Any film which announces itself with a bright red, block-capitals title screen always speaks to high levels of confidence (go on, bet you can think of a few) and yeah, Jackalope (2026) fits this bill, too. If it’s guilty of anything, then it’s how it introduces a surfeit of ideas which it needs its audience […]
Starting out as a gruelling ethical quandary before progressing somewhere borderline fantastical, Child (2026) is without doubt a bleak film, but an innovative one, and it works effectively on its own terms, keeping a very humane, character-focused approach throughout its bizarre literal and metaphorical journey. We start with two doctors attending to what is clearly […]
Killa B (Brianna Lee) is a very successful TikTok influencer and content creator (singing, dancing, talking to the camera – you know the drill). She’s beloved of a demographic of rather dead-eyed teenagers who come to life briefly whenever she posts. All that approbation can do things to you. The Troll (2025) is about what […]
*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS *** The executives of billion-dollar firm Immaculate Pond Technologies, along with an accidental extra guest, gather for a, you guessed, corporate retreat in order to recharge and refocus. Or, so they thought. It’s not long before their visions of team-building nirvana are hijacked by a vengeful figure from the past […]
Chris Sadowski (Steven Strait) was just about to make it big with his band, Ghost Agent – but the vagaries of showbiz had other ideas. Four years after what should have been the band’s real break, he’s reduced to recording birthday messages and ditties on Fiverr. Not that he gets much time to focus on […]
Hollywood, 1981. A group of adult filmmakers gather to discuss their shift of genres to horror cinema in order to make a well regarded slasher movie, a quick buck, or both. After all, as someone initially points out, Friday The 13th was made for nothing and made a killing at the box office, so why […]
Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec God of the Dead and page upon page of Aztec art depicting his historical ritual appeasement dominate the first minutes of Mexican director Mauricio Chernovetzky’s Sacrificios (2025), a study of Mexican religion, grief, fatherhood and guilt. After lingering across various drawings and sculpture, the camera pulls back to reveal a small boy, […]
We slowly pan back through a bedroom into a bathroom where a young woman sits, on the floor, bawling her eyes out: yes, Deepfake (2026) starts with a relationship breakdown, and the distressed dumpee Jane (Jessica DiGiovanni) is soon doing everything she can to rehabilitate her self-image and social standing, even if that largely seems […]
Part mystery, part broad strokes eco- or folk horror, Broken Beak (aka The Burning of Broken Beak, 2026) is flawed in execution, but not without engaging thematic and visual ideas of its own. Moreover, it my be flawed, but it isn’t flippant. We start by hearing the last mating call of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō bird, […]
Films like Recluse (2026) come along so rarely: with meticulous handling and careful control of atmosphere, it weaves something quite extraordinary out of what, on paper, sounds recognisable. We begin with a painter, a renowned ‘tortured artist’ type, Lawrence Wyatt, working in his fracturing, but still comfortable family home. He is putting the finishing touches […]
We hear a link between music, chaos and quantum theory being suggested as Turn It Up! (2026) gets underway: someone is explaining to us, via a voiceover of sorts, that just the right kind of noise could, quite literally, open (interdimensional) doors. This is just before – in a fun, pace-setting title sequence – we […]