Sergio G. Sánchez, writer of The Orphanage and The Impossible, takes on his first major, widely released work as director on this family-based mystery with a hint of a ghost story in the mix. Given the writer-director’s heritage, and the fact that the marketing emphasises the involvement of producers behind both The Orphanage and Pan’s […]
Nicolas Cage has to be one of the most divisive actors out there, as well as one of the most hard-working; in fact, these days it’s actually pretty odd for an actor to garner the kinds of mixed feelings which he inspires, but everyone seemingly has an opinion about his extensive body of work. For […]
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 […]
Anyone who’s paid even fleeting attention to the face of horror this past decade, particularly in the low-to-no budget direct to DVD indie realm, will be well aware that found footage has been painful in its ubiquity, and for the most part even more painful in its predictability and ineptitude. Even at the bigger budget, […]
When you know the film you’re sitting down to is from the producers behind the Harry Potter films and is adapted from a comic book by the creators of cartoon series Ben 10, you might not anticipate something grounded, intimate and introspective. However, this is just what we get from I Kill Giants, feature debut […]
There are times when you sit down with a low budget indie horror film knowing exactly what you’re going to get from the moment it begins, with no real surprises along the way to the end of the tedious hour and a half. Then, on the other hand, there are times when you sit down […]
It’s a very rare thing indeed to see a filmmaker working in the styles so far chosen by director Alex Bakshaev in his career to date. His last film, The Devil of Kreuzberg, was to my mind a languid and stylish love letter to Jean Rollin; in S&M, Les Sadiques, we have a film not […]
The contemporary straight to DVD action movie is a fairly odd breed. For the best part of two decades now, the ageing action superstars who previously reigned supreme at the box office have for the most part been ushered to the back of the bus, and with the exception of Schwarzenegger and Stallone, the bulk […]
Taken on their own, the terms ‘found footage’ and ‘home invasion’ have long been enough to send many a horror fan into shivers of despair, not so much because they suggest a truly hair-raising 90 minutes, but rather because they would seem to indicate a been-there, done-that, wasn’t-that-great-in-the-first-place routine which we’ve seen all too often […]
From the title and premise alone, you’d be forgiven for expecting nothing more here than a simple prison punch-up exploitation thriller. In a way, Brawl in Cell Block 99 offers up exactly that; the essential plot beats and the level of violence would feel entirely at home on a 1980s video store bottom shelf. However, […]
When a director comes from independent beginnings and works their way through to the mainstream, it’s always interesting (and sometimes disheartening) to see how much or how little of the filmmaker’s personality survives the process. In this respect, Steven Soderbergh is one of the most notable figures of the past three decades. His 1989 feature […]