Review by Keri O’Shea “Satan has only the power we give him.” A highly tense chiaroscuro Confessional gives us the opening scene of The Monk (2011), and introduces us to our main character – the ‘model of rectitude’, Ambrosio (Vincent Cassel), a monk legendary within his order and for miles around his Capuchin monastery, an […]
Review by Stephanie Scaife Sometimes a screener comes along that is so bad that it makes you consider giving up watching movies altogether, so Break was rather apt both in title and tagline. I wanted to take a break from film after watching it and it really was no mercy, just pain… terrible, derivative, throbbing […]
Festival Report by Nia Edwards-Behi This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival. The genre giant, as ever, provides a packed schedule of great films, notable guests and plenty of atmosphere. A cornerstone of genre festivals, it’s testament to the festival team that a crowd of die-hard fans can mingle […]
Review by Keri O’Shea ‘Found footage’ is an incredibly popular shooting style for filmmakers these days – now even meriting its own genre – but, whenever you see it used, you know it means a series of trade-offs. Whilst it’s good in that it creates a sense of immediacy, an equality with the protagonists who […]
Review by Ben Bussey Ever notice how it never works out for the ones who seem too happy? Art teacher Lily (Kelan Coleman) may be deaf, but she’s young, she’s pretty, she loves her job, and above all she loves her little sister Michelle (Sarah Sculco), whom she has looked after on her own since […]
Review by Nia Edwards-Behi Elfie Hopkins has been a long time coming – finally getting a cinema release here in the UK, it’s a sweet-hearted piece that doesn’t really work as a horror film, but never the less has a massive amount of charm. Elfie Hopkins (Jaime Winstone) is the local slacker…and wannabe private detective. […]
Review by Ben Bussey Will the young women of this world never learn? If you need to get away from it all, don’t go to Paris. The only way you’ll get out of it okay is if your dad’s Liam Neeson. Otherwise, your plans of happy-go-lucky frolicking in the so-called city of love will promptly […]
Review by Ben Bussey Guess what: it’s zombie apocalypse time again. However, this time around things aren’t completely hopeless for the surviving humans, as the government manages to round up the bulk of the zombies and dump them in designated ‘danger zones.’ Alas, for professional stoners Edwin (Mark Wynn) and Tommy (Jy Harris), there proves […]
by Keri O’Shea Regular visitors to Brutal as Hell will have noticed that we’ve got a bad case of retrospective fever at the moment; well, what can we say? 1982 in particular was obviously a hell of a year for renegade horror cinema, and we can’t let these milestone birthdays pass us by without celebrating […]
by Ben Bussey If you’ll forgive me for using a dirty word in my opening sentence… remake. Yes, yes, I know. In the hotbed of first world problems that is movie fandom, surely no subject is the cause of as much debate in this day and age, as for most of the past decade the […]
Review by Keri O’Shea “There is no clean fight in a war.” Like many cult movie enthusiasts, I declare myself to be a huge fan of the films of Takashi Miike but in truth, I have only seen a tiny fraction of his work. To be fair, it’s hard to keep up with his output […]