Mickey (Stephen Reilly) is a labourer who wants much more out of life. When he meets Kenny (Johnny Wilson) in a bar, he finds himself with a sideline gig of peddling drugs for gang boss Luther (Peter Hirst) but Mickey wants much more than that and, if he’s going to take risks, he’d like to […]
There’s a serial killer on the loose in LA. As a shock jock-type DJ jokes about it being someone with ‘mommy issues’, your thoughts turn pretty quickly to the standard: a man who loathes women. Which, to be fair, it usually is, but not today: the killer we see dispatching a terrified woman on the […]
Tattoo artist Tales (Lorn McDonald) is living in his place of work after being kicked out by his girlfriend. In the middle of the night, he’s awoken by a phone call from a guy called Truth (Michael Akinsulire) who represents a well-known figure who needs some new ink right now and has heard Tales is […]
After the death of her father, Charlotte (Kelsey Cooke) faces a mountain of debt and the prospect of losing the fabulous holiday villa she currently resides in. Via social media, she hooks up with Danni (Sophie Ablett) who joins her in sunny Spain and the two concoct a plan to stream – and charge for […]
Having knocked it out of the park twice in a row with 1976’s Assault On Precinct 13 and 1978’s Halloween (three times if you count 1974’s Dark Star, which I do), it’s safe to say that John Carpenter had folks clamouring for his next project. For some, it was a surprise that, after the nigh […]
In 1988, paranormal investigators Mick Sutherland (Myles McEwen) and Archie Charlesworth (Ripley Stevens) are called to the home of one Elizabeth Blair in order to confront a series of unexplained phenomena unlike any they’ve seen in their burgeoning careers as detectives of the supernatural. Over the course of seven days, the pair will uncover the […]
Coyotes (2025) opens in the most affluent part of LA, the bit near the big letters, and in so doing wastes no time establishing a tone for what’s to come: money and means are going to come into crashing conflict with a highly unlikely, but entertaining series of events. We start with influencer Kat (Katherine […]
“Towns like Meadville haunt you.” So goes an early voiceover by Carrie (Rainey Qualley), who is working on a book about the local legend of Pig Hill, centred around mutant, porcine creatures who are supposedly responsible for a string of young women going missing. We’ve already seen the latest of these disappearances in the cold […]
It’s great that HollyShorts is around: the more festivals we have covering the world of short genre film, the better. As an example of the kinds of films they have featured this year, here are just four titles: each diverse, but each compelling examples of the short film format. First up is Halfway Haunted, which […]
Feeling nostalgic for the torture horror wave of the Noughties yet? If you are, then Your Host (2025) has got you covered. The proviso which comes with this, however, is that if you didn’t particularly enjoy that style of filmmaking, then this isn’t the one to win you over. It’s a clear and affectionate homage […]
Blood Shine (2025) is an immediate barrage of contrasts – tonal and aesthetic – and it maintains its multi-layered approach throughout, using different styles of horror as it grows steadily more intense and provocative. If there are echoes of other films in here – and you may notice a few – there’s more than enough […]