Bad Karaoke opens with a tone so CW‑coded it’s almost confrontational; there was certainly nothing else at this year’s FrightFest that even came remotely close. The casting leans heavily on hot young things, the cinematography has that overtly digital gloss you associate with mid‑budget American genre TV, and the banter […]
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. Filthy
Hellcat (2025) Breathes Fresh Life into One-Location Horror
Isn’t it funny how time can heal all wounds in the world of movies? Just a few short years ago, the words “contained”, “chamber” or “one location horror” had utterly exhausted the genre audience – to the extent that people didn’t want to see another film set in one place […]
Tokyo Burst: Crime City (Fantasia International Film Festival 2026)
Eiji Uchida’s Tokyo Burst: Crime City, which hits the city’s Kabukichō district with an unmistakable Ryu Ga Gotoku swagger, is kind of a spinoff of the Roundup series fronted by Don Lee (Ma Dong‑seok). From street brawls to gang politics and host‑club intrigue, the director’s narrative chicanery turns small disturbances […]
God Skin (Fantasia International Film Festival 2026)
With Mortal Kombat 2 already released and Street Fighter coming out later this year, 2026 appears to be the year of the fighting game movie. To that list we can probably add Paween Purijitpanya’s God Skin as even though it’s not actually adapted from a video game, it’s basically close […]
I Love Paris (Fantasia International Film Festival 2026)
There seems to be some confusion in the horror community about mockumentaries so let’s clear that up by saying the key word here is “mock”, which in the context of films means funny, satirical or parodical. Yes, the word can also mean “fake”, but the term faux-documentary already exists and […]
Peril at Pincer Point (I) (Fantasia International Film Festival 2026)
Genre cinema is in remarkably good health in the U.S. with projects like Backrooms and Obsession signalling a new generation of inventive, internet‑age storytellers and emerging filmmakers who are already making waves. Here in Britain though, genre filmmaking often struggles to find the same cultural momentum, which is why the […]
The Mouths (Fantasia International Film Festival 2026)
For anyone who remembers the Japanese horror movie boom of the late ’90s and early ’00s, Takashi Shimizu (the man behind Ju‑on), is responsible for some of the most dread‑inducing, skin‑crawling images ever produced, and remains one of the genre’s defining architects. Even before The Mouths begins you know you’re […]
Bowels of Hell (Fantasia International Film Festival 2026)
Gurcius Gewdner & Gustavo Vinagre’s Bowels of Hell arrives at Fantasia, and for a film with a title like, you’d be forgiven for expecting a riotously loud, messy, frantic, and proudly tasteless slab of Brazilian exploitation cinema, bur what you actually get is something stranger, slower, and far more patient […]
Tight Lettuce (Fantasia International Film Festival 2026)
Fantasia always has at least one film that feels like it wandered in from a completely different festival, and this year it’s Harrison Houde’s Tight Lettuce. Based on a true story and described by the festival as a “tender and chaotic portrait of a father and son”, it’s an earnest […]
The Specials (Fantasia International Film Festival 2026)
Functionally, The Specials is a dance movie – albeit one where killers, hitmen, and assorted hard‑nosed gangster archetypes are offered a lucrative opportunity – go undercover as a dance troupe and infiltrate a contest in order to eliminate a yakuza patriarch. It’s the kind of setup that sounds like a […]