From Sakka Films we have a double bill from Yusaku Matsumoto, a Japanese filmmaker who brings us two very thematically linked efforts based around morality and justice in modern day Japan. Made in Japan is a 2018 short that opens with a disturbing, violent murder that is then widely publicised […]
Jake Kazanis
Essex Boy, Gus Van Sant loyalist, Shyamalan truther, gets unreasonably sad if I don't watch a film every day.
Noroi: The Curse (2005) A Modern Classic in the Analogue Canon
Mention the term ‘found-footage horror’ to anyone and they’re sure to bring to mind any of the big hitters: [REC], Cloverfield, Unfriended, Creep, and of course the big one, Paranormal Activity (as well as its many, many sequels). That film in particular took the genre to such a stripped back, […]
Delivery Run (Grimmfest 2024)
Online food delivery workers finally get their moment in the headlights in Joel Palmroos’ wintry rendition of Steven Spielberg’s road rage classic Duel. Getting it’s World Premiere at the recent Grimmfest, Delivery Run is a Finnish production set in Minnesota USA but seamlessly filmed entirely in Lapland. The story revolves […]
The Albino’s Trees (2016) Eiko Ishibashi Scored Killing of a Sacred Deer (Review)
This modest, low budget drama aims high as a Japanese take on Greek tragedy that’s lightly based on the two millennia-old story of Agamemnon’s sacrifice (and also beating Yorgos Lanthimos to the punch by a year). A film by Masakazu Kaneko, who serves as director, writer, producer, editor, and cinematographer, […]
Animale (Fantastic Fest 2024)
When it comes to the combination of body horror and monstrous feminine-centered stories, nobody is doing quite like the French are. With filmmakers like Coralie Fargeat and Julia Ducornau currently pushing the genre to bold new places and creating these complex, disturbed heroines, we’re almost in the middle of a […]
Greedy People (2024) Himesh Patel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have been Bad Boys
“And for what? For a little bit of money? There’s more to life than a little bit of money ya know.” Despite the works of the Coen brothers spawning their own massively popular sub-genre of comedy crime caper shenanigans, nobody ever surmised the absurdity and the nonsensical allure of the […]
Chainsaws Were Singing (Fantastic Fest 2024)
I mean what more can you say? If you hadn’t guessed already, Chainsaws Were Singing is a madcap comedy splatterfest from the country that brought you… anyone else seen November? That’s a good one, and in fact is also a certifiably odd film and yet it doesn’t come close to […]
Red Rooms (2024) A Transcendental Interrogation of True Crime Obsession (Review)
French language courtroom dramas are having a real moment recently, with 2022 seeing Mati Diop’s masterfully haunting spiritual enigma Saint Omer, then in 2023 we got almost the polar opposite with Justine Triet’s Oscar and Palme D’or-winning marital drama murder-mystery blockbuster (or at least it felt like that in its […]
Starve Acre (2024) Countryside Chiller is a Blast from the Past (Review)
The proud county of Yorkshire seems to be in the middle of a horror resurgence as, following the low-key chiller The Moor we now have this, an oak-aged folk-horror that isn’t shy about its classical influences from British horrors of yore. Director Daniel Kokotajlo’s mix of occult, supernatural, and psychological […]
Cadejo Blanco (2021) Twisted Coming of Age Tale set in Gangland Guatemala (Review)
A ‘cadejo’ is a mythic creature in Central American folklore that refers to a dog-like creature that comes in two forms; either the white (blanco) cadejo that protects humans from danger and the black (negro) cadejo that attacks them. This Guatemalan crime drama from American writer/director Justin Lerner clearly posits […]