The Feast (Gwledd) is a Welsh-language horror about place and ‘progress’; as such, it bears many of the hallmarks of folk horror, though it never neatly expounds all of these elements. It doesn’t divulge everything; perhaps it doesn’t need to. However, its message is still bloodily clear and familiar: tradition and folklore are more than […]
Here’s what you might already know about Glorious: it’s set in a toilet. What you might not yet know (or perhaps you do) is that you can explore some pretty profound ideas in this setting. Think microcosm-macrocosm, where big ideas can be played out on the small scale, but tell us a lot about the […]
Based on a novel by Craig Davidson – who also writes under the pen-name, Nick Cutter – The Fight Machine (2022) is, by some strange chance, the second of Davidson’s/Cutter’s novels to get adapted for the big screen, with both films appearing at this year’s Fantasia (The Breach being the other). It’s a pulpy, often […]
Rounding off our Fantasia 2022 coverage, we have a glance at another run of short films – this time, directed exclusively by women. And it’s a varied, often very dark collection of films, touching upon subjects such as superstition, statelessness, secret worlds, the afterlife, friendship, love and trauma. Lily’s Mirror operates in a ghastly early […]
Remember that meme from a few years ago which pointed out that if you run Godzilla backwards, it’s the story of a benevolent lizard who builds a city before moonwalking into the sea? Yeah, yeah, but it raises a valid point: you have to wonder, in those many fine films where a city gets decimated […]
Let’s cut to the chase here: we’re big supporters of short film as a medium here at the site, but whether you’re a regular reader or not, surely you’d agree that the presence of short films is of tremendous benefit to any film festival. The storytelling is pared back by necessity in a short film […]
All great old cities are built on the bones of the dead. Paris conceals miles of spooky catacombs beneath its streets. London sits on layers of plague pits, paupers’ graves, Roman-era burials, the forgotten dead from wartime conflagrations, as well as the ashes of its own ancient sacking. Tokyo, the main urban centre of Japan […]
The Breach (2022) knows exactly what it wants to be: that is, a solid horror yarn, a midnight movie by design which might not surprise you with its plot elements, but will keep you consistently entertained as it burns through a significant number of genre features. Directed by Rodrigo Gudiño, founder of Rue Morgue magazine, […]
If you go by the title and the poster art alone, you might be forgiven for assuming He’s Watching (2022) is some kind of slasher movie – but you’d be wrong. Instead, the film blends a couple of different kinds of horror, blending anxieties old and new to come up with something quite unique. Yes, […]
Honeycomb (2022) is an odd prospect. Electively surreal with a minimal storyline, it often feels a little clumsy where it intends to be out-there. But it’s not without charm, even if much of that derives from its long, mood-drenched shots of long summer days. If you can imagine Yellowjackets remade as a Beck video (complete […]
There’s been a tendency in pop culture to present serial killers as monolithic: they’ve often been painted as almost supernatural, not only ungoverned by the usual social and cultural norms but devoid of familial ties, too. But that is changing: more recent films and TV have hinted at least at something more going on with […]