The horrors of Hollywood keep on giving: last year, this year, no doubt next year, and so on. Skincare (2024) is another film which bases its storyline in the beauty industry, and all in all, it’s an engaging horror-adjacent tale, even if on some levels it struggles to settle on a genre. We start at […]
The Fix (2024) starts with an advert: there’s apparently a product available which will enable people to ‘breathe the air again’. Uh-oh; so it sounds as though director Kelsey Egan’s interest in environmental sci-fi and horror is still intact, if being given a different level of reach here than in previous films, such as Glasshouse. […]
“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 […]
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 […]
After biologist and coral smuggler Dr. Theresa Gorgeous dies in strange circumstances, Interpol agents Chase National (Alex Zhang Hungtai) and No St. Aubergine (Esther Garrel) head to Mexico to investigate a convoluted case that may be connected to Gorgeous’ illicit cargo. Can they solve the mystery before the body count spirals out of control? Described […]
*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS* For this year’s mystery Celluloid Screams grindhouse screening, we were promised something equally as bonkers as the previous year’s Lady Terminator. I was also advised by someone on the CS programming team that I’d probably seen it, which somehow meant to fellow Screamers that I would be able to pluck the […]
Glue Trap (2023) opens in medias res, focusing on a sparring couple – Dan (Isaac Jay) and KJ (Brittany Bradford). At first, it seems like they’re in a therapy session; actually, it’s worse. They’re at a dinner party, and the host couple seems very happy, which only underlines their own issues. But some good comes […]
Who’d be in a rock band these days? Not only do you have to contend with the sheer impossibility of making a living whilst you balance your social media profile against diminishing Spotify returns, but you may even find yourself in a horror film. Consider the surfeit of recent cinematic evidence – some good, some […]
1750, Austria: any film based on ‘historical records’ which starts as devastatingly as The Devil’s Bath does, at least, place its cards on the table. This richly beautiful, if always stark film examines the lives of women, and as much as it focuses on one woman, it allows us to pause long enough to extrapolate, […]
Small-time drug dealer Wes (James Nelson-Joyce) has a good thing going in his hometown of Dennings, with a growing stream of punters getting hooked on a form of ecstasy called “Clown.” He’s in a stable relationship with Zoe (Olivia Frances Brown), they’ve recently welcomed a son into the world and, longer term, they’re looking to […]
The Final Pact starts with a Suspiria-lit house and a fleeing priest; we’ll be here again, you catch yourself thinking, but it’s not quite how you’d imagine. Rather than a tried-and-tested religious horror, this is much more of a psychological drama, albeit one which draws on supernatural elements to get where it needs to be. […]