In its setup, director Diego “Mapache” Fuentes’s Matapanki struck me as a Chilean version of Josh Trank’s Chronicle: a young man acquires superhero-like powers and soon becomes unable to control his newfound abilities. What Matapanki adds to this story, however, is a really nifty concoction of political satire matched with […]
Alex Paine
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026) A Sequel That Gains Focus and A Whole Lot More Darkness
By arriving just six months after the previous instalment, The Bone Temple might have unknowingly set itself up for a fall. Those who weren’t particularly keen on 28 Years Later, and particularly its bizarre cliffhanger, might not like a follow-up that dives headfirst into the cult that were responsible for […]
2025: Alex’s End-Of-Year Awards
Congratulations everybody, we made it to the end of 2025! This year has certainly been something to behold, and there’s a lot of unfortunate reasons for that, but a way we can look back on this year fondly is by looking at the films released over these last twelve months. […]
What The Tide Dragged In (Sohome Horror 2025)
Premiering at Soho Horror Fest is Chilean drama-horror What The Tide Dragged In, an intriguing but ultimately underwhelming exploration of grief from director Patricio Valladares. What The Tide Dragged In fits into the burgeoning world of mumblecore cinema. Yes, I hate that term as much as you do (‘elevated horror’ hasn’t […]
I Live Here Now (Imagine Film Festival 2025)
Since its premiere at Fantasia a few months ago, I Live Here Now has been gaining some traction among festival goers and horror fans. The directorial debut of Julie Pacino (yes, she’s related), is a surrealist and claustrophobic piece of horror where one budding actress’s stay in a hotel quickly […]
Shelby Oaks (2024) Chris Stuckmann’s Confident If Cluttered Directorial Debut
Watching Shelby Oaks in cinemas was a far more cathartic experience personally than previously anticipated. Chris Stuckmann is, in my humble opinion, the best movie critic to come out of YouTube throughout the 2010s. He’s always been more critically-minded than Jeremy Jahns (no disrespect to him, who I also watch […]
Frankenstein (2025) Visually Dazzling and Emotionally invested take on a Literary Legend
Although Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein was certainly something I was looking forward to, I’m also not blind to the inherent fear that yet another director would finally deliver their long-gestating big-budget passion project, and find it completely underwhelming. Large-scale passion projects seem to have a tendency to go wrong. Infamously, […]
Outside the Blue Box: Our Friends In The North (1996)
This series of reviews has led us writers down some very peculiar avenues, ones we perhaps weren’t expecting to take. Personally though, I’ve been using it as an excuse to explore my parameters and start ticking off things I hadn’t seen before (not that you’d notice since over on Patreon […]
Good Boy (2025) – Unique Execution Applied To A Barebones Story
So you’ve all seen that movie poster over the last couple of months in which a horde of shadowy hands all reaching for a dog, right? It’s awesome, it’s unique, and it looks like a great concept. Good Boy has had a huge positive reception, not just because of its irresistibly […]
Meat Kills (Fantastic Fest 2025)
Upon brief inspection, mainly the title and synopsis, Meat Kills would appear to be a horror-thriller about the grotesque way that animals are treated for human consumption. A group of activists stage a rescue mission to release pigs suffering under atrocious conditions in a pig farm, and come face to […]