Archive: Author: Keri O'Shea

Doing the Devil’s Work: The Devil’s Rejects at 20

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Rob Zombie’s very first foray into cinema is, and was, everything you’d expect a Rob Zombie feature to be. House of 1000 Corpses (2003) is somewhere between an homage to the weirdest low-budget horror of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties that Zombie clearly loves, and a Rob Zombie promo video – heavy on the aesthetics and the sense of retro sideshow spectacle. It remains divisive, but overall it’s an enjoyable horror spectacle which made its mark. But, in just a couple of years, Zombie’s approach and style was to change dramatically – as he addressed at the time, saying that he approached The Devil’s Rejects as a brand new project with new characters and a new vibe, rather than thinking of it as a straightforward sequel. As The Devil’s Rejects opens, it’s clear indeed that the sideshow is closed. I quite like the idea that the same characters are just undergoing something very different here, though. Things are different; Halloween is over. In The Devil’s Rejects, when Baby’s eyes snap open, the dreamscape of House of 1000 Corpses disappears for good.

In the blistering Texas sun which opens the second film, there’s definitely a ‘morning after the night before’ feel, even though there’s still a sense that it’s been business as usual for the Firefly family who we last saw making corpse tableaux in the first film, however long exactly the interval has been. Again, we see signs of horrific violence which has taken place at the ranch, but this time, it feels past tense somehow. Otis may be cuddled up to some putrefying remains, but we’re looking at the aftermath here, not the deed – at least, so far. The ‘house of horrors’ motif isn’t central this time, as the family are going to need to flee this place under duress. The signs are clear: this film is going to be leaner, meaner and harsher – but there will be power struggles out there in the big bad world. We certainly start that way: The Devil’s Rejects starts and ends with a shootout, precipitated in each case by the Texas police. Guns didn’t figure quite so prominently in House of 1000 Corpses, but they do here, as described memorably by Mama Firefly: “there’s a million fucking cops” outside, and they are all armed. This development offers a kind of instantaneous rough justice, evidence of the powers that be reasserting themselves; later, we get vigilante justice, which blurs the line between legitimate and criminal all over again.

“I’m sorry sheriff, but you ain’t getting me…”

If we were ever intended to really sympathise with the unfortunate kids whose paths crossed first with Baby and then with the rest of her kin in House of 1000 Corpses, and that still feels like a maybe, then our loyalties perhaps much more easily come to rest with the besieged Firefly family in The Devil’s Rejects; like Alex in A Clockwork Orange, we know these people are appalling, but the powers-that-be are no better, even if it takes time, turmoil and trauma to turn Officer Wydell into a monster. As vile as they undoubtedly are, we feel for the family here. As in good Westerns – and arguably, if we’re talking genre, The Devil’s Rejects is a horror Western, and Zombie has said as much – neither protagonists or antagonists are clear-cut goodies or baddies, though we will likely feel some sympathy for the devil before we’re done. Reality is about to force its way in, and as the bullets spray, the version of the family we have come to know also fractures, though we are about to lose a mother and gain a father.

Forging the link between the garish Captain Spaulding clown show of the first film and the family is, by the way, neatly done here. Captain Spaulding is daddy, and Baby calls him for help as soon as it’s clear that the shit is hitting the fan: they always planned for this. As for Mama – ably played here by Leslie Easterbrook (ironically enough, probably best known for Police Academy) rather than by Karen Black (who declined to reprise her role for salary reasons), she’s fully prepared to end her life rather than submit to arrest, and it’s a moment in the film where want of bullets is as plot-relevant as copious gunfire. Mama gets taken, Rufus is dead and the kids (Otis and Baby, with Tiny MIA) have lost their mother, for what turns out to be for good.

As for Otis and Baby, who successfully link up with Spaulding at a local motel, this is the start of a journey through the darkest fringes of Americana, and arguably, a lot of newer, younger filmmakers picked up a lot of cues from The Devil’s Rejects on how to explore the same kinds of Americana – even if they don’t feel they have been specifically influenced by it, oh they have. The motels, the ranches, the ice-cream stands… The Devil’s Rejects, in turn, was of course itself influenced by a number of titles, and the fact that it nails its colours so squarely to the mast by giving a specific date for its start point (May 18th 1978, a year rife with serial killers) links it not only to horror films of the decade – as much as Zombie deliberately avoided even discussing horror with his crew – but also road movies and again, Westerns. The pitstops are vitally important, and they afford Zombie time and space to play with his favourite trashy aesthetics – as well as providing the film with the bulk of its horror content (which is in there, clear to see) but much of the film is devoted to the open road. There are hints of titles like Duel (1971) in here, alongside the more obvious nods to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and similar. The film has a feeling of a deranged odyssey, punctuated by moments of horrific, indifferent cruelty. The overall blend of journey and horror can feel exhilarating as much as it feels unsettling. It’s a combination which works, in this horror-not-horror film which is going places.

“Boy, the next word that comes out of your mouth better be some brilliant fuckin’ Mark Twain shit, ’cause it’s definitely getting chiselled on your tombstone.”

This brings us, perhaps most clearly, to Otis Driftwood – adopted son to the Fireflys. His transformation is probably clearest of all across the two films, as here he has taken on a more worldly, cynical incarnation : there are no costumes this time and certainly no greasepaint, or any kind of artifice. He is what he is. The new Otis is just a grimy, gritty, murderous drifter with loyalty to only a few; it’s interesting too that a kind of origins myth has sprung up around Otis, appointing him a traumatic childhood which resembles that of Charles Manson (and one of Otis’s many killer lines also echoes something said by Manson acolyte Tex Watson, just for good measure). Certainly, Otis’s cruelty is unparalleled in the film. Of course he’s cruel in House of 1000 Corpses, but here, there’s a kind of easy-going cruelty which feels even more devastating. His treatment of Tommy Banjo, one of the hapless musicians from the motel, is casually sadistic, establishing just what, exactly, we can expect from him. He doesn’t just kill Tommy; he tells him his whole life has been a waste, and he tells him that he’s about to die, despite following all Otis’s instructions: how’s that for cruel? But he’s a character that’s oddly impossible to hate; that takes some doing, presenting audiences with a necrophile and mass murderer but giving him enough killer lines and kudos to still have him be an audience favourite. People love Sid Haig’s Captain Spaulding too, and he has a few great lines of his own (full credit to Zombie for giving the coulrophobes something to cry-laugh about) but it’s Otis who probably comes out on top. This is one of those roles which you can’t now imagine being played by anyone other than Bill Moseley, and it’s almost certainly Moseley’s most memorable character since Chop Top in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre II, a film where perhaps Moseley finessed his blend of family loyalty and a dedication to ultraviolence.

Still, Otis isn’t an omnipotent character here, and both he and Baby get trapped and tortured by Sheriff Wydell (the fantastic William Forsythe). For Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie), this development – where the family is eventually betrayed and caught by Wydell – gives her character new opportunities, allowing her for the first time to play the final girl – fleeing for her life, rather than simply reprising the cutesy-killer motif of the first film. The Devil’s Rejects gives Moon Zombie a great push as an actor, and prepped her for her first roles outside of the Firefly universe over the following years. The actor described being so wiped out by the torment scenes that she wasn’t able to just go on and shoot again the next day; that’s down to the emotional weight of the final girl scenes, but also, credit where credit’s due: Wydell the vigilante is a domineering, terrifying figure (and again, you can still sympathise with this newly-created monster).

This turnaround in the family’s fortune adds a huge amount of depth to the film, and makes the subsequent family reunion – as unorthodox as it is – feel valedictory. Throughout the film, the family’s cruelty is tempered not just by their memorable lines, but by the sense of the family as real people: bickering, impersonating one another, laughing, enjoying each other’s company. The ice-cream stop, as well as providing a moment of let-up after all the horrors which have come before, is a chance to see Baby and Otis genuinely behaving like siblings, with Spaulding as overseer (and of course the baby of the family gets her way). A raft of other great performers – such as Ken Foree, Danny Trejo and Brian Posehn, also add a great deal to the film, offering brutality and comedy by turns. Humour is incredibly important here, right down to the comic sobriquets used by the family, and all of the stop-offs and skits along the way. These wouldn’t work to the same extent in a straightforward slasher or similar, but in a road movie, there’s time and space for it. In fact, in the balance between skit and ultraviolence, there feels like a little Tarantino in places (or at least, similar vibes via both Zombie and Tarantino taking cues from similar Seventies titles).

Speaking of which: let’s talk about that soundtrack. A damn good soundtrack is something else beloved of Tarantino of course, and another example of overlap whereby with a great soundtrack, certain songs become associated with certain films forever. Think of Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealers Wheel, get Michael Madsen (RIP) about to memorably lose his shit in Reservoir Dogs (1992). Hear Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and what tens of thousands of film fans now get is The Devil’s Rejects, all day. Who would ever have thought that a relatively benign rock track, perhaps better known as a tribute to the band who lost their lives, would end up wedded to a story of serial killers and police corruption? And yet, in its defiant phrase, ‘and this bird you will not change’, it fits the Firefly ethos perfectly: come what may, that’s exactly how they’ve lived, and now it’s how they’ll die (or at least, so it seemed at the time; surely another sequel was nowhere near Zombie’s mind at the point the credits rolled on The Devil’s Rejects). The at-first odd fit of some of these tracks (the film opens with an upbeat radio-friendly rock track by The Allman Brothers) is soon hammered into shape as the music’s newfound associations with events in the film shape up. Zombie is eminently capable of surprises in this field: later in his career, we have Lords of Salem soundtracked not by Satanic rock (the obvious choice) but by…The Velvet Underground, for one. But in The Devil’s Rejects OST, we also get honky-tonk and blues, so it’s not a one-fit project, but rather it has a late night radio vibe which takes us on a journey through a wider range of popular and lesser-known songs and genres. It’s the perfect accompaniment to the film we get, a turn of the radio dial as the road rolls on.

“I am the devil, and I am here to do the devil’s work…”

But perhaps the reason fans love The Devil’s Rejects so much is because we clearly get a filmmaker having a great time here, coming into his own in terms of his confidence and skills (which, for many, have never been surpassed) and uniting a knockout cast of genre film darlings. Sadly, since filming, many of those great characters are no longer with us: Matthew McGrory, playing Tiny, passed away shortly after the film’s initial release – making his defiant walk back into the ranch all the more poignant. Whilst not appearing in The Devil’s Rejects, it’s important to remember the late Karen Black did such sterling work creating the original character of Mama, and Sid Haig – whose health was failing by the time 3 From Hell was being filmed – could only partly reprise his amazing turn as Spaulding, after a long list of compelling genre film roles during his lifetime. But, for many, Haig is Captain Spaulding, and he clearly loved both the role and the armies of new fans whichg the role gave him. A cinematic universe and characters created by a ‘B’ movie cineaste, and played by people who clearly loved and respected what had been given to them – it’s rare you feel that so abundantly as you do here, and the energy and dynamism behind the shoot can be felt everywhere in the finished product.

It’s worth remembering that The Devil’s Rejects appeared during the high water mark of a number of New French Extremity titles which would finally peak and roll back with the quasi-philosophical Martyrs just a few years later; this was also the decade of Saw sequels, American-grown torture titles which upped the ante by devising ever more ingenious, twisted torments for its hapless participants. That’s not to diminish the storylines of either the French or the homespun horrors of the decade, but arguably their emphasis was very different, and for a while the road movie – and certainly anything approximating a Western – was not in the ascendant. This was the decade of The Grudge, not vigilante justice – which, at the time, made The Devil’s Rejects feel so fresh, a retro setting and retro influences but a very different-feeling narrative, one which stood out against its peers (and did relatively well financially as a result). Sure, there are some people tied to chairs – is it even a Noughties horror or anything close to horror without someone tied to a chair? – but here, it’s part of a steadily-intensifying vigilante justice story arc which repositions its characters and threatens a very different outcome for the story, shifting our loyalties, sympathies and opinions along the way. It belongs to its era, but yet it feels quite separate from it, which is another reason this title has aged so well. The Devil’s Rejects still feels bold and defiant.

Is The Devil’s Rejects for everyone? Of course not; good! It’s too cruel, even too crude for some audiences – and to trim this film down for certification took a great deal of work, with lots of the film’s worst excesses needing to hit the cutting room floor. But it’s whip-smart, strongly and confidently written, well acted and perhaps even surprisingly thoughtful, for a film in which someone runs around wearing a human skin for fun. It’s incredibly hard to believe twenty years has passed by since queuing up to see this on a summer’s day, and being absolutely blown away by it. The film remains a hugely significant part of Noughties horror, but it easily surpasses that and now feels timeless, which is a real testament to Rob Zombie at his absolute best as a director and writer. Genre-splicing, even genre-defining, cannily irreligious, drenched in brutality and shot through with easeful black humour, it’s a hell of a piece of work and it deserves the reputation which it enjoys amongst the fans for whom it was made.

The Shrouds (2024)

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

It never feels like a negative to find there’s a new David Cronenberg film, and with a title and premise like The Shrouds (2024), hopes were bound to be high. Indeed, the main idea here is fascinating, blending Cronenberg’s love for body horror/bodily trauma with a potential source of existential debate, here about life and death itself. There’s no bigger idea to take on. However fascinating it is, though, it doesn’t quite go anywhere. This is a deeply frustrating film. A charitable take on this would be that it’s all deliberate, because grief itself is unending, but I’m not too sure. Every review seems to mention the director’s own bereavement (his wife died in 2017) and clearly, he has brought much of that experience to bear on his most recent project, but the final impression is of a narrative which didn’t quite know how to reconcile the central premise with something more significant. It’s more bosom-y than I’d expect for a film all about grief and loss, too, but we’ll get to that.

In the film, a somewhat bewildered Vincent Cassel plays Karsh Relikh, an entrepreneur who has revolutionised the relationship with the cemetery. Remember that the cemetery itself was a kind of revolution in how people – from the 19th Century onwards – related to death, offering a new kind of eternal rest beyond the cramped, unhealthy confines of the urban churchyard. The Shrouds – the cemetery itself is named that, because of course it is! – is owned by Karsh, whose big idea has been to integrate technology into the burial experience, so that people can now interface with their buried loved ones, using an app to watch them decay in real time. This has been made possible through a new form of shroud, which connects the body to outside world, scanning it and relaying the images either to phones or to a screen on the tombstone.

Here’s the first issue, as much as I am fully aware that this is a Cronenberg film and yes, this idea fits both with his creative means of seeing the world and his own reported wish when he lost his beloved wife that he, like Karsh, just wanted to lie down in the grave with her, such was the nature of his grief. He’s simply played out this wish here in a very Cronenbergian way, and he’s not the first either; medieval art through to John Keats through to any number of horror titles have pondered the decay process, just as, arguably, so have many of our best-known cinematic monsters. But wanting to patch into the grave in real time to see if grandma’s nose has fallen off or not? It’s a stretch, particularly against the otherwise very normal-seeming world against which the film at least begins to play out. Even the swish Shrouds restaurant doesn’t seem out of the question, as people will dine anywhere which gives them a good story to share, but the tech itself does.

However, given time and space, this could have moved from being an initially absurd, though intriguing, and obviously ghastly idea to being a more integrated one. It’s clear that there are moments meant to trigger an uncomfortable laugh (most of the script triggers the same response, but at first that’s fine, too). Beyond the engaging shock factor of Karsh taking a first date to look at his wife’s now skeletonised remains, however, the tech is used more as a means to justify other, semi-realised plot points. This is a shame, because there are some great scenes, reveals and ideas during the first part of the film. These make you remember that David Cronenberg is in his eighties; it’s a great thing that he’s still pulling projects together, even if they have been wildly variable in quality for quite a few years.

Little wonder we see so little of the shrouds technology working, though. Just as Karsh is on the verge of selling his idea to other countries, there’s an attack on his flagship cemetery: data is stolen, and the stones themselves are badly damaged. Fearing a run of bad publicity, Karsh has to work fast both to repair his cemetery, and to find out who could have done this; what do they want? Are they religious? Environmentalists? Are they grieving and angry? Is it a personal vendetta against him? He wonders if it can have something to do with the odd nodule-type structures he recently noticed on his wife’s bones, during an enjoyable few moments of really getting in there to peer at her skull. Those chilly spring evenings must just fly!

That’s another of the films odd sticking points, though: Karsh’s love for his wife relates to her again and again as a body; his memories of her give way to dreams in which she’s always naked (he doesn’t seem to own a photograph of the woman clothed, either) and a lot of his angst in the here-and-now is to do with his ailing libido. Just when it seems he’s condemned to only ever experience sex in dreams where bits of his wife’s body disappear (or – in the film’s only real shock – break) he manages to bag not one, but two lovers: his wife’s sister Terry (Diane Kruger), who gets hot over conspiracy theories (lucky woman then, these days) and a sight-impaired Korean woman, Soo-Min (Sandrine Holt) whose own techbro partner has no interest in her sexually, because he, too, is chronically ill. There’s a lot of oddly perfunctory sex in this film, and a surfeit of boobs, even though Cassel’s modesty is largely preserved, largely because he’s blocked by boobs.

This is all something of a distraction, this midlife sexual reawakening, as he still needs to find out what the hell has been going on at his cemetery. Luckily he has ex-brother in law and top programmer Maury (Guy Pearce) to help him get to the bottom of it. Maury has also helpfully programmed an AI personal assistant for Karsh too; it goes by the name of Hunny, and yes, the avatar gets nude. It’s that, or it turns into a koala. As Karsh thinks back over his relationship with his wife, he recalls that an old flame of hers actually turned out to be her oncologist when she fell ill. Clear conflict of interests? Nope – Karsh is simply jealous that the doctor in question ‘had her body’ before him. Devoid of any deeper resonances, this just feels reductive in the sense of not knowing where to go with it all. Sex and death can be linked, sure – but is this it?

If that all sounds garbled, then I’m afraid it’s because it is. Eroticised explorations of death (and by extension, mourning) are long established; the role of technology in modern society is often debated in film; any sense of a conspiracy offers the possibility of a mystery. The Shrouds is certainly ambitious and tries to bring all of those together, but not successfully. You can ask an audience to accept one absolutely batshit idea; the rest of the story has to have features and ideas we’d recognise in a world where people can’t gawp at their decomposing loved ones. Hunny (also voiced by Kruger) is a bit of an embarrassment; it makes me think of older relatives who are really pleased they know how to work WhatsApp; technology changes so rapidly, you really need to bring someone in on these kinds of inclusions who can advise whether it’s suitable or not.

Suggestions of bigger forces who want the shroud tech aren’t really delineated or seen through to any sort of a conclusion, but there’s enough said to make the audience wonder: why? Why would anyone want to hack static underground cameras? The technology already exists above ground. That’s not a spoiler, by the way, as it doesn’t really go further than wondering whether competing totalitarian regimes are behind the cemetery attack, and after two hours of rather thin plot development, The Shrouds doesn’t provide satisfying answers, opting instead for a rather glib and confusing ending. It’s a shame, because there are some slivers of promise along the way, and yeah, perhaps seminal filmmakers are held to a harsher account than many others, but sadly this film is just not able to pass muster, whoever made it – or why.

The Shrouds (2024) is on a limited UK cinematic release now.

Fantasia 2025: Terrestrial

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Whilst it’s rare to start a review with as-yet unqualified praise, needs must in this case: Terrestrial (2025) is such an incredibly clever, ambitious project. This tale for our times is filled with surprises, and it’s a huge credit to director Steve Pink and to writers Connor Diedrich and – good name for a writer – Samuel Johnson, that those surprises keep on coming. Don’t be fooled by the title, or the opening scenes: science fiction is incredibly important to Terrestrial, but our film is steadfastly grounded in the real world, despite the fact that we start by seeing some clips from a retro sci-fi film called The Neptune Cycle, before panning back to see a roomful of Neptune Cycle memorabilia: the film is playing in what seems to be a room dedicated to the book and film. We’re obviously dealing with a fan, but something traumatic has clearly happened in this house: there’s blood and glass everywhere, and our protagonist Allen (Jermaine Fowler) is all alone amongst it: we can’t yet see if he’s hurt, or where, but there’s a fractured timeline coming: we step back in time, meeting three of Allen’s old friends, newly engaged couple Maddie (Pauline Chalamet) and Ryan (James Morosini) and Vic (Edy Modica), who are on their way to Allen’s new place.

It’s clearly been a while since they last got together, so the impromptu visit is about to turn into a celebration of Allen’s recent good fortune. He’s now a successful author, or at least he has a very lucrative book deal nailed down; he has a big house (which we’ve already seen), a vintage car, and everything is seemingly going his way. Yet, before the car pulls up, Allen’s friends are expressing some concerns about his wellbeing; the fact that he’s now wealthy hasn’t assuaged those worries, and to be fair, when we catch up with Allen, he does seem a little…off. This impression is extended by the clever audience positioned achieved by the camerawork in the film, which allows us to see a little more – but not much more – than Allen’s guests. We don’t follow him everywhere, but we see that something is on his mind, and he’s behaving nervously.

There’s plenty on the guests’ minds, too. Sure, the drink starts flowing and these people, who were once so close, get the chance to talk over what’s been going on in each of their lives, but with Ryan in particular there’s a level of cynicism about Allen’s new life. Yes, authors can do amazingly well, but Allen, already? Can he really have gone from zero to hero so quickly? Can he really be doing everything he claims? This seed of doubt soon extends to the house itself; Allen isn’t great at excusing where he’s going or what he’s doing, either, as he keeps absenting himself and making excuses. However, things are about to get a whole lot stranger…

Whilst Terrestrial does signpost – fairly clearly – that something isn’t right here, it doesn’t give the game away as to what this might be (and as a reviewer, it’s really enjoyable to be sent down the wrong path from time to time, as happened here). Rather, the film is clear that there’s a mystery, but unfolds the mystery in a sequence of smart, complex ways. This isn’t just a film which starts midway along, backfills and moves past the start point to a predictable ending – far from it. There are overlapping timelines, but it’s rare to see them brought together so skilfully. A lot of the credit for this must go to Jermaine Fowler in the lead role: what he isn’t saying is always as important as what he is saying, but whether explaining himself or otherwise, he’s an incredibly magnetic character. His hypervigilance is well counterbalanced by his friends’ interested, but somewhat detached reactions to his new crazy. The narrative then expands around this group of people, adding in other, sometimes shock complications and achieving some impressive world-building, too.

As such, the inclusion of science fiction is really interesting here. Once again, Terrestrial is not a science fiction film, but sci-fi provides context for everything that happens, particularly with regards to the act of writing itself. Writing can be aspirational, and for a select few people, it’s immensely lucrative. In other ways, though, any writing – even sci-fi – can be simply a means to an end, but it just so happens that sci-fi, with its utopias and its escapism, offers the ultimate contrast to the very worldly concerns of modern creators, fighting either to survive or to thrive right here and right now, in a very real world which is growing less and less inclined to reward creatives. This alone makes the title Terrestrial such a suitable one. But sci-fi is a big part of Allen’s personal story, too: The Neptune Cycle, with its ultimate fantasy of being ‘chosen’ by a higher power, informs so much about him. Self-perception is a key idea in the film, and this is the case throughout Ryan’s invasive questions, or the old friend group’s somewhat competitive attitude towards Allen: after all, everyone wants to be getting on, getting ahead.

An exhilarating, tangled web of deception, double-crossing and questioning, it wouldn’t do to say too much more about this title. This makes it slightly tricky to review, but if a review is at least partly there to help people decide whether to see a film or not, then I hope this one has said enough to make people want to watch. Go in with as few preconceptions as possible, and just allow this creative, humane, modern moral tale to do its thing.

Terrestrial (2025) received its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 20th.

ZombieCON Vol. 1 (2024)

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Zombies are a lot harder to come by these days than they used to be. What gives? Despite big hitters like Army of the Dead a few years ago, we just see fewer zombies than we used to. Once upon a time, indie filmmakers went for the zombie genre almost by default. Sometimes, I yearn for the good old days, when low budget directors enrolled all their friends as extras, ensuring they dressed in white to show off all the fake blood to its best. Perhaps things are changing, though. For one, Tina Romero – yes, daughter of George A. – has just entered the fray with a zombie film of her own, and at some point, we might be clear of the Covid projects which, due to other restrictions, attempted to conjure philosophical quandaries, not brain-eaters.

ZombieCON Vol. 1 is, funnily enough, a little bit of both of these. It is a zombie film, but the origins of its zombie outbreak are unusual, and this element is quite probably the film’s best idea. (A little confusingly, by the way, the title appears on IMDb twice, but unless director Kyle Valle has painstakingly remade his film frame by frame, Michael Haneke style, I think we can assume they’re one and the same.)

Here’s the general idea: via a brief voiceover from one of the film’s lead characters, Rocky (Manny Luke), he explains something very important to him and his friends: cosplay. His team – called Rockets Rockets – like nothing better than planning costumes, dressing up and attending conventions, and there’s no bigger or better con than AnimeCon West, the highlight of their year.

It’s not all plain sailing, though, and there’s plenty of rivalry between the different cosplay teams, particularly over who performs best at various choreographed routines performed on stage. (Is this a thing? I’ve never been.) Outside of the con venue, normies are very clearly presented as intolerant, spiteful dicks who see no value in the pursuits enjoyed by these ‘weirdos’: this possibly plays on the fears, and/or the experiences of kooky kids the world over, and there’s a touch of the teen drama about this early part of the film, as well as clear links to comic culture – which feels a little overextensive, but fits in with the central premise, as well as the title.

So where do the zombies come in? That is an interesting one: in this universe, becoming a mindless, gut-ripping monster is dependent on that person’s behaviour. Not quite the indiscriminate outbreak of lore, the people who ‘turn’ in this universe (after a slightly bizarre initiatory event) are the ones we’ve already established are pretty bloody dreadful anyway: anyone who behaves like an arsehole could become a zombie. That doesn’t necessarily mean, by the way, that all of the cosplayers are inherently more tolerant, positive or trustworthy; some people within fandom have negative traits, too. Hatching a plan to cross LA to rescue Rocky’s mom (have you ever noticed that people’s mothers are usually a lot better off without the help?) Rocket Rocket arm up with the as-yet decorative collectible katanas which of course they have around the place, and off they go.

This is clearly a passion project and this is clear through the way the cast gives it their all, enjoying what they’re doing. It doesn’t laugh at cosplayers but laughs with them, perhaps, as it doesn’t take its initial set-up hugely seriously, having fun with it instead, and the film keeps our eye squarely on Rocky and the gang as our de facto heroes. There are issues with any project so constrained by budget, however: there are a lot of sound issues in the early part of the film, and a good boom mike could have sorted out that echoing. This is small fry, however, compared to the fact that the film lingers a little unnecessarily over its character- and world-building, particularly in the first third or so of the film, leading to an extended runtime overall which doesn’t contribute much to the film overall. Still, once the zombie idea comes into play, there’s a decent amount of SFX effects, even if the team couldn’t go as far with the zombie makeup as they probably wanted. You can see that in how they bookend the zombie ‘section’ of the screenplay, with a big gory effect at the beginning, and then a lot put by for the big finale.

In a nutshell, then: there are noticeable constraints and a few issues with ZombieCON Vol. 1, many of them budgetary, some of them more to do with plot and pace. However, there’s a lot of positivity too, and you can give credit for the ideas and the ambition shown here. Whilst this film isn’t quite the big zombie comeback the world wants and needs, it is a likeable and aspiring indie film and it’s highly likely that its cosplayer subject matter will make it particularly interesting to that element of the demographic, whose fantasy fandoms often ask them to ponder the ‘what ifs?’.

ZombieCON Vol. 1 (2024) is now available on Fandango and Apple TV.

Fantasia 2025: Hold the Fort

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Welcome to Gruber Hills, a desirable suburban community established in the 1850s. Great – or is it? As we quickly catch sight of torn pages from a grimoire (I’m convinced grimoires have a style guide) and boxes of ammunition, it seems that the community – and this home in particular – are under a monstrous siege, and Mabel (Devney Nixon), for one, is getting sick of it. This isn’t the retirement she envisaged, even if her husband is dead set on retaining his property, come what may. Well, just in case, Mabel has some potential buyers lined up; they’ll be along in the morning, oh, and they’re offering more than a million dollars for the place. It turns out, for one reason and another, that they’re going to be ready to make that sale after all.

Enter Lucas (Chris Mayers) and wife Jenny (Haley Leary), two young urbanites who have finally made the leap from a city rental straight into an HOA (something I had to look up, as we don’t really have these in the UK: they can tell you how long to grow your lawns?!). Lucas is much more clearly tailor-made for this lifestyle, whereas Jenny isn’t so much, but when they receive an invitation to a residents’ equinox party, they can’t really say no. An equinox party, though? What is this, some kind of cult?

No – it’s worse. Backfilling what we might have gleaned from the opening scenes, it turns out there’s a nearby portal to hell which requires the community to band together once per year to fight off its unholy forces. They call it a ‘party’, but that’s just clever branding: really, the equinox is something to survive, and not just in the sense of simply avoiding HOA-baiting faux pas over the buffet. The other HOA members are pretty sure, by the by, that Lucas and Jenny will be dead by the morning, but there’s not much time to debate their odds. Things kick off early, with the first wave of monster attacks happening ahead of time and – let’s not dwell on the whys and wherefores – their tried-and-tested neighbourhood monster killer, McScruffy (Hamid-Reza Benjamin Thompson) in unexpectedly out of action. More or less.

This is clearly one of those films which would thrive in front of a festival audience: Hold the Fort (2025) has lots of potential to be a genuine crowd-pleaser, with a fun premise which feels quite similar to a video game in terms of its plot and key developments. Whilst it perhaps promises more of an onslaught than it can fully deliver (and the film relies quite heavily on the dark to hide some of its budgetary SFX constraints) you can forgive this, because by displaying a thorough understanding of the right pacing, the right way to edit and – wherever it can – the requisite amount of gore, it’s able to come out feeling like a win.

The film as a whole has a childlike energy which cedes into the straightforwardly childish in a few places, no scorn intended (there’s room for a fart joke and more than a few physical gags and one-liners here) but there’s plenty of space to send up the American ideal, just without getting overcomplex. Characters are developed with a very light touch, and it never feels like filler; it’s just enough added depth to keep the story ticking along. And, at less than 75 minutes, the film doesn’t overstay its welcome, which is a key contributor to its success. Two hours of this would feel onerous. One and a bit is just right.

If I had to designate the film by its influences, I’d probably say it takes some elements from The Burbs (1989) and The Cabin in the Woods (2011), with a smattering of Evil Dead II (1987) perhaps, given the second Evil Dead film’s more overt use of humour. Whilst it can’t compete with those titles in terms of effects, and yes, does feel like it wants to from time to time, it’s still a nicely entertaining piece of splatstick horror-comedy which the cast and crew must have loved making. In amongst the madness, it also finds time for a serious piece of life advice along the way: always read the contract.

Hold the Fort (2025) had its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival on Wednesday, July 16th.

WIN! When Evil Lurks new box-set release

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Demián Rugna’s devastatingly terrifying Argentinian horror had everyone talking on its world premiere and has garnered awards galore, including Best Film at Sitges Film Festival, Best International Film at Fangoria Chainsaw Awards and a double win at Gérardmer Film Festival – the Audience Award and Critics Award.

When Evil Lurks certainly lurked in the minds of critics and audiences alike too,  with Dumdums stating it’s ‘One of the most disturbing movies you’ll EVER see’ and The Geek Show declared it ‘A powerhouse of a possession film, cementing Demián Rugna further as an absolute master of horror in the making’ and praise continued from The Cosmic Circus who said it ‘Defiantly crosses several lines even the most twisted of films in the genre wouldn’t dare step over… has the makings of a new high-mark for horror, for those who can stomach it at least’.

As for this film fan, well – it’s a film I still think about. Shocking, original and graphic.

The wicked When Evil Lurks Limited Edition is now set for release on 28 July 2025 and is presented in a stunning rigid slipcase with brand new artwork and is presented in dual format edition including both UHD and Blu-ray with main feature and bonus features on both discs and a slew of special features including brand-new interviews, a new commentary and a new video essay and more please see full listing on attached. Separate Standard Edition 4K/UHD and Blu-ray versions will also be available on the same date.

And…we’re delighted to be able to offer a competition copy for Warped Perspective readers!

To be in with a chance of winning, please email the site with WHEN EVIL LURKS as the subject header. In the body of your email, please include your full name and postal address (UK readers only, sorry!)

The competition will be drawn on the release date, so please make sure all entries are emailed in by midday on Monday 28th July (GMT). The winner will be contacted the same day: if you do not hear from us on the 28th, then please assume you have been unsuccessful on this occasion.

The site is GDPR compliant and addresses will only be stored up until the time the competition ends.

I think that’s it, so to be in with a chance at this great prize, get writing! Thanks and good luck…

Get ready for Fantasia 2025…

Posted on by Keri O'Shea
Queens of the Dead (dir. Tina Romero)

The Fantasia International Film Festival – now in its 29th year – has long since established itself as a world-beating event, and it hardly needs saying that it’s one of the real highlights of the year for genre film fans, whether those lucky enough to be in attendance or those of us watching and reviewing remotely. As ever, when the press information lands, it’s somewhere between exciting and intimidating: an embarrassment of riches, you could say. It’s been quite a task to run through it and pick out some highlights ahead of the festival opening next week (it will run from Wednesday 16th to Tuesday 22nd July), but here they are – tailored for a Warped Perspective audience, but as such just a fragment of what’s on offer across the course of the week. At least a few of these titles should be available for press coverage, and if so, watch this space – but for now, take a look at some of the films coming to this year’s festival…

The Undertone

Ian Tuason is best known as an author, but in his first feature film The Undertone, look out for a blend of tech horror and folk horror as a podcaster, Evy, begins to investigate a number of mysterious audio files of a man and his wife – whose story begins to become enmeshed with Evy’s own, traumatic life experiences. With Nina Kiri (The Handmaid’s Tale) in the starring role, expect an intense performance and a phenomenal use of sound design to bring the film’s sensory horrors to life. This will be the film’s world premiere.

Find Your Friends

Party culture turns sour in Izabel Pazkad’s first-ever feature as a girls’ outing gets scuppered first by hostile locals who don’t want the girls there, and then by warped and increasingly nasty internal pressures as the friends’ dynamic fractures. Looking at the fragility both of party culture and of young women and their lives, Find Your Friends escalates into something profound, nasty and shocking. The film receives its world premiere at Fantasia.

Nesting

Horror cinema has never exactly shied away from the negatives of the parenting experience – vulnerability, isolation, exhaustion – but in more recent years, it’s felt confident to focus its whole energies on it, particularly around maternal mental health. This brings us to Nesting, which doesn’t flinch in its portrayal of Pénélope (Rose-Marie Perreault), a woman with postpartum depression enduring the disintegration of her old life as she battles to support the wellbeing of her child. This will be another world premiere for the festival.

Flush

I don’t know, maybe it says something poignant about Western society that ‘toilet stall horror’ could perhaps be considered a subgenre at this point, but while we mull it over, here’s the synopsis for Flush, which promises quite the ride. Luke, a middle-aged coke fiend heads to the workplace of his ex, a nightclub, to win her back. Long story short, he ends up in the bathroom with a heap of stolen drugs, and from that point on things get…hectic. The press synopsis suggests that Flush is “Evocative of Dupieux by way of Gaspar Noé and early Álex de la Iglesia”, which is probably all you need to know to decide if you’re interested, and I bet you are by now. This first feature by Grégory Morin will be receiving its world premiere at the festival.

The Book Of Sijjin And Illiyyin

Now this is one for Warped Perspective: a blend of Islamic folk horror, Fulci-worthy ocular torture and Evil Dead-style demons and gore as a woman sick of being belittled and mistreated by her bosses decides to invoke a few demonic forces to get her vengeance. Indonesia really has carved a name for itself in the last couple of decades, and it’s always a thrill to be exposed to new folklore and myth, so hopes are very high for this one – which is about to receive its North American premiere.

Straight Outta Space

In the neighbourhood of Schijndrecht, street coaches Amin and Mitchell have enough to contend with without the locals suddenly turning into slime-covered creatures thanks to an intergalactic intervention (think Night of the Creeps and Attack The Block). Up against all of this, it’s the local residents who need to band together to save their community in this ambitious Dutch sci-fi-comedy outing. Straight Outta Space will be getting its North American premiere at Fantasia.

…and if that isn’t enough, here are some one-line synopses for other interesting titles appearing at the festival!

Holy Night: Demon Hunters (South Korea) – a gang of exorcists track and fight a band of devil worshippers and the demons they conjure, blending dark humour with plenty of brawls and horror.

Sugar Rot (Canada) – ice-cream-flavoured body horror as a girl becomes pregnant with…something which begins to change both her body and mind, after she endures an assault at the ice-cream parlour where she works.

Touch Me (USA) – two co-dependent best friends become addicted to the heroin-like touch of an alien narcissist who may or may not be trying to take over the world.

Queens of the Dead (USA), directed by Tina Romero, whose name you might recognise, Queens of the Dead positions the zombie apocalypse outside the walls of a giant NYC warehouse party, leaving a diverse bunch of people to fight for survival.

The Virgin of the Quarry Lake (Argentina) – repeat everything I said above about Indonesia’s contribution to recent horror but with Argentina this time; here, a young woman turns to witchcraft as a means of navigating a changing and complex modern world, blending horror with sensitive coming-of-age stylings.

The festival will also be running its usual roster of retro features (including the brilliant House with the Laughing Windows and Paul Morrissey’s thus-far rare cult classic Mixed Blood (thanks to Arrow and Vinegar Syndrome for their new restorations of these titles), as well as in-person events, including panel discussions, talks and a book launch: That Very Witch: Fear, Feminism, and the American Witch Film by Payton McCarty-Simas.

Pins and Needles (2024)

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

We start Pins and Needles (2024) in the same brisk, grisly manner which remains consistent throughout the film. The first quick lesson we learn is that blood is hard to shift, even when you’re scrubbing it away as hard as you can. We get this message before the title screen even appears, mind; this is not a film here to waste time, and it’s great to see.

However, this is just a brief shock before we move elsewhere, first getting a sense of scale – via shots of wide, open spaces – then zooming in on the strange minutiae of nature, its insects and invertebrates, squirming in jars. This is because our protagonist Max (Chelsea Clark) is an environmental science grad student doing field work, out collecting specimens. She’s heading off early though, getting a ride from her friend Harold (Daniel Gravelle) – a nice guy, if a little misguided, who has arranged to pick up a friend-of-a-friend on the way who’s pretty obviously a small time drug dealer. This bad call is partly responsible for a chain of events: a near-miss police stop, a hasty detour and an unplanned pitstop.

Fortunately – although the ominous soundtrack does anything but signpost this as ‘fortunate’ – their vehicle has gotten a flat right outside a surprisingly state-of-the-art house, right out there in the middle of nowhere: surely the people who live there can help? Max heads off to investigate – and so it begins, with Max, a Type 1 diabetic, at the mercy of her depleting insulin supplies, as well as everything else which begins to escalate once they’ve encountered the owners of the house. But as it soon turns out, only the house itself can offer any hope for finding the means to get the hell out of there and to safety, leading to a kind of double jeopardy for Max, who has to get inside to get outside. What she discovers inside is grotesque, alluding to the right amounts of rumour and urban myth about the super rich whilst turning it into a tense, gruesome game of survival.

Whilst later in the film director/writer James Villeneuve – who also directed the superb Vicious Fun – permits more and more slivers of dark humour to creep in, the set-up in Pins and Needles really isn’t comedic; from the outset, it has an artfully awry vibe, a feeling of something being ‘off’. It’s hard to pin it down. It could be because of the oppressive soundscape; maybe it’s the lush-looking, but disjointed early scenes; it could be the feeling of being in medias res right from the start, or even just the expert use of handheld cameras to keep us feeling like we’re stuck on Max’s level, enduring horrible surprise after horrible surprise alongside her. Whatever it is – probably all of this and more besides – it does its job, spinning a visually strong, atmospheric experience which is sustained.

Whilst our first up-close introduction to affluent homeowners Frank (Ryan McDonald) and Emily (Kate Corbett) feels like the film’s first big gear shift, with their casual cruelty being presented through some overblown dialogue, it does begin the process of adding in that dark humour whilst also resembling a lot of the most effusive claptrap spoken by the world’s very real super rich, whose words and performances are no kin together. This is a Canadian film, but the way Pins and Needles combines its wide open spaces, slick modern interiors, arrogant affluence and have-more cruelty feels very American. That could just be a personal perception thing. Hints given as to the source of all this wealth surpass land borders, anyway.

Whilst you may recognise some of the elements in this film, because there are a lot of familiar plot points from other, older horrors, there’s never a sense of Pins and Needles feeling simply derivative. It hasn’t set out to emulate anything, anyway: it just has a sense of what has come before it and ideas on how it can do its own thing with some of those central ideas. Furthermore, it retains a taut, crisp structure throughout, with an engrossing lead performance and a growing sense of confidence which serves it well. In some respects, despite the differences in plot, it reminds me of Apartment 1BR: it shares the earlier film’s dedication to getting the core elements right, understanding the importance of a strong lead role and avoiding the temptation to let things balloon to an overly-long runtime. It’s clearly been edited right down to the bone, and it absolutely works to the film’s credit. This is one sharp, economical horror, great at sustaining tension and a genuine pleasure (?) to watch.

Pins and Needles (2024) is available now from Filmhub.

Ba (2024)

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

In the opening scenes of Ba (2024), the presence of a strange, hooded figure making its way into a hospital ward is clearly, strongly reminiscent of Grim Reaper folklore. It’s a fair first impression, borne out by what follows – but in its own mythology-building and the careful ways it humanises its main characters, Ba is much more than a re-tread of tried-and-tested subject matter. It takes a trope, a well-established set of beliefs and does more than enough with these to make the film as a whole feel fresh and worthwhile.

We move back six months earlier: father Daniel (Lawrence Kao) and daughter Colette (Kai Cech) are driving and chatting, seemingly happily. But it’s not long until we see that this is bluster: they’re homeless, and they were hoping to stay with a friend, but that falls through, too. They have to change their plans: dad tries to keep things upbeat, but staying overnight in a parking lot with your child? It’s not ideal, to say the least.

The situation shifts. When Daniel finds an abandoned bag in the parking lot, he is curious enough to open it. Inside, he finds cash – lots of cash – and a note. It tells the reader that if they take the payment, then it’ll be considered a sign-up to the ‘eternal profession’. For now, that sounds scarier than it does tempting, but you know Daniel won’t be able to hold out for long. He loves his daughter, he’s a single parent and he wants to provide for her (the ‘Ba’ of the title is a version of ‘Pa’). The next day, Ba goes back to the bag – still there, still untouched – and this time, he takes the cash. The contract is now sealed.

As the film progresses, we get glimpses of all of the things which have brought father and daughter to this point, providing a picture of a family beset on all sides by recognisable, realistic problems. This is important, because to believe in the supernatural turn of events, you need characters with plausible backstories. It’s a lesson many indie filmmakers could stand to learn. We see just enough of the injuries (Daniel is, or was a pro dancer), the health conditions, the family schism, the eviction notice which have led to the parking lot: it isn’t overwritten, but it helps significantly to generate pathos for both of these people. The film’s spin on the idea of Death personified turns death itself into a shady, underground industry of sorts and it’s surprisingly effective: in this universe, and I can’t help but think of these ideas as a kind of horror shadow to some of Terry Pratchett’s best work, the Grim Reaper works as part of a conglomerate, not dead but not alive in the normal sense, with a job role and a contract which has workplace stipulations. Fulfil your contract, and you can quit – if you do things to the letter. Of course, roles and responsibilities like this have quite a lot riding on them, with much that could go wrong. Beyond this idea, Ba can be read as a critique of the whole idea of indentured labour – particularly given that we have an immigrant single father here, already pushed to the margins of society with a pre-existing array of very tough decisions to make.

For all its fantasy components, however, Ba isn’t an especially complex film; it does enough, it has great ideas, it utilises subtle effects, but it’s the touching details and strong performances which truly carry it. It also adds in new characters and stories very carefully, with only one exception (a villain arrives, misbehaves and departs at twice the speed of anyone else). However, misfires here are so infrequent as to be easily overlooked. Ba is a richly colourful, well-framed and visually appealing film, and it’s equally gratifying that writer/director Benjamin Wong and his team haven’t succumbed to the frequent indie temptation to push the film to a much longer runtime because they couldn’t bear to part with any footage. The runtime we have – an economical 75 minutes – is more than suitable for the story at hand. Ba is a supernatural tale, sure, but it works as well as it does because of the loving – if damaged – family at its heart.

Ba (2024) is now available digitally in the US.

28 Years Later (2025)

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

I have limited preamble for this review of 28 Years Later; let’s call it shock. Like many other film fans, I really liked 28 Days Later, despite sharing in the laugh at the end of Shaun of the Dead about its key plot point, because it had enough energy, initiative and charm to carry it through. Then I saw 28 Weeks Later, and sadly, despite its many strengths, forgot most of it instantly. Well, so, it seems, did director Danny Boyle, who has reused the start point of the first film whilst pretending the second film, with its insinuations of asymptomatic carriers and infection across Europe, never existed. The resulting new film is an awkward and painfully unaware montage of some of the good bits from 28 Days Later, unconvincingly strung together with a silly, half-realised story unworthy of the excellent actors who signed up to be in it.

This review contains mild spoilers.

In 28 Years Later, the virus which obliterated the mainland UK (and Ireland too, it’s suggested here?) isn’t quite as we may remember it. Sure, it does the same job, instantly turning people into vomiting, spasmodic rage vessels, but apparently the Infected don’t starve to death in this universe. Happily for the small No Blade of Grass-style community now installed on Holy Island in Northumberland, the Infected’s instinct to eat and drink never seems to extend to them wading through the water (or popping along at low tide) to attack this possibly last real bastion of the living. On the island, we are introduced to twelve year old Spike (Alfie Williams), ahead of a big bonding day with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). They’re off to the mainland together for the first time, for reasons which quickly turn out to be questionable; not for them, bagging one of the hundreds of wild deer now roaming freely; instead they’re there to take potshots at the remnant Infected who still wander/slither through the woods, eating very calorific worms. This obviously goes terribly wrong, not least because the geography of Britain has started to act up: Jamie points out to Spike that they’ve attracted the attention of an Alpha, an Infected male who enjoys dominance over the others (for reasons you may want to hazard a guess at). This is symbolised by the way he stands by a tree, looking menacingly at them, and that he can continue to be seen standing by the same tree, even when the man and the boy have run away and holed themselves up in a farmhouse attic somewhere else.

Other things can be seen from this magic attic window. One of those things is a fire; Jamie claims to know nothing about this fire or whose it might be, but when they finally get safely back to the island, Spike asks around, finding out from family friend Sam that this is probably one Dr Kelson, a local madman everyone avoids because of his corpse-collecting proclivities. But he’s a doctor; some of them are a bit funny, and at home, Spike’s mother Isla (a criminally underused Jodie Comer) is ill and confused, dreaming of a lost world of Nurofen and the sound of internet dial-up (the film’s use of nostalgia is always jarring). Spike, unimpressed by the spin which his father is by now putting on their daring deeds on the mainland, decides that he’s going to take his mother to see this doctor in the hopes of a cure.

In case you aren’t familiar with British geography, the fire seen by Spike and Jamie is now, incomprehensibly, a round trip of 70 miles south from Holy Island to the Sycamore Gap, and then another day’s walk east to the Angel of the North near Newcastle. Oh, I know, it’s churlish to get absorbed by such details, but why bother to get anything right if you can’t be bothered to get a central plank of the storyline in any way hammered into a plausible shape? Forget the landmarks and consider the relative distance being travelled: can we really suspend our disbelief on all counts – including time and space? The idea of a rage virus is enough of a suspension of disbelief, surely; why else did Boyle and Garland go to so much trouble in 28DL to build verisimilitude around a deserted London? It’s a lot to ask, particularly in a film which puts the Tellytubbies in twice for good measure and selects for its end sequence an homage to an infamous sex offender, because, oh I have no idea why, maybe because ‘we didn’t know then’, but we bloody know now, it’s a bafflingly bad joke and regardless, we did know where things were on a map even in the Noughties. Anyway, Isla is ill and really not up to 110 miles on foot, the Infected have morphed into a blend of the cave dwellers in The Descent and the hive from I Am Legend, and the journey is beset by incredible risk. Well, that’s what it’s like trying to see a doctor in this country.

Come to think of it, where are all these Infected coming from? Is the insinuation that there are still lots of people becoming infected after nearly three decades, or have some of these people been born into it? Is there rudimentary childrearing taking place? They’re all stark naked, by the way, save for one woman who really didn’t need the signifier of a tattered flowery dress, given her condition. This irate nudist colony are still a big enough threat to pursue mother and son through the countryside: will Spike be able to get Isla the help she needs? Can they possibly survive?

Along the way, it’s not fully clear whether the inclusion of scenes from the first film are there as Easter eggs (a particularly noxious form of fan service which often breaks up an already shattered narrative) or if they suggest a lack of confidence in the new storyline, but neither scenario really suggests much that’s good about the writing process here. Rats, crows and soldiers all pop in for a cameo, but little about any of these matters to the grand scheme of things. At least, though, there’s something palpable here, and it moves things away from the film’s early montage style sequences – braying music, fast edits, cuts to black and white footage and a Kipling recitation; things which would have looked dated even 28 years ago. The film gestures towards philosophising in places, but never quite gets there: it’s off doing something else, flinging spinal columns around or lingering lovingly on Tango ads. It even paints its doctor orange.

I think that’s actually the problem here, though: we just have a gamut of bits and pieces, not a narrative rise and resolution. It’s just a grab-bag of ideas, edited together. That’ll do them. Parts of the film very clearly marked out as being emotive are handled with due gravitas by a trio of actors more than equal to the scene, regardless of how little writing they’ve had until that point (Comer is able to carve something meaningful from her role, despite being prostrate in bed for the first hour), but hot on its heels is something so bizarre in tone that it threatens to wash away the more meaningful pause which came before it. Sure, the emotionality feels a little contrived anyway, but it’s sandwiched between great slabs of silliness, and if it’s too much to say that feels insulting, then it certainly feels magnificently wrongheaded. Two more films in this franchise to come, you say? Two more, like this?

28 Years Later (2025) is in cinemas now.

Raindance 2025: Row

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

You never really know which way it’s going to go in a survival story based at sea. What will the main issue be? – will it be the elements (The Perfect Storm)? Will it be the failings of the vessel, or human error (Open Water; Dead Calm; Adrift)? Or will there be something potentially supernatural going on (The Block Island Sound, The Isle)?

Row (2025, or 2018?) has – no spoilers intended – a hint of all of those, with an abundant runtime of around two hours and clear ambition to make the very best out of the setting and central ideas. However, it’s a strange blend of enthusiasm and a rather diffuse style of storytelling (see: two hour runtime) which can’t quite ring true, despite some skilled shooting and visuals. It looks great; there are, however, issues with both pace and plot.

The film starts with a bloodied rowing vessel; there’s a traumatised, lone woman on board waving a knife around. This feels like a film choosing to start at around three-quarters of the way through its complete narrative, which is a popular narrative choice; our task will be to unpick what brought Megan (Bella Dayne) to this point, and see what unfolds next: chiefly, is Megan guilty of murder? Footage of the time aboard the boat is interspliced with footage of Megan recovering in what turns out to be a guesthouse on a remote Scottish island, under the auspices of an interested local policeman. First, though, we go right back to before the vessel left Newfoundland, as part of a world record attempt to cross the Atlantic to Ireland. More on this anon.

There are instant issues, issues some might say are a good reason not to do the crossing at all: firstly, Megan does not seem the sort of person who’s likely to thrive cheek by jowl with three other rowers, two of them strangers to her, for weeks at a time in dangerous conditions. She’s very closed off, even a little numb to what she’s about to undertake, mustering only an assurance to her mother that she’ll be ‘fine’. She’s accompanied by old friend Lexie (Sophie Skelton), and two blokes – Daniel (Akshay Khanna) and Mike (Nick Skaugen). The vessel launches with no fanfare, given it’s a record attempt: true enough, thanks to the audience perspective, we also already know it wasn’t exactly successful, and that during her recovery, Megan is being questioned as to the whereabouts of her crewmates (though to be fair, it’s almost bound to be ‘the sea’, isn’t it?) The flashback/flash forward device is an interesting approach; depending on your outlook, you could see it as an intriguing way of adding depth and complexity to the film, or as a means of losing its building tension, given that it jumps away from events on the voyage to the aftermath at regular intervals. Regardless of where you stand, it does at least demonstrate ambition for the framing narrative, and a way of layering different elements to build structure.

There are great elements here, and director Matthew Losasso has made much of his opportunity to film at sea – filming off the coast of Scotland, but effectively weaving the illusion that this is hundreds of miles from anywhere. The use of drone shots to pan down towards the vessel are great for this, and shots of rough weather genuinely create an impression of the great powerlessness of human beings in such an environment (with sympathetic, convincing and best of all, brief moments of CGI). Even before the record attempt gets underway, shots of the boat make it seem quite clear that it’s fragile, even if in peak condition. In contrast, the sea is consistently vast and cold, with sequences filmed at sea capturing the isolation and desperation of the characters. It’s great that these things are in place; despite issues with the overarching plot, there’s lots to enjoy here in terms of the aesthetics and broader atmosphere of the film, at least in its strongest moments.

It’s just hard to call in other respects; that’s the issue here. It’s not quite clear whether this was meant to be an ominous dreamscape or a realistic look at the perils of the Atlantic. There’s both a lot going on – not always followed through – and little going on. This duality starts early: the premise is just off somehow, this ‘world record’ attempt that no one seems to know about, undertaken by a group of people who don’t seem particularly fit, or prepared, with no rapport, no working relationships and a tendency to make mad decisions. Of course people can be idiots and these idiots can get in rowing vessels, if they so wish; it just feels unreal here when it really needed to feel substantial, the basis upon which everything else rests. Other things then come along and interfere with the central premise. Such as, the two women do no rowing for the first half an hour of the film; they seem to enjoy sitting around and talking instead. The men do some rowing, but a lot of macho yelling too – and they’ve dumped the heater and the desalinator, because of course they have. Perhaps the point here is that these people should never have come, but it’s a vague sort of point, and it takes until past the first hour before human lunacy really takes hold as the Central Issue.

Row picks up a few things and puts them down again: personal drama; identity crises; guilt; even what looks for a while like a supernatural plot shift. It never really settles on one mode of storytelling and it never offers us fully-fledged characterisation, so if nothing else, the journey feels about as long for us as it does for the hapless adventurers. Megan, in particular, is very tough to read, going from inertia to mania and back again. Whether this is Megan as-written or as-acted, it’s another issue in a film which needed at least a few more, excuse the expression, watertight elements.

The key problem here, beyond the determination to throw every kind of obstacle at the boat, is that runtime. Losasso is most experienced as a short film director (though with a few TV movies also under his belt) but that leap from a few minutes to 118 of them has posed problems. It nearly always does. Add in a maximum cast of four, a very limited set and a three-quarters-through start point and there’s several reasons why generating clarity and tension is going to be difficult. Row is a technically very proficient film, but perhaps a victim of the urge to do everything. Less is more.

Row (2025) received its world premiere at the Raindance Film Festival on 21st June 2025.