Review by Tristan Bishop Special effects artists occupy a strange place in the world of film. Often all but ignored by the mainstream (especially in these days of overdone CGI), the best of them are lauded as heroes by the horror (and sci-fi) communities. Witness, for example, Gregory Nicotero being (rightly) honoured at this years […]
By Nia Edwards-Behi Caution – as with most retrospectives, expect strong spoilers. The year is 1972, and the ideals of the Summer of Love already feel like a distant memory. It is three years since Woodstock; four years since the assassination of Martin Luther King. Hippies are on the wane and anarchy is on the […]
Review by Nia Edwards-Behi Editor’s note: following on from Steph’s review, here’s another look at the film from Nia. Two reviews of the same film back-to-back might seem like overkill, but Nia has so much to say on the subject, how could we decline? Just call us the Soskas Appreciation Society – and beware of […]
Review by Stephanie Scaife Although my time at FrightFest was brief this year, I did manage to catch Jen and Sylvia Soska’s eagerly anticipated follow up to their cult debut Dead Hooker in a Trunk (2009), American Mary. This time they’ve forgone the B-movie aesthetic and produced something altogether more polished and unusual: a surreal […]
Review by Keri O’Shea Don’t get me wrong here; I’m a big fan of Edgar Allan Poe, but straightforward cinematic adaptations of his prose rarely yield quality results. His works are often not much more than fragments – short insights into extraordinary circumstances giving way, naturally, to mental torment, rather than what we’d usually consider […]
Review by Kit Rathenar I’m one of those fortunate people who not only doesn’t get motion sickness from watching found footage movies, but also hasn’t actually seen that many of them. I’ve generally avoided the genre after rather failing to get what the fuss was about when I saw The Blair Witch Project, many years […]
by Kit Rathenar Beware of moderate spoilers. It says everything about the current state of filmmaking that when I set out to write an article celebrating the fifteenth birthday of Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon, the first thing I did – even before sitting down to rewatch the film itself – was to peer suspiciously […]
Review by Ben Bussey Film is a powerful and mysterious thing. No wonder it becomes an obsession for so many of us, as it affects us in ways we do not completely understand, by means that are often completely unknown to us. For this reason, there can be a particuar potency to films which centre […]
Review by Ben Bussey Remember a time when we didn’t instinctively hate every remake that came along the second it was announced? I’m guessing that’s going to be a stretch for many of us, given it’s been near enough a full decade since some bunch of upstarts thought they could make a bit of money […]
By Keri O’Shea Here at Brutal as Hell, it’s not all fun and games. As much as we spend time reviewing movies, comics and books, we occasionally like to grapple with profound philosophical questions. Yes, it’s true; today, for instance, I’ve been pondering a very important distinction – one which affects us all, and one […]
Review by Annie Riordan Of all the crude, chauvinistic, immature gestures that little men with undersized penises make, my least favorite is the “suck it” gesture. The gesturer in question will flatten both palms, fingers together, as though about to execute a double karate chop. Instead, with pinkies in and thumbs out, the hands will […]