Spirit Of Independence 2025: Tummy Monster

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 […]

Spirit Of Independence 2025: The Quiet Ones

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 […]

Spirit Of Independence 2025: The Fog (45th Anniversary)

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 […]

Spirit Of Independence 2025: Nightfall: A Paranormal Investigation

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 […]

The Severed Sun (2024)

The Severed Sun (2024) opens in a remote religious community, just prior to a calamitous event. A young woman named Magpie (Emma Appleton) has, presumably with the tacit approval of her bruised and battered elder stepson David (Lewis Gribben), concocted a plan to poison her monstrous husband. Husbands tend to be monstrous, by the by, […]

Fantastic Fest 2025: Coyotes

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 […]

Ash (2025)

Ash (2025) is, for the most part, as much about thoughts, impressions and experiences as it is a conventional piece of narrative film. It comes in like a space-age fever dream, all body horror and blaring noise, before pausing on the lone, prone figure of Riya (Eiza González), injured and amnesic on the floor of […]