It’s curious the idea that there was a time when the modern yakuza movie wasn’t a thing, but as yakuza film historian Akihiko Ito says, in the extras of Radiance Films lush new release of Kinji Fukasaku’s Japan Organised Crime Boss, that was once the case. They used to be […]
Rob Simpson
Chief Editor
Host of the Uncut Network. With a love of movies kicked off by Hong Kong Action and Claymation Monsters, Rob has forever been cradled in the bosom of Cinema. Rob has his hands in many a pie, including no budget film making.
The Black Hole (Fantastic Fest 2024)
The Black Hole – recently played at Fantastic Fest – is a comedy/sci-fi anthology from Estonian director Moonika Siimets. My only experience with Estonian cinema is November (Rainer Sarnet, 2017), a historical, mythic, folkloric fantasy, which will tell of modern Estonia but those cues will primarily be identifiable to the […]
Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives (2023) Transgenerational Guilt Haunts this House (Review)
Out now from Blue Finch Films is the rarest of rarities for the modern horror fan, a German genre title – Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives. Aside from the halcyon days of Expressionism and the Euro Horror boom there are only a handful of titles from Germany and Austria […]
Respati (Fantastic Fest 2024)
Respati recently played at Fantastic Fest 2024, Sidharta Tata’s movie is the latest in a growing trend of Indonesian horror and thrillers making it to Western screens large and small. Named after the lead character (Devano Danendra), Tata tells the story of a teenage boy who struggles to sleep with […]
Sunset Superman (Fantastic Fest 2024)
Fantastic Fest isn’t just a horror film festival – it covers all the genre staples (action, sci-fi, & horror) and the spaces that intersect those divides. Lately, however, the heaviest load falls on horror, relegating sci-fi and action to supporting roles, which is true of both the microcosm of Fantastic […]
The Box Man (2024) Gakuryu Ishii’s Boxing Clever (Review)
Gakuryu Ishii may not be well-known in the West, but his aesthetics and work ethic have seen him become regarded as one of the most pre-eminent punk rock directors in the world (not that this is a long list). The former Sogo Ishii (he changed his name), launched into the […]
Sayonara Girls (2022) & Kalanchoe (2017) Raw, Authentic High School Stories from Indie Japan (Review)
There’s a fun irony in saying hello to a new on demand platform joining our coverage umbrella with a movie all about saying goodbye (or sayonara as this is a Japanese movie). Sakka brings “quality Japanese independent films to the worldwide audience, with as few filters as possible to the […]
Members Club (Frightfest 2024) Review
Genre Film Festivals are a wide parish, and some movies appear at certain events to play the field – either to find the highest bidder to launch something onto the unsuspecting masses, or they’ve already got distribution and want to build up hype before their eventual release. Other titles aren’t […]
Generation Terror (Frightfest 2024) Review
Horror is the subject of much scrutiny and, ironically, most of that comes from horror fans themselves, for as the adage goes, “No one hates wrestling more than wrestling fans”. A key aspect of this scrutiny involves breaking horror into decades, and enough sub-genres to make metal music green with […]
Looking Forward to Fantastic Fest (2024 Curtain Raiser)
The Geek Show has undergone numerous changes and evolutions over the fourteen years since our inception, and these days we’re painting on a much larger canvas that includes genre movies, world cinema, and titles that we feel we can help as they don’t have vast marketing behemoths behind them. This […]