Gateway (2021)

By contributor Gabby Foor The ice-cold Irish thriller Gateway from director Niall Owens opens with a simple quote, “Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other greater ones invariably slink in after.” This reminds me of The Offering’s powerful quote, “Only we decide how much good and evil enters our realm,” and foreshadows […]

The Cellar (2022)

Now here’s a risky idea: returning to a short film, around seventeen years or so after making it, hoping to expand the universe of that film into a feature-length. A big ask at the best of times, no? Whilst it’s certainly not the first time this has been done, The Cellar (2022) was always going […]

You Are Not My Mother (2021)

From its very earliest moments, as the camera oh-so slowly approaches a baby’s buggy parked in the middle of a street – it’s clear that You Are Not My Mother is a film which will allow itself ample time, not rushing through anything it wants to show. And, as it segues almost straight away into […]

That time again: Keri’s favourite films of 2021

Anyone feeling a sense of deja-vu? Well, if at the end of 2020 anyone optimistically thought we’d be back to some kind of normal by now, it seems – sadly – it’s not yet to be. And perhaps it’s never to be at all…that’s not to suggest that we will forever be completely under the […]

Celluloid Screams 2020: Boys From County Hell

The provenance of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula has very nearly led to warfare down through the years: every researcher and author with an axe to grind has shown themselves willing to fight over their take on Stoker’s inspiration, and to what extent he drew upon Transylvanian history and folklore. Well, it may complicate matters, but […]

Mayhem Film Festival: Extra Ordinary (2019)

As the point has been made several times before on this site, horror comedy can be a risky venture; when it goes wrong, it can be either not that funny, nor really capable of showing any love for the horror genre either. Happily, neither of these charges can be levelled at Extra Ordinary. The film […]