Shudder is a cool name for a horror streaming platform, but never have I considered the word until the release of their latest Original, 2023’s Infested (A.K.A. Vermines) – the feature debut by French director Sébastien Vaniček. The reason why that train of thought ran through my head was that […]
Rob Simpson
Host of the Directors Uncut Podcast. With a love of movies kicked off by Hong Kong Action and Claymation Monsters, Rob has forever been cradled in the bosom of Cinema. A fan of video games dating back to the Master System, Wrestling back to the mullet and music, filthy dirty evil hipster music. Rob has his hands in many a pie. Mastodon
The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (1969/72) Samurai Western Trilogy by way of James Bond? (Review)
Shogun Assassin gained infamy on the midnight cinema circuit, yet its leading man didn’t enjoy fame comparable to Ogami Ittō’s hellish saga. Tomisaburo Wakayama, although prolific and renowned in his own right, is nought but a footnote for World Cinema fans next to the likes of Tetsuya Watari, Joe Shishido, […]
Shadow of Fire (2023)Tsukamoto At His Most… Hopeful? (Review)
While he doesn’t have the same cut-through of his halycon days with Tetsuo, Bullet Ballet or A Snake of June, Shinya Tsukamoto is undoubtedly one of the more consistent filmmakers in Japan. This is partly due to that movie industry not being as buoyant as it once was, but also because he’s a director […]
A Million Days (2023)Hard Sci-Fi or Hardly Sci-Fi?(Review)
Artificial Intelligence is a concept as old as science fiction itself, and for much of that history it wasn’t the practical (if weird and problematic) tool that we know today. It was instead manifested as something that threatened humanity, and you need look no further than some classic examples like […]
In Flames (Glasgow Frightfest 2024)(Review)
Fifteen or so years ago a movie called In Flames would’ve conjured up images of Scandanavian terror, full of blacks and dark blues, probably quite nihilistic, where an unlucky group were victim to supernatural terrors from beyond. Admittedly, part of that hypothetical may be influenced by sharing a name with a Swedish […]
The Funeral (Glasgow Frightfest 2024) (Review)
One question that will never receive a positive answer is “how was the funeral?” Sure, they can be pleasant experiences that celebrate the life of a loved one, but they’re always sad, potentially traumatic days. Enter The Funeral from Turkish director Ocrun Behram, which played at 2024’s Glasgow Frightfest the weekend just […]
Tropic (2022) Sci-Fi as a deeply personal take on Male Pride (Review)
Head Count (2023) A joyfully nostalgic crime thriller that recalls the late 90s glory days (Review)
Documentary Shorts (Slamdance Film Festival 2024)(Review)
Like any industry film festival, Slamdance has its different strands – Graham talked about the experimental shorts, joining that there are animated shorts, and narrative shorts as well as the more traditional documentary and narrative feature sections that are also sub-divided. Fields that have some impressive alumni, with the festival […]
The Complex Forms (Slamdance Film Festival 2024)(Review)
Slamdance is a film festival positioned around micro budget productions, giving writers and directors an early step in their career – a step with considerable lineage given its on the doorstep of its third decade. That qualifier, micro-budget, gives a certain impression of what sort of narrative films the festival […]