worrying) trends in modern cinema is the overemphasis on grit and realism – it seems like far too many genres are being overtaken by works that appear to be driven by the adage of “less is more”, almost as if anything that goes against this principle is…

Has there ever been a writer more capable of evoking the feeling of genuine mystery quite as well as Dame Agatha Christie? It seems unlikely, even if the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe seem to be stiff competition. Whether it’s the macabre sense of humour, or the fact that the…

There are many inevitabilities in life, but it seems almost certain that among the more pleasant is the universal love for a good murder mystery. From the novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dame Agatha Christie, to The White Lotus and the endless criminal procedurals we see in film and television, we share a…

As the great Thomas Pynchon once wrote, “paranoia is the garlic in life’s kitchen – you can never have too much”, and few films have been able to encapsulate this idea better than Panique, the fascinating character study brought to life but Julien Duvivier, who is adapting the novel Les Fiançailles de Monsieur Hire by…

We all love a decent murder mystery – whether it is the thrill of trying to solve a case alongside the detectives using the carefully-placed clues, the often eccentric characters or bizarre scenarios that usually reflect deeper ideas surrounding social and cultural conventions, there’s something so endearing about these stories, which is the reason they’re…

There is nothing quite as entertaining as a good murder mystery, and someone whose name immediately evokes the idea of quality in this regard is the incredible Agatha Christie, whose works have not only captivated audiences for generations, but actually made history (with The Mousetrap remaining the longest-running play in history, its staggering 70-year run…