Review by Darren Gaskell Whether you’re a horror movie fan or you’d run a mile rather than watch anything remotely scary, chances are you’ll know the name of Robert Englund, propelled to icon status via his memorable portrayal of knife-gloved, stripey sweater sporting child killer Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare On Elm Street movies. Of […]
Art and horror have a long and fruitful relationship, from every cinematic rendering of The Portrait of Dorian Gray through to Fulci, Barker and Begos. Regrettably, End of Term (2021) won’t be making any ‘best of’ lists for its own treatment of the art theme; neither the art nor the horror are either plausible or […]
Strange goings-on are pressing in at the edges in Vincent (2023): disappearances, despair, double lives. But despite these blue-tinged, Nordic hints of horror, this turns out to be an immensely warm, often touching film about friendship which absolutely deserves to be seen. This is one of those indie cinema gems which you keep on reviewing […]
More a thoughtful, often thought-provoking experience than a straightforward horror or indeed a folk horror, Nightsiren (2022) doles out its story of rural generational harm piecemeal, but generally carefully. Undoubtedly, it runs aground in places, but this sober, sombre film is always a visual treat with a formidable atmosphere and lots of interesting layering to […]
Appearing midway-through what might once have been the new normal of the New Extremity movement of the Nineties and early Noughties, Calvaire (2004) was, nonetheless, an odd and interesting fit for that movement. No doubt it was helped into existence by the advent of films like Irréversible, which had been released two years prior (sharing […]
A sylvan nightmare introduces us to the world of Mercy Falls (2023) and a sylvan nightmare it remains; make of that what you will. As a film, it retains all of the standard nonsensical elements of a nightmare, alongside its tension and inescapability. The film on the whole can be perplexing, though it does do […]
The act of fossil-hunting is, for all its wholesomeness and its interesting history and fresh air, a hunt for a past which is by now utterly alien to us. It hangs somewhere between presence and absence; fossils are here, but gone; permanent, but extinct. And if all of this sounds like a rather lofty way […]
Good Boy (2022) is an odd proposition, because it immediately disrupts what you may expect from its most obvious plot elements. With its clean, sumptuous interiors, pleasant and polite cast, and distinctly bloodless approach to its storytelling, it oh-so almost keeps up appearances – but it has a grim, unsettling element which runs right to […]
Minore (2023) is a great premise on paper, but – sadly – too diffuse and poorly-paced to pass muster in practice. Along the way, there are great scenes and great ideas, but the film’s ragtag approach to building tension and developing a plotline let it down. It could have been a great film, shorn of […]
There has, in recent years, been a modest resurgence in interest in the genre of folk horror, with directors such as Ari Aster and Robert Eggers putting their own spin on recognisable folk horror features such as closed communities, local belief systems and irrational devotion to the edicts of these systems. As such, the likes […]
At this point, a good zombie film feels like a noble tradition for many horror fans but also, given the number and the scope of zombie horrors down through the years, it’s acceptable to be a little picky. Not only did the birth of zombie cinema kickstart a new, nasty, unrelenting kind of horror, but […]