It’s public domain IP time, folks! After Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey waded into the concept of bringing horror riffs to classic, childhood favourites, a number of projects were queueing up to put their own scary spin on a number of beloved characters as soon as those pesky copyright issues were out of the way. Peter Pan and Popeye have both been given a macabre makeover and Screamboat is another production to ride that wave, announced just one day after the Steamboat Willie incarnation of a certain mouse was declared. It’s taken longer to get here than masked killer flick The Mouse Trap – let’s be honest, I’ve ordered Blu-Rays that took longer to get here than The Mouse Trap – and with relatively short distance but distance nonetheless, Screamboat may suffer less from the passing association than it could have.
A pre-title card sequence puts our rancorous rodent in play after being unwittingly freed from captivity and his decades of resentment are about to be unleashed on the passengers taking the late night Staten Island Ferry, including Selena (Alison Pittel) who has designs on working in the world of fashion but is running out of enthusiasm as regards her time in the Big Apple. She’s also less than thrilled that she’s part of the high energy, even higher pitched birthday celebrations of a group of “princesses” (geddit?) with names such as Ilsa, Bella and Jazzy (geddit?).
Where Blood And Honey felt like a variation on The Strangers where the original bad guys could have been cut and pasted over with A.A. Milne’s creations, Steven LaMorte’s movie at least takes the standard slasher set-up – a bunch of folks trapped in one location at the mercy of a psycho – and leans the action at least a little into the wheelhouse of its diminutive murderer, whistling while he works and played with panache by David Howard Thornton. Yes, he of Art The Clown infamy, bringing his talents as a mostly silent performer to bear here, whether it’s falling in love with the Final Girl or breaking into a dance routine on the top of a block with which he’s just splattered some poor bloke’s bonce.
With a runtime of a hundred and two minutes, Screamboat threatens to run aground in the middle section, which leaves it becalmed for a while following a breezy first act which gets the craft on the water in timely fashion and chucks in a couple of gruesome early kills for good measure. It’s the section of the movie in which the backstory of Willie is sketched in, courtesy of the voice of experience and exposition that is Barry (played by Jarlath Conroy) who’s playing a less grizzled version of his Bill McDermott from Day Of The Dead. To help him along there’s an animated (well, sorta) flashback, which doesn’t come close to hitting the impressive heights of the similarly formatted opener from Blood And Honey, but doesn’t have its drawback of those subsequent live-action scenes making the viewer long for the cartoon sequence.
The screenplay by LaMorte and Matthew Garcia-Dunn might not be big on the development of its protagonists, other than a potential romantic subplot between Selena and unambitious ferry company employee Pete (Jessy Posey), but its sense of dropping as many people as possible into Willie’s kill zone as possible to be offed in various, bloody ways will be music to the ears of the less discerning gorehound. And if you, like I, have travelled on the Staten Island Ferry and thought “That’s not long enough a trip to sustain a feature length movie” then there’s an unplanned extension to the voyage.
Speaking of unplanned extensions, one of the kills does feature a police officer’s appendage being lopped off in the midst of the film’s one attempt at including a little gratuitous nudity, which it grabs with both hands – not literally, before you get too excited – and unveils with the line “Can you feel the love tonight?.” The frequent, semi references to the House Of Mouse might be about as subtle as the hammer Willie uses to batter one of his victims (before feeding him into the ferry’s propeller to make sure) but this does demonstrate that, as scattershot as the approach is, some thought has also gone into it. I can not deny that.
Shot on board a decommissioned ferry and featuring plenty of good, old fashioned practical effects, Screamboat may feature wobbly acting (save for DHT and the Conroy cameo) but it has genuine production values and a sense of fun that’s lacking in the other spins on public domain horror we’ve been treated to so far. I’m going to forget the digitally rendered fire, it rarely looks good, but if you’ve got a prosthetic dick kicking around from one of the set pieces, why not use it in a hilariously childish way somewhere else? I laughed out loud at this point and I am not embarrassed to admit it. I wasn’t asked to review Citizen Kane here.
The final act may make a slightly odd play for sympathy towards Willie, considering he’s slaughtered a literal boatload of people over the previous hour and a half, but at least this is still undercut with the comic strip-style daftness which permeates the rest of the film and it’s bolstered further by Thornton’s comedic talents. The ending, like so many other slashers, leaves the proceedings open for a potential sequel. The very thought of this may terrify the viewing public far more than anything on display in Screamboat, but I had a far better time with this than I thought I would.
So, is Screamboat a great movie? Absolutely not. However, it takes a potentially flimsy premise and runs with it, resulting in a movie experience that’s often as clunky as the Staten Island Ferry itself, but just about wins through in the end with its weird charm, silly gags and a number of pleasingly gory set pieces. If you’re looking for something undemanding, be our guest.
Screamboat (2025) is currently on limited cinematic release, only at Vue.
Judge Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush) is presiding over his latest case and pronouncing both his contempt and a custodial sentence of sixteen years to the paedophile in his dock when his speech falters, he loses focus and then collapses, having suffered a stroke. Next, he’s being wheeled into the Royal Pine Mews Care Home, an establishment which meets Mortenson’s current financial level, the Judge having fallen foul of investments which have failed.
Once there, Stefan’s dream of a single room where he can’t be bothered is immediately shattered as he’s introduced to roommate Tony Garfield (George Henare), an ex-international rugby player. The carers think the two will get on like a house on fire, but Stefan’s view of the world – and those he perceives to be below his level – is such that his experience of those sportsmen has been watching them dodge rape charges.
However, the prospect of an enforced sidekick pales into insignificance as Stefan discovers there’s a genuinely malevolent presence in this seemingly benign environment. Dave Crealy (John Lithgow) may look, and often behave, like a sweet, slightly lost old man who expresses himself through the puppet of a baby doll called Jenny Pen, but he’s very different out of the sight of the carers, roaming the halls in the early hours and alarming the inhabitants, forcing them to pledge allegiance to Jenny Pen in demeaning and disgusting ways. Crealy sees Mortensen as a worthy target and the new addition is next on the list to answer to the question of who rules the roost.
Director James Ashcroft’s debut feature was the jarring, brutal road movie Coming Home In The Dark and, although this follow up isn’t as explicitly violent, The Rule Of Jenny Pen is no less disturbing, playing on our natural fears of getting old and becoming frail, with fewer ways in which to defend ourselves and with fewer people in our corner. The scenes in which our partially paralysed protagonist struggles to complete basic physical tasks and then begins to lose his cognitive abilities would be chilling enough without Lithgow lurking in the shadows, waiting for his moment to pounce.
Early on in the proceedings, Stefan says, “Where there are no lions, hyenas rule,” and this is the case at Royal Pine Mews as Crealy preys on the weak around him, whether it’s helping himself to the soup of a female resident or subjecting Tony to a prolonged, frightening assault in the dead of night. The ex-Judge decides that Crealy must be stopped, but can he deal with a man who has the nursing staff wrapped around his little finger and can’t see that the bloke’s a psychopath?
Ashcroft sets up an interesting clash between the learned Mortensen, who likes to think deeply about life and quote from A Farewell To Arms, and everyman Cleary, who enjoys dancing a frenetic jig while singing Knees Up Mother Brown. At first, Mortensen’s general arrogance and willingness to humiliate Tony doesn’t exactly paint him as the most sympathetic of characters but he soon learns a lesson in finding out exactly who your friends are. The reveal of Cleary as not only a bully but someone potentially capable of murder ups the stakes and makes for a number of tense, sometimes blackly comic, encounters as he vows to break Mortensen and make him bow to Jenny Pen.
The Rule Of Jenny Pen capitalises on its unusual setting and its powerhouse performances, delivering an indie horror which relies on its constant sense of threat plus a handful of harrowing scenes, and one or two moments of absolute madness, to keep the viewer on edge. A sequence in which Lithgow gatecrashes a hitherto gentle spot of community ballroom dancing and transforms it into a senior version of a mosh pit is a demented delight.
It has to be said that some suspension of disbelief is required, certainly when it comes to how certain events could happen in a care home without someone either questioning them or at least having some way of recording them, but the screenplay by Ashcroft and Eli Kent throws its focus on the battle between Mortensen and Cleary and mostly keeps the care home staff in the background, except for a few amusingly accurate asides as they deal with the day to day strangeness of their workplace. Of course, the care home’s manager doesn’t believe a word of the accusations against Cleary.
Geoffrey Rush, in his first acting role since 2019’s Storm Boy, portrays Mortenson as a man naturally prone to seeking justice and standing up to the bullies of society, but whose intolerance of those he sees as cowards and fools almost proves his undoing, his air of superiority clouding the judgements of those around him. It’s a nuanced, complex performance, holding up superbly against the frankly terrifying Lithgow, whose marrow-freezing stare and endlessly cruel streak will have audiences dreading the next time he shows up and then climbing the walls waiting for him to get his comeuppance. There’s one particular scene in which he’s introduced as a silhouette and the feeling that something dreadful is going to happen is palpable.
It’s pleasing to see horror which features older, wiser folks in peril as opposed to yet another round of bright young things being chopped into pieces. The Rule Of Jenny Pen is, like the folks in Royal Pine Mews, steadily paced, but this allows the tension to be cranked up to oppressive levels. The final showdown and its aftermath might trigger thoughts of how that last scene came to be without specific ramifications, but it doesn’t derail what’s gone before. We’re enjoying an era in which accomplished actors are giving great performances in the horror genre without immediately being accused of slumming it and long may that continue. Rush and Lithgow are exceptional in a film which is thoroughly unnerving from start to finish.
The Rule of Jenny Pen (2024) is in select cinemas from 14th March 2025.
Recently single Ally (Olivia Holt) feeds her current feelings on romance into a bold pitch for the jewellery company she works for, focusing on doomed couples throughout the ages. This does not sit well with Ally’s boss Crystal (Michaela Watkins) who thinks the ad is in poor taste and could easily be linked to the Heart Eyes Killer, a serial wacko who has been targeting couples for the past couple of Valentine’s Days. To rescue the campaign, Ally is teamed up with hotshot pitch dude Jay (Mason Gooding), the same guy Ally literally bumped into as she stopped for coffee earlier that day.
A meeting at a restaurant to discuss strategy sees Ally and Jay bump heads in the metaphorical sense this time, and the evening looks to be ending early until Ally sees her previous boyfriend arriving with his new girlfriend. In an attempt to salvage something from the lowest point of her already crappy day, Ally pretends Jay is her new beau and makes a point of kissing him in public in front of her ex. What Ally and Jay don’t know is that the Heart Eyes killer has is watching the place and has just added them both to the kill list…
Directed by Josh Ruben, whose previous feature was Werewolves Within, and co-written/co-produced by Christopher Landon, a key creative force in a number of genre entries including the Happy Death Day movies, I went into Heart Eyes hoping for a combination of scares, slashings and snappy scripting common to those titles. I’m happy to report that this new entry into potential franchise territory does not disappoint, ditching the meta trappings of such juggernauts as Scream, but keeping the tense, gory pre-titles action and presenting a list of suspects and a rising body count, all investigated by dogged detectives Hobbs (Devon Sawa) and Shaw (Jordana Brewster). Yes, there is a joke about their surnames.
Comedy horror is a tricky one to get right, that’s for certain. Comedy horror romance is a juggling act inviting failure. However, if you set aside the bloody set pieces and frequent jump scares, Heart Eyes also works terrifically well as a romcom, giving the viewer an amusing but not overplayed meet cute and some classic initial tension between Ally and Jay before throwing various obstacles – and several bodies – in a twisted take on the usual will they, won’t they plot.
Holt is delightful as the reluctant marketing type and even more reluctant battler of a scary murdering type. Ally is given the chucklesome background of a med school dropout who changed careers due to having issues with the sight of blood. As someone who doesn’t flinch at fake claret splattering the screen, but has to fight the urge to throw up whenever I see a drop of the red stuff spilled for real, I was with her.
Gooding, fresh from being the Scream continuation’s human knife magnet, gets to step out of the supporting shadows and proves a more than capable romantic lead. In so many romcoms, his character would be utterly insufferable in act one but his performance, coupled with the writing, plays down the antagonistic aspects of a guy brought in to ostensibly fix the gaffes made by an already ridiculed and emotionally wounded Ally. There’s also the undeniable fact that he’s a very handsome chap, which should go a long way to smoothing over any issues with anyone who has accepted the mission of sitting through the nasty bits to savour this eye candy.
So, let’s take a look at those nasty bits, shot through with humour, but not skimping on some spectacular gore and various painful collisions with body parts and bladed objects. This is a film which knows the value of regular grimaces punctuating the giggles. There’s also an equal opportunity air brought to the who’s saving who of the escalating clashes between mistaken pairing and killer, and those skirmishes are played out in a variety of locations such as a carousel, a police station and a drive-in.
He may no longer be attached to Scream 7 but Christopher Landon has landed on his feet here, helming a breezy slasher which delivers a perfect balance of fun and frights, confidently mixing the sweet with the splattery. As with Wes Craven’s genre savvy opus, this has its own, potentially iconic line in slaughter chic and a similarly convoluted resolution which sets it as a standalone for the time being, but possesses the scope for what could well be a brand new horror franchise. The next incarnation of Ghostface’s ongoing spree will have to go some to match this.
Loved-up couple Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid) head off for a weekend getaway of what they think will be rustic living, only to find that their accommodation is far swankier than the cabin they’d expected. The place is owned by the well to do, slightly scary Sergey (Rupert Friend) who is currently is involved in a fling with Jack’s friend Kat (Megan Suri). Rounding out the party sextet is the unrelentingly sweet pairing of Eli (Harvey Guillén) and Patrick (Lukas Gage). Iris worries that Kat hates her, but that will turn out to be the very least of her worries…
The trailers for writer/director Drew Hancock’s debut cinema venture made a neat joke about how it was from the studio that brought you The Notebook and the folks behind Barbarian, promising a union of the romantic and the plain batshit crazy. While Companion doesn’t quite reach the latter title’s extremes, nor does it aim to, it still contains a whole host of “oh, they went there” moments, sparked by the early deployment of a central twist which is merely a stepping off point for a highly imaginative, escalating nightmare.
Even the opening sequence – a fruit-based meet-cute between Iris and Josh in a grocery store – is shot as though something’s not quite right, but it’s the discovering of that which means that even a viewing of the trailer is a potential spoiler. Or is it? Don’t read the summary on IMDb, it wrecks the initial surprise and even if you do predict that first act reveal, it’s still a more rewarding feeling than waiting for it to drop and then wondering where the story will head next.
If you are in the camp who did have it spoiled by others, it isn’t like you’re not going to have a good time, as Hancock has a series of hilarious or horrific (or hilarious and horrific) developments lined up while making pithy observations on the state of relationships, be it with the opposite sex or with our smartphones. It’s no great spoiler to divulge that things go wrong – you can’t get six people together in a remote location and have the weekend pass without incident, them’s the rules – but it’s just how, when and why things may go wrong and how much worse things can get which provides the entertainment.
The CVs of the assembled cast feed into the ongoing guessing game. What We Do In The Shadows fans will be intrigued to find out whether Guillén reprises his overqualified doormat role and aficionados of Quaid’s work will wonder just where Josh will sit on his The Boys to Scream VI continuum. Every player in this is given lines which the viewer will feel are so on the nose that a rug pull can’t be far away. I’m not telling.
In a movie of excellent performances, there’s none more excellent than that of Sophie Thatcher, bringing a depth and mystery to Iris that propels the plot and makes it impossible to take your eyes off her. Initially presented as the doting, dutiful girlfriend, is there something about her eagerness to please that isn’t quite on the level, or is she wired to be a genuinely nice person? Again, I’m not telling.
Suffice to say, the tension builds, the early details woven into the tale pay off in spades along the way and the final act delivers on high stakes showdowns and satisfying resolutions, ending with a sequence which is loaded with extraordinary ramifications. I left the cinema with a huge grin on my face, but also a number of questions as to the possible next chapters without ever feeling the need for a sequel.
In years gone by, the early part of the year was considered a graveyard for genre movie releases, a place where failed horror and thriller titles sneaked into cinemas in the hope that they’d make a modest amount of cash from shock-starved fans before slinking off to die quietly on disc on the shelves of Asda. Not so nowadays. Companion disproves that old adage and then some. It made me laugh, it made me grimace, it made me mad, it made me excited, it even made me gasp on occasion. It’s a strong contender for my Top Ten Horror Movies of 2025 and we’re only just into February. Yes, it’s that good. It also includes an eyebrow raise for the ages. See it before someone you know sees it and can’t resist letting you know every single thing about it.
A group of outlaws led by Porter (Laura Holloway) finds their hideout discovered by security forces and, following a struggle in which one of their number is critically injured, they must decide whether or not to make their escape or make a stand and defend their fellow criminal. As increasing numbers of law enforcers descend on their no longer safe house, they’re about to make a shocking discovery about their situation…
It’s dystopian future time once more, but anyone bracing themselves for the expected dose of the unrelenting doom the subgenre often provides may find themselves cheered by Danny Domes’ comedic mix of siege thriller and media satire, populated by a group of characters well suited to a video game, including tech boffin Cipher (Allison Shrum), gun aficionado Brick (Ted Welch), teenage dream, martial arts arse-kicker Fera (Quinnlan Ashe) and naïve rookie Kinder (Schyler Tillett).
The video game comparisons are well suited to the overall structure of the plot, with wave after wave of the titular attackers providing fresh challenges to our anti-heroes. The clone cops themselves are highly amusing, all based on one particular specimen and prone to having action pausing, friendly chats with both their duplicates and their intended quarry. The shootouts and fights are also broken up with updates from two insufferably jolly cyberspace personalities and ads for a new, disgusting sounding flavour of gin.
As usual, its outlaws going up against big business – this time an all-powerful organisation going by the name of Nefaricorp. Their US operation is, therefore, known as NefariUS. Geddit? If this level of humour is going to get you groaning, there’s plenty more where that came from, but smarter laughs are also on offer. Also, the fun is occasionally offset by a handful of bonafide hits to the feels and a pleasing twist, which sends the tale in a different direction and ups the stakes for the main protagonists.
Of course, not wishing to divulge the plot swerve does leave my hands tied in terms of specific sequences to look out for, but the various strands of story, though verging on the episodic, remain broadly engaging. For instance, the antics of expert clone manufacturer “One Tank” Frank (Henry Haggard) are often chucklesome, even if the emphasis on an overload of wackiness in the lab-set scenes may have you craving more straightforward, straight-faced thumping of enemies courtesy of the perma-dour Fera.
Yes, trappings such as the limited number of settings, some extended, dialogue heavy takes and digitally created blood and muzzle flashes mark Clone Cops as a low budget affair, but the care and attention shown is evident across the entire runtime, with canny costume choices and excellent production design which lends the film rewatchability in terms of the numerous screen layouts featured throughout. Those inescapable scrolling comments may not have the bite of say, Deadstream, but cover the variety of types splattering the socials, like Outraged Oliver who shows up early on with a ready complaint for every different incident.
Clone Cops may take aim at familiar targets such as online culture, crime shows and the appetite of corporate marketing departments when it comes to transforming anything into a quick buck, but its main purpose is to entertain rather than bury its viewer under a heap of heavy messaging. The promotional push for a series of Hit Squad figures and their battle buggy – and subsequent issues caused by the Hit Squad making their supposedly grand appearance – sums up much of the movie itself, confident enough to make potentially massive set-pieces into daft, throwaway gags so it can progress to its next idea. Not all of it lands, but the willingness to stave off any lag in the proceedings by throwing another concept into the sauce (you’ll understand when you watch the film) keeps the mix simmering until the climactic showdown – which includes a hummable tune and a spot of dancing.
Sticking to Nefaricorp’s guiding principles of constructing a Replican rather than a Replican’t, Clone Cops is the indie antithesis of the rainy, grey, washed out melancholy of Blade Runner, delivering a brightly coloured burst of sci-fi lite that may not lean as hard enough into its many concepts as it should, but nonetheless delivers an amusing take on recognisable tropes while giving the viewer a serviceable adventure yarn, boosted by appealing performances from Shrum and Ashe.
In the year 2050, the world is in the grip of economic disaster. In South Africa, the city of Cape Town is hardly an exception to the rule, experiencing ninety percent unemployment and daily unrest as the homeless try to survive in a society where it’s just them and the super-rich. Displaced from a middle class which no longer exists, Alex (Donna Cormack-Thomson) is taken in by the friendly Ronald (Sean Cameron Michael) and his bunch of amiable street-dwelling misfits whose aim is to have as quiet a life as possible – until, that is, they uncover a plot by the establishment to exterminate those deemed undesirable with a toxic chemical agent…
I clearly remember renting the original Street Trash on VHS and being stunned at how it was lifted from the morass of most direct-to-tape offerings by being so bizarre and wilfully offensive, to the point of having me crack up laughing on several occasions and subsequently love it to bits. I’m aware it’s a movie that a lot of people don’t like and, if you’ve seen the Jim Muro source material and are on that particular, rather crowded boat, I understand your annoyance.
In the list of movies ripe for a remake, reboot, reimagining, call it what you will, I would not have expected Street Trash to be given that treatment, but here we are. We live in interesting times. When I heard Ryan Kruger was going to be in charge of the new version, it seemed the perfect choice as his previous movie, the frankly bonkers Fried Barry, possessed a great deal of the scuzz and the seemingly random, episodic happenings of Muro’s 1987 opus.
Muro (credited here as J. Michael Muro) and original writer Roy Frumkes are on board as executive producers and there’s still a feel of the ’87 version in the way our jolly band of homeless folks are introduced, although there’s a sharper focus on the main plot and fewer, button-pushing diversions. This time out, you don’t get a vignette in which someone’s severed penis becomes an extended game of piggy in the middle, but there is a nod to that in an early chase sequence in which a powdered variant of Viagra is used to slow down a pursuing police officer.
The contaminated hooch of Frumkes’ story is replaced by a much more sinister agenda, as those flagged as surplus to requirements are experimented upon via injection and aerosol. If you’ve come for the melting, there’s someone leaking neon goo and losing bits of themselves even before the opening title card shows up. From there, we’re spun through a series of RoboCop-style news articles detailing the terrible state of affairs – including the confirmed death of the last rhino on the planet – before homing in on Ronald and his unlikely band of heroes.
No previous knowledge of the origin tale is necessary to enjoy the 2024 incarnation of Street Trash, but for those of us who have seen both, comparisons are inevitable. The OG Frumkes screenplay sets out to assault the viewer’s sensibilities as much as possible and succeeds a fair amount of the time. This redo, co-scripted by Kruger and James C. Williamson, still features a number of awful things happening, but the ludicrous nature of it all is given more emphasis, which goes a long way to taking the edge of the potential offence. That’s not to say that innocent folks being made to dissolve into puddles of goo doesn’t have the necessary punch, but there’s a certain cartoony element to the proceedings and a clear delineation between the good and bad guys which gives the whole thing the air of a very gory pantomime. Oh no, it isn’t, I hear you cry. Oh yes, it is and you’re waiting for the boo-inducing villains to get their comeuppance.
Very much like Muro’s messy mini-maybe-masterpiece, mileage will vary, although in this update it isn’t the level of offence you can stomach, it’s how much of the often puerile humour, often centred on bodily fluids or sex, you can take. If you like the idea of a foul-mouthed, sex and violence obsessed alien called Sockle which only Gary Green’s character of 2-Bit can see, then you’ll most likely enjoy the rest of what Street Trash has to offer. Yes, Gary Green was the titular subject of Fried Barry and is a welcome presence here, giving a welcome, off-kilter turn which you suspect is going to shift in an amusingly different direction come the third act (it does).
For a movie with Trash in the title, the performances aren’t rubbish (See what I did there? Sorry). Sean Cameron Michael is a genial presence as the philosophical Ronald, Cormack-Thomson gives good wronged, out for revenge lass and Joe Vaz rides the lovable/annoying line for all he’s worth as the talky Chef. In terms of the real criminals of the piece, Warrick Grier as the conniving Mayor Mostert and Andrew Roux as the thuggish Officer Maggot are fine, but aren’t given much to do other than being the punchline to a couple of major confrontations.
And this is where Street Trash, unfortunately, does fall down somewhat. The heroes are, for the most part, fun and engaging to follow, but their enemies lack the detail to be genuinely worthy adversaries. There is a point to be made that, come the revolution, the folks in power will prove themselves to be genuinely useless in defending themselves, but a last stanza overthrow of the regime never seems remotely in doubt and perhaps I wanted a little more jeopardy in getting there. Still, it would be churlish to throw the entire film under the bus because of that and seeing the usual “eat the rich” manifesto turned into “melt the rich” is satisfying, if only to see yet more gloopy effects.
So, how does 2024 Street Trash stack up against 1987 Street Trash? I may not be the right person to answer that question, as I’ve seen the 1987 vintage more times than is probably safe for one human being to see it and I should give this young whippersnapper the same level of consideration over a longer period of time. What I can say is that Ryan Kruger has brought his own stamp to the material while maintaining a level of reverence for the audience-baiter upon which it’s based, softening some of the spikier edges to make it more palatable while still delivering on the spilled guts and liquefying limbs.
Street Trash will be available on limited edition Blu-ray from 17th February. Pre order on HMV & Amazon here.
Another year, another bunch of comments about how this year’s been a terrible one for decent horror titles. To be fair, the quantity of those comments appears to be substantially smaller than the pile of posts which bemoaned 2023’s genre output. Narrowing the field down to ten proved, as ever, exceptionally difficult because there’s been so much damn good stuff to enjoy. This is also the reason that there are six Honourable Mentions instead of the usual five, because I felt it would be too mean to drop one of them.
As is customary, the rule is that to qualify for inclusion the film has to be a new (or new-ish) one which I viewed during 2024. As usual, if your favourite isn’t among the list, it might not have landed with me, but it’s more likely that I enjoyed it very much and it didn’t quite make the cut or I wasn’t able to get around to seeing it. There are thousands of movies out there and a finite amount of time to watch them. It’s a rubbish excuse, I know, but it’s my rubbish excuse and I’m sticking with it.
Enough waffle. Here’s my Top Ten, in purely alphabetical order…except for the fact that I’m going to mention which two were competing for my best of the year. On with the list!
BLINK TWICE
Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut features Naomi Ackie as Jess, who accepts an invitation to the private island of Channing Tatum’s tech bro Slater King, a place where the luxury holiday experience seems too good to be true, with the weird visions that begin to creep into her mind suggesting that could be exactly the case.
Kravitz gives toxic masculinity a considered kicking in a tale which carefully constructs the rarified atmosphere of a billionaire’s world in which something is clearly up from the start, unveiling the clues and shocks at a measured pace before hitting the viewer with the stark terror of what’s behind the exotic locale, the unlimited champagne and the Michelin-starred meal options.
Blink Twice is a stylish, satirical thriller which combines the #MeToo movement and the re-energised “eat the rich” notion into a slick package, amping up the tension and sardonic humour as we wait to see whether or not a bunch of the most hideous blokes alive will get their comeuppance. It’s a feminist movie, no doubt, and all the better for taking that stance, but there’s genuine catharsis here for everyone and the resolution is a sly, pleasing one.
BROKEN BIRD
Vying for my favourite film of the year along with The Substance (damn it, I’ve given away one of my picks), Joanne Mitchell’s mix of vivid fantasy and crushing reality sees mortician Sybil meeting the man of her dreams and then being given the most gruesome opportunity to spend a lot more time with him. I heard this described as “Coraline meets Nekromantik” and that’s a fair shout, although Broken Bird is better than both, if you ask me.
The screenplay from Dominic Brunt, rich with detail, sharply contrasts the mundanity and low key hilarity of life in a small place with brilliantly rendered dream sequences. There’s also some surprising gore along the way and a few genuinely startling moments as Sybil’s view of the world becomes increasingly skewed, leading to a fiery and heartbreaking climax.
Elevating the material still further is as astonishing lead performance from Rebecca Calder, her fragile outward appearance concealing a steeliness and fierce imagination. Sybil is driven to do some dreadful things, but it’s difficult not to have some sympathy with her plight, even when an equally damaged detective is on Sybil’s trail and tragedy surely lies just around the corner. Despite the often ghastly business in play, Broken Bird is a rather beautiful and ultimately tear-jerking foray into the workings of a unique mind.
CANNIBAL MUKBANG
My first opportunity to see this was in December 2023 at the Soho Horror Film Festival, but that didn’t pan out and I ended up viewing it this year, so last year’s loss is very much this year’s gain. April Consalo plays Ash, whose hungry online audience is frequently sated by videos of her consuming vast quantities of admittedly delicious looking food. A chance meeting with the socially awkward Mark slowly develops into something more serious, but their fledgling romance is about to be tested severely, especially when Mark discovers the source of those tender morsels.
Blood. Sex. Food. That’s the tagline of Cannibal Mukbang and there’s no skimping on any of those in Aimee Kuge’s tangy blend of romcom and raucous revenger, twisting the tropes of those genres in unexpected and darkly comical ways, including the turning of the developing relationship montage into a series of gleefully executed murders.
The whole production oozes confidence and class. Kuge’s smart script has much to say about toxic relationships and the cycle of dependency. The cinematography and lighting cannily matches the shifting mood of the piece. The performances are terrific across the board, in particular the complex character of Ash, perfectly portrayed by April Consalo. How she isn’t already a massive star is something I can’t fathom. If enough of us watch this, maybe we can make it happen.
HELL HOLE
The Adams Family returns with a pleasingly twisted take on the monster movie, as a fracking operation in Serbia releases something far more deadly than a gas pocket, throwing the project into an escalating nightmare which mixes mumblecore workplace comedy with The Thing. You probably don’t want to know how the monster gains access to its victims, but that’s made abundantly clear quite early on.
This is slightly less of a family affair this time out, with Zelda Adams absent and Lulu Adams on co-writing duties only, but John Adams and Toby Poser are present and amusingly incorrect here, working with a Serbian crew on their latest opus. This reflects the onscreen action in a lovely way, with all of the culture clashes and language barriers which that type of enterprise produces.
Sure, it’s a creature pic which is a huge amount of fun and it can be enjoyed purely on those terms, but lurking just under the surface there are big themes, including bodily autonomy, the ethics of profiteering from an increasingly unstable planet and American involvement on foreign shores. There’s much to chew on while being grossed out by the impressive gloopy and bloody special effects and, for anyone who thought Where The Devil Roams was a little too downbeat and brutal, this finds the Adamses in more playful mood. It’s grisly, hilarious and unsettling, often at the same time.
HERETIC
I did not have “Hugh Grant – Horror Icon” on my bingo card for 2024 but here we are. Festival goers and indie fans feasted this year, but denizens of the multiplex were provided with choice cuts too, Heretic being one of the prime examples of its type. Two young missionaries show up at the front door of Grant’s Mr. Reed and find themselves in a battle of wills as Reed brings a studied, increasingly worrying shakedown to their entire system of belief.
Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, they of A Quiet Place (and, yes, 65, but let’s not think about that right now), this is a similarly high concept piece which may be rather talky in its first half but oh, the talk is good, raising pertinent queries about the fundamentals of religion and the wider topic of control, while taking care to portray those with faith as rounded, engaging, sympathetic folks. Its approach of questioning everything never feels like an atheist-driven hit job and there’s a central mystery to the strange goings-on which is adeptly unravelled down the home stretch.
Grant is excellent and clearly relishing a well written, multi-layered role which constantly keeps the viewer on their toes as to just how far he will go to prove his points. Swerving, for the most part, the albeit skilfully crafted jump scares of AQP in favour of an overriding air of unease throughout, Heretic proves that you don’t need to dumb down to win over your audience. Also, Hallelujah! for an ending which doesn’t have a sequel on its mind.
THE LAST PODCAST
Charlie Bailey (Eric Tabach) hosts a podcast which debunks supposedly supernatural occurrences, but when one episode backfires spectacularly he finds himself being followed around by the ghost of junior professor Duncan Slayback (Gabriel Rush). Charlie sees a chance for both personal and follower growth, but his focus on clicks and monetisation threatens to derail both his relationship with long-suffering girlfriend Bree and Duncan’s side mission to complete some unfinished business.
Writer/director Dean Alioto’s inspiration was the buddy humour of An American Werewolf In London and the back and forth between Tabach and Rush does contain traces of that, but The Last Podcast is very much its own beast, balancing the humour and horror with a great deal of skill and revealing layers to our two protagonists that we may not like while keeping the chuckles and chills coming in regular fashion.
Combining classic ghostly activity with pointed jibes about the contemporary influencer’s issue of growing your follower base, The Last Podcast delivers a number of genuine jolts on its way to a satisfying rug pull and a surprisingly poignant conclusion before rolling out a mid-credit tease as to which direction this particular universe could be heading next. I don’t say this often but hey, bring on the sequel.
THE PARAGON
When tennis player Dutch is the victim of a hit and run accident, his life is changed forever. Unable to continue his athletic pursuits, Dutch turns his attention to finding the driver who left him with a smashed leg and a growing sense of injustice. How does he go about this? He follows up on a newspaper advert which suggests it’s possible to learn how to be psychic, which leads him to no nonsense teacher Lyra and the beginning of a bizarre adventure Dutch never expected.
The Paragon grounds its plot in well-worn horror motifs, but this genre offering from New Zealand leans into the inherent daftness of the premise and plays most of the proceedings for laughs, be they smart, silly or just plain puerile. The humour hits the mark over and over, which makes the shifts into more emotional territory land all the better and the double act between Benedict Wall and Florence Noble, who play Dutch and Lyra, is a delight. Noble’s deadpan reactions to Wall’s unflinching idiocy are particularly fine.
New Zealand continues to provide fertile ground for comedy horror and while The Paragon doesn’t delve into the dark stuff nearly as much as, say, Housebound, the set pieces and cult subplot mean it doesn’t stray from the genre entirely. I think that people who would normally run a mile before watching anything in the genre would love this and as such, it’s the perfect gateway into horror while also providing something warm and fuzzy for the fans. Also, knife tennis!
PATER NOSTER AND THE MISSION OF LIGHT
Starting out as a cross between Clerks and High Fidelity before taking off on an excursion to weird, bloody, cult madness, writer/director Christopher Bickel takes the grindhouse-flecked promise (and some of the cast) of his previous flick Bad Girls and delivers a psychedelic nightmare in which a group of vinyl-loving friends track down a reclusive band of musicians and soon wish they hadn’t.
Made for the price of a second hand car, Pater Noster And The Mission Of Light belies its microbudget, maximising its resources with evocative, readily available settings, a committed cast and some impressive gore. It has the slasher sensibility of picking off its characters one by one in a wilderness from which there appears to be no escape, but elevates itself way above the usual set ‘em up, kill ‘em off fare with trippy visuals and a lively examination of both music fandom and collector culture.
As a music lover myself, I was overjoyed that the soundtrack for this is an absolute cracker. There are tracks from the titular band themselves, creating its own strange feedback loop, blurring the lines between the fiction of the movie and the fact of creating and being able to listen to the songs in the here and now. The tune which plays over the closing credits is an earworm; you have been warned. Bickel’s output just gets better and better without ditching his punk rock ethos. This is lo-fi indie cinema at its finest.
STRANGE DARLING
Splitting a movie’s story into chapters is an affectation of which I’ve had more than enough. Non-linear narratives also possess the potential to wind me up, because they’re often a misguided means of giving a straightforward tale an appearance of depth. Strange Darling is split into chapters. Not only that, but it also opens with Chapter Three. I did not storm out of the cinema. Not only I did I hang around for its entire runtime, but I also loved it more than even I could have hoped for.
For much of the time this is a two-hander, but there’s no treading water for an hour before the real action kicks in as we’re launched immediately into a lethal game of cat and mouse, carried off with surefootedness by the always reliable Kyle Gallner and Willa Fitzgerald, both given tricksy roles as the boundaries between hunter and hunted blur. Gallner’s brand of onscreen persona and knowledge of his previous filmography play into the watcher’s expectations as to how his character may or may not behave whilst Fitzgerald almost nonchalantly drops a career best, boundary pushing performance.
That’s all I really want to say about this one. In general, the less you know about a film before going in, the better the experience will be and in the case of Strange Darling, I would recommend that you talk to no one about it, as they’ll be too eager to blurt out spoilers. Don’t even watch the trailer. Sit back, enjoy, and think about how it went all those places you didn’t predict.
THE SUBSTANCE
Seven years after Coralie Fargeat’s ferocious feature debut Revenge, her follow-up often makes that previous movie look positively restrained by comparison. Demi Moore’s fitness show star Elisabeth Sparkle hits fifty and is given the news that the network is looking for a new model. Shady medical advances afford her the opportunity to turn back the clock and exact some measure of revenge on Dennis Quaid’s oily TV exec, but there are rules to follow and increasingly drastic consequences every time those rules are broken. Which, of course, they are.
Vying for my favourite film of the year along with Broken Bird (which isn’t a giveaway unless you’re reading this from bottom to top), this showcases a turn from Demi Moore which proves what I’ve been saying for years about her acting work always being great, regardless of the quality of the movie she’s in. Here, at last, she’s in a shameless, splattery, sledgehammer satire which is perfectly suited to her talents and would have almost certainly given her more award nods, had this not been one of those dirty genre items that soil “proper” cinema.
I’ve seen comments that the film is too long. Yes, it does clock in a whopping one hundred and forty minutes, which would exceed the unwritten rule concerning the ideal horror film length by at least fifty, but this a story which needs to breathe so the viewer can fully immerse themselves in the neon-soaked nightmare and, of course, to appreciate Moore’s stellar work. Contrasting the glitz and glamour of Hollywood with some of the grimiest, gorge-rising body horror in recent memory, it’s a startling riposte to the unrealistic standards of beauty that women have had to endure for an age. You won’t know whether to laugh heartily or lean over to throw up. And that, my friends, is a recommendation and then some.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Here are six further titles which are well worth your time. I know that I only listed five in my 2023 list, but I don’t make the rules. Hold on, I do make the rules. I agonised over which one of the following to remove and didn’t have the heart to do it, so six it is. More filmic goodness for you to check out.
BA
Finding himself into a parlous financial state, single father Daniel makes a deal in which he is given the monetary security he craves, but has to act as a modern day Grim Reaper, assigned to take the lifeforce of the people he’s assigned within a set time limit, all while avoiding the attentions of the city’s law enforcement and a local social worker who’s concerned about the well-being of Daniel’s daughter Collette.
Writer/director Benjamin Wong builds his world – and path to another world – with an eye for the crucial details that makes collecting souls a rational, if rather shady, career for those pushed to the fringes of society. It’s great to see Michael Paul Chan and Brian Thompson lending their considerable talents to important supporting roles, but it’s the convincing, emotional rollercoaster of the father-daughter bond between Lawrence Kao and Kai Cech that seals the deal here. Get ready to pretend you have something in your eye.
THE BUILDOUT
Friends Cameron and Dylan take a motorcycle trip out into the desert where Dylan plans to join up with a religious group which has restored her faith in existence after suffering traumatic, personal loss. This has been described by writer/producer/director Zeshaan Younus as “a pseudo-found footage, Terrence Malick-inspired, cross-genre film.” If you’re going to mention Malick then you’d better bring your A-game and Younus does not disappoint.
Jenna Kanell and Hannah Aline are never anything less than believable as lifelong friends whose relationship is tested to the limit by the ghosts of the past and the weirdness of the present. The horror is oblique and unnerving, the settings are staggeringly gorgeous and, if you’re in the mood for something which steadfast refuses to explain every single incident, this is a movie which will stay with you. Pause the proceedings to admire the visuals and press play to marvel at Kanell, who continues to be a fascinating performer.
FREWAKA
Making its proper bow in 2025, I was lucky enough to catch this when it screened at the Celluloid Screams Festival in Sheffield, where it lifted the Audience Award for Best Feature. Who am I to disagree with the Celluloid audience? The title of Aislinn Clarke’s thoroughly unsettling folk horror refers to hidden, tangled roots and Clare Monnelly’s care nurse Shoo is about to know that word’s true meaning, as she’s sent out to rural Ireland to take care of the combative Peig (Bríd Ní Neachtain). Peig is convinced that ghosts are out to get her and after a short while at her crumbling abode, Shoo comes to fear that her patient might well be correct.
An Taibhse blazed the trail for Irish language horror this year and Frewaka picked up the baton of spooky happenings in the countryside. Although Clarke’s movie is set in the modern day, there’s an unhealthy dose of the past coming back to haunt the present and some DNA is shared with her debut The Devil’s Doorway, which is also well worth your time. The sound design is flawless and, combined with a disquieting Die Hexen score, has the viewer on edge even when the camera isn’t prowling around the darkest recesses of Peig’s place. Frewaka may cause you to keep checking behind you while you’re watching it.
GANYMEDE
A high school wresting star grapples with his sexuality as he finds himself developing a crush on his openly gay classmate. His family fear it will ruin their reputation as pillars of the community, calling upon the services of a local pastor who suspects that his subject has been possessed by an evil creature which must be exorcised.
Colby Holt and Sam Probst’s film is one designed to make you angry and I’ll admit that I spent a good deal of it wanting to shout at the screen. Small town bigotry is uncomfortably realised in Holt’s keenly observed script, which plays down any sensationalism and paints an all too realistic portrait of a place in which reputation is everything and any transgressions must be squashed, otherwise Hell awaits. David Koechner (yes, Champ Kind from Anchorman) proves that he can make you scared just as much as he can make you laugh, his fire and brimstone preacher bringing a marrow-freezingly, dangerous real edge to the already fraught situation.
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL
Arguments over AI generated content aside, no algorithm can generate the uneasy atmosphere and queasy suspense of Colin and Cameron Cairnes’ chiller, with a noteworthy performance from David Dastmalchian as Jack Delroy, a TV talk show host with an idea to boost ratings with a special, occult-themed episode. Everyone’s interested in the supernatural, right? This results, inevitably, in matters going horribly awry.
The aesthetic of 1970s US talk show television is superbly recreated and playing out the plot in real time in front of both the studio and home (or cinema) audience throws a neat spin on to the found footage subgenre, as well as freshening up the possessed girl trope. The switches from set to backstage during each ad break are a nice touch, also allowing the drip feeding of Delroy’s backstory to inform each act as the suspense builds, leading to an outrageous pay off. Dastmalchian commands the attention as the epitome of calm on camera, increasingly twitchy and unsure away from its glare.
THE WELL
What this list needs is a riotous, gory, Italian horror which is clearly influenced by the straight to vid splat-fests of the 1980s and whaddya know, The Well fits that bill perfectly. Lauren LaVera sheds her Terrifier trappings to play a restorer of damaged art, called upon to work her magic on a particular painting with a peculiar past.
With flexible logic, a certain level of incoherence, bursts of extreme violence and actors who don’t so much chew the scenery as bite bloody great chunks out of it, this is nectar to those of us weaned on those wonkily dubbed “What the hell did I just watch?” VHS rentals, the icing on this blood red velvet cake being a cameo from the late, great, genre stalwart Giovanni Lombardo Radice. Free from the BBFC cuts which would have been imposed, had this been released in the era from which it clearly takes its inspiration, gorehounds will lap this up. The casual observer may find it silly, overblown and downright repellent, but if you know, you know.
Emma (Corrinne Mica) stands to inherit the estate of her aunt Milda (Jane Hammill) if she agrees to abide by a specific and somewhat odd set of stipulations. Faced with financial problems, Emma sees this as a serendipitous – if tragic – way of getting both her and boyfriend Gabriel (Guillermo Blanco) out of their current situation. However, the rules and regs of the agreement seem to focus on keeping Gabriel out of the picture at much as possible and he is not happy about that at all, especially when all and sundry are behaving in strange ways, including Emma…
Writer/director Nicholas Bain’s bio mentions that he’s a student of film history, that he incorporates styles of the past and emphasises the structure of story. All of these points play into the overall feel of Voice Of Shadows, which is distinctly old fashioned when it comes to both its tone and its key props. It favours atmospheric chills over noisy jump scares, although it allows itself one or two trips into the latter. The lingering, carefully constructed, well-lit shots of the interiors serves up a pleasant contrast to the rat-a-tat editing of many a contemporary genre piece and there are several occasions where the drift around the rooms holds just long enough to make the viewer wonder if there’s something lurking in the shadows or on the other side of a door frame.
As a feature debut, there’s a confidence in the material that allows it to skate over some of its shakier moments. The performances are generally decent, but there’s a slight tendency for some of the line delivery to be overcooked, which would be fun in a more schlocky context but risks taking the viewer out of the spooky set pieces which are aiming for admirable straightness in the way they’re played.
There’s also a handful of great ideas which unfortunately feel a tad underdeveloped. One of the tasks Emma must undertake in the house is to answer the phone whenever it rings and talk to whoever has called. Initially, this leads to a chilling moment in which Gabriel picks up the phone and is told bluntly to leave the house or everybody will die. There’s mystery to be had in not knowing just who Emma is conversing with but, to disagree with Elvis, a little more conversation and a little less action would have fit the bill nicely for me.
Likewise, the story’s subtexts concerning faith and the role of religion are potentially fascinating, but aren’t given enough time to be explored fully. An opening scene has Gabriel wrestling with his present and his past in a confessional booth, his backstory soon revealing that he has previously carried out an act which may make him a perpetual sinner in the eyes of God. Any conflicts of true faith are left until late in act three and any doubt cast upon Gabriel’s belief never properly materialises, as is the avoidance of an ecumenical ding dong with Michael Paul Levin’s shady Father John.
Voice Of Shadows belies its low-budget indie trappings with a distinctive, striking visual style and a reliance on suggestion rather than splatter. In fact, it’s only when the film feels the need to throw in a dollop of screen mayhem that its footing becomes less sure. The VFX are certainly serviceable, even pleasing in some cases, but the drive to deliver a big bang of a climax shows both the filmmakers’ knowledge of what is saleable in the horror market but also ends up being exactly the kind of thing that can undercut the often thoughtful build of the previous seventy minutes.
As with many debut offerings, there’s a lot going on in terms of plot detail and much of it threatens to get lost in the shuffle. In addition to the aforementioned faith crisis, there’s comment concerning the working classes and the hindrances to social mobility, a performatively weird will executor played by Martin Harris (who looks like he’s enjoying the character’s stilted speech patterns and odd ticks), a strategically placed book on the occult, a cult, the afterlife, a pentagram 101 plus a subplot involving Gabriel’s sister Celeste, which threatens to be by far the most interesting left turn in the whole thing right up to the point it’s sidelined for about three quarters of an hour.
It’s easy to see why Voice Of Shadows ditches the slow burn for a fiery denouement and, in spite of itself, it does work as a closer even if there’s a last minute “Aha, but…” delivered as part of the fade to black, but this is perhaps a case where less would have been more, especially considering the previous approach pacing. Having said that, fans of slow burn horror will appreciate the attention to the setting’s natural eeriness and it’s clear that Bain already knows how to make a film look fab. A slightly sharper focus on the tale itself in subsequent work could result in something special but for now, this is a curious glimpse into raw talent being honed.
“Our younger selves sing on in our hearts. We hear them still.”
Thirty years ago, Luo Tong was a member of a choir which achieved a short-lived period of fame during the 1990s, thanks to their performances on a national stage. Now a filmmaker, Tong reunites with her fellow singers and teachers to reflect on the passing years and the transformation of both Shanghai as a city and the roles of women in Chinese society.
Split into chapters, Shanghai Girls covers such topics as friendships, marriage and the challenges of being both mothers and daughters via chats with various members of the choir in the present day, interspersed with archive footage of concert performances and glimpses of the city as it was three decades ago, building towards a class reunion, an event to which Tong believes no one will bother to show up. Non-spoiler: her choirmates and teachers do show up.
Early in the film, Tong and her 90s “desk mate” Lin Fang take a trip to the site of the Xingzhi Performing Arts School only to find that it had been demolished some years before, but where this would be an excuse for some documentaries to wallow in a longed-for past, Shanghai Girls brushes this off with a cheery air of “life goes on” and embraces the here and now, never drifting into the sentimentality of what might have been. Yes, the beautiful musical numbers will bring a tear to the eye, but they’re used to inform the progress and tenacity of that group of talented pupils.
Lin Fang, for instance, had ambitions to be a professional singer, but her family stressed the importance of having a job they viewed as more stable. She didn’t end up pursuing those dreams, but she shows few regrets and has continued to be involved in musical projects. The back and forth between Luo Tong and Lin Fang is sweet and funny and could have easily been the focal point for the entire hour and a half, but there are many other old friends with which to catch up.
By the time we reach the section “What Marriage Is,” the recollection turn more serious, with stories of divorce and abusive husbands, but the material is handled with a light touch and is balanced with the ultimate successes of those women. Zhang Li spent ten years as a housewife, doing “nothing” by her own admission, but now runs her own business and plans to retire when she’s fifty years old. Lou Bin, free of her aggressive ex, moved back to the city to start again and found her soulmate. Luo Tong herself is a single mother, but there’s no bitterness or using the platform of film to vent. The feeling is one of positivity and the drive to make something of your life.
If this sounds like men are generally portrayed as the enemy, that’s nothing of the sort, with familial and cultural expectations as much to blame for creating obstacles in the lives of independent women, an example highlighted in Ban Ban’s retelling of being “stuck in a bubble” of a marriage going nowhere, but then being urged to take back her estranged husband when he didn’t embrace the single life as fully as she did. The so-called “leftover women,” as they have been dubbed in Chinese society, are now making a name for themselves with no men figuring in their plans for a fulfilling life.
There are still many barriers to break down, but there’s a band of quietly formidable subjects in Shanghai Girls which leave the viewer in no doubt that they’re more than up to the task. Actually, there’s one – there’s always one – who is the very opposite of quiet and in this case it’s the memorably hilarious Wu Qiong, who married her “wrong” date, runs a restaurant and likes a drink or three. After a run of demure, thoughtful, introspective interviewees she crashes the proceedings in fine style and provides welcome, irreverent counterpoints without derailing the whole thing.
This is, for the most part, as gentle and graceful a call to smash the patriarchy you’re likely to see but it’s a call, nonetheless, couched in a great big hug of a film about the enduring nature of friendships and the willingness to strike out in directions which were not considered acceptable just a few decades previously. The sentence “Do what you want you want and love however you like” is said at one point, which sums up the mantra of Shanghai Girls perfectly. You’d have to be a curmudgeon of some note to watch this and to disagree with that.
Free spirit Nina (Inès Anane) has lost custody of her daughter as a result of a court hearing centred around her unconventional lifestyle. Given her daughter back for just a weekend, Nina’s aim is to take her to see the sea, regardless of the fact that she doesn’t really have the requisite amount of money to travel or a car to get there…
The title of Sara Olaciregui’s comedy/drama short translates to “What Woman Wants, God Wants” and is an expression used to illustrate how women will, somehow or other, ultimately have their way. Nina, despite the obstacles she faces, proves this maxim to be correct, mainly as a result of her sheer obstinacy.
The opening moments instantly provide the viewer with questions as to its central character, first seen dancing the night away in a nightclub and then, not stopping to change, racing through a town centre to a hearing about access to her daughter. Adding her naturally spiky persona to the mix doesn’t paint the picture of the most sympathetic of characters. She snaps. She swears. She steals. But the obvious love for her daughter shines through as they head off on a mini adventure, encountering other females who rail against the world and try to find their place in different ways.
Ce Que Femme Veut Dieu Veut is a curious one, introducing a larger number of characters than you’d expect over a half hour runtime, presenting them with enough detail to make them stand out but not overloading the tale with backstory. The men of the piece, when they’re featured, are mostly confrontational types, either doling out unnecessary advice to Nina or being the anecdotal subject of a court case which generates the cash for a final sequence sojourn but the overall approach is that few of the folks here – male or female – are exactly angels, and the viewer’s inbuilt expectations and prejudices will feed into how they see Nina and each of the people she meets.
A road movie which spends extraordinarily little time on the road, a character study which then veers away from its initial subject to focus on other characters, there’s much here to both intrigue and confound, with the usual hitches to Nina’s final destination dealt with in neat fashion early on. This leaves the rest of the tale free to unearth capsule summaries of various lifestyles around a wine-fuelled dinner table discussion, which is authentically free of glamour and full of dialogue which is shot through with the humour and pain of everyday struggles.
Given the title, it isn’t a huge spoiler to reveal that Nina eventually makes it to the sea but, as is often said elsewhere, it isn’t the destination, it’s the journey and Sara Olaciregui has crafted a trip which abandons the familiar urgency of such a plot and stops not only to smell the flowers, but to shine a light on lives which may appear humdrum but have their own sense of vitality (and, in some cases, petty criminality).
This may sometimes feel like only the first episode of Nina’s ongoing kicks against the pricks and some of its messages may be writ a little too large because they don’t have a feature-length space in which to breathe, but Ce Que Femme Veut Dieu Veut is a captivating piece of work with a bold central turn from Anane, who reminds me of a French Mary Woronov in terms of both look and ability to take no crap whatsoever. There’s no specifics as to what may happen next to Nina but the thirty minutes spent in her company gives the feeling that she’ll never compromise and, despite the potential desperation of her situation, that’s uplifting in itself.
Douchebag businessman Richard (Kevin Janssens) charters a helicopter in order to take his mistress Jen (Matilda Lutz) to his swanky holiday pad in the desert for some extracurricular activity. The next day, Richard’s friends Stan (Vincent Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchède) arrive, with the three men intending to go off on a hunting trip. That evening, the four of them party; they drink far too much and Jen, in her inebriated state, dances for the guys as a bit of fun. This is something which Stan is, inevitably, going to misread entirely.
With Richard away the following morning, Stan sees his chance to move in on Jen, but when she rejects his advances he turns aggressive. When Jen tells Stan to stop, he doesn’t and goes on to rape her. Dimitri sees and hears the assault but chooses not to step in. When Richard returns, he learns of what has happened, but rather than call the cops on Stan, he suggests that Jen should move to Canada and that he will finance it. When Jen threatens to reveal Richard’s philandering ways to his wife, he slaps her, she tries to flee and, in the ensuing mayhem, the men think they’ve killed her and that they’ll be out of there before anyone discovers the body. Wrong.
Before Coralie Fargeat delighted/disgusted audiences with The Substance, she brought her unique sensibilities to the rape/revenge thriller, pitching the gross goings on against a glossy backdrop and throwing multiple buckets of blood over the whole thing (apparently, the production kept running out of said, er, substance). It’s more in line with I Spit On Your Grave than Promising Young Woman in the way that justice is meted out via a traditionally male series of shootings and stabbings, but the extended sequences of extreme violence set a high watermark for a subgenre that wasn’t known for skimping on the claret to begin with.
Absent is the sickly voyeurism which accompanies a number of thrillers of this ilk, its inciting act kept offscreen for the most part and amplified in its power by the lack of explicit visual detail but an abundance of dreadful, accompanying sound. We follow Dimitri around the house and into the pool, intercut with shots of Jen’s hand pounding the bedroom window. He may not be the one attacking Jen, but he’s complicit in the crime and just as awful in his own, shameful way, turning up the volume on the TV to block out the noise coming from elsewhere and then thinking that hiding underwater will do the trick.
It’s difficult to know who Jen should kill first once her transformation into grime-coated, rifle-toting avenger is complete, because the three married man in her path are all reprehensible: Stan for being the average guy for whom the word “no” means nothing of the sort; Dimitri for cramming chocolate marshmallows into his slobbering mouth in disgusting close-up and facilitating the horrendous behaviour of his friends; and Richard, a guy who knows he’s hot, emphasises his sense of importance and thinks he can wipe away Jen’s indelible memory of her assault by essentially paying her to keep quiet.
It’s to the credit of Janssens, Colombe and Bouchède – and Fargeat’s dialogue – that each convinces as three totally different men who would nevertheless enjoy each other’s company, knows their place within their local hierarchy and have each other’s back, regardless of how heinous their behaviour became. Lutz, initially appearing to be the glam arm candy and slightly vapid good time girl, is quickly shown to be nothing of the sort, metamorphosing into audience pleasing worst nightmare for our trio of toxic males. Revenge is a movie that leans into familiar tropes and plays with the audience’s preconceived expectations before subverting them.
The second half of the movie sees tables turned and hunters becoming hunted, eschewing swift executions in favour of suspenseful, drawn out action set pieces which all have a sense of the ludicrous about them while being played dead straight. A notable synth score by the prolific Robin Coudert (who, as “Rob”, also provided the soundtrack for the Maniac remake, amongst other things) ramps up the genuine excitement as Jen goes head to head with her tormentors, with special effects artist Laetitia Quillery conjuring up a series of nauseating prosthetics. If you’re a bit squeamish about folks digging around in open wounds – and I suspect there’s a lot of us who are – prepare to get a damn good wince workout.
Ticking all of the exploitation movie boxes without ever feeling remotely exploitative, Revenge is a bold debut, its escalating carnage played out across exotic, sumptuous settings, beautifully lensed by Robrecht Heyvaert and culminating in a satisfying, final act showdown which is Grand Designs meets Grand Guignol. It’s hard to imagine a better calling card for Coralie Fargeat and her recent, satirical take on body horror builds on the style, shocks and taste for the outrageous to be found here.
