Yes, I realise I’m a little late to the party with this one given that at the time of writing David Gordon Green’s Halloween has been in cinemas just over a week, and to the tune of the highest box office takings in franchise history no less. But if we’re speaking in terms of who’s […]
As someone who writes about films, it’s always a telling moment when you find yourself approaching a particular review with trepidation. Given that, at the time of writing, pretty much an entire week has passed since I saw Assassination Nation at Celluloid Screams 2018, there’s no denying that this is one such film I feel […]
Tigers Are Not Afraid spins some uncomfortable truths about life in Mexican border towns into a fantastical yarn. In so doing, it embeds its characters in a fairy tale, inviting the audience to see the tale through to the end, and to look for tropes we all recognise. The besieged princess, the ogre, the magical […]
As has oft been noted, one of the great pleasures of attending film festivals, getting early looks at films which have yet to (or in some cases, never really do) reach a wide audience, is being caught by surprise by material of which you knew little or nothing beforehand. This is particularly the case when […]
Nostalgia seems to be generational. Much as the 1980s saw an influx of renewed interest in the culture of the 1950s, and the 90s seemed to be all about attempting to relive the 60s, so too has our current decade seemed often overly fixated on looking back to the 80s. This trend that it has […]
Some films excel at that kind of grimy, disconcerting quality which Possum (2018) has in abundance. Every frame of this film makes your skin crawl: it’s a love letter to abandoned places and anonymous spaces, swept through with dead foliage and rot. This, in and of itself, makes the film fairly challenging viewing, even whilst […]
A noir-ish montage of images and a voiceover ruminating on the immorality of Hollywood introduces The Queen of Hollywood Blvd, a self-professed crime drama which promises to pitch a hard-bitten club owner against the tactics of a gang of organised criminals. On paper, the film does just this – but the style and tone involved […]
With such recent high profile success stories as It, A Quiet Place and Hereditary, the world at large is finally opening up to horror movies of a more sombre, introspective nature than the mainstream crowds tend to expect. Of course, anyone who keeps abreast of international indie horror and the festivals should already be well […]
An athletic young man, Allan (Jason Beghe) is rendered quadriplegic and reliant on wheelchair use after being struck by a truck. He struggles to adjust to his new life, dependent on his domineering mother and uncaring ex-girlfriend to assist him. Luckily, he is given a life line in the form of a Capuchin monkey, trained […]
How does a film which, from its mere conception, is a blatant cash-in on other established properties go about making itself seem something more than the blatant cash-in it is? As soon as word got out that Sony had given the green light to a solo movie based around Spider-Man bad guy Venom, it was […]
There have been many horror films about environmental havoc over the years, but it seems as though frogs have not figured prominently in these. Aside from the game-changing (or even life-changing) Hell Comes to Frogtown and a short cameo in Baskin, frogs have been largely overlooked, so I’ll admit: the press information for Strange Nature […]