Like all the best discoveries at a film festival, I went into Drag with no expectations whatsoever, and whether that helped or not, this ended up being the most fun I had at FrightFest. Directed by Raviv Ullman and Greg Yagolnitzer, with Danny DeVito as co‑producer, the film constantly shifts […]
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
Invoking Scream (Frightfest 2026)
Invoking Scream does something immediately helpful: it explains the plot of Invoking Yell in its opening minutes, and as someone who hasn’t seen the first film, I appreciated the clarity. The original was shot to look like it was made in 1997, full of found‑footage visual degradation, grimy textures, and […]
The Death of Us (Frightfest 2026)
One of the films featured in this year’s Fresh Blood slate, The Death of Us marks festival regular Annabella Rich’s directorial debut. It opens in a heightened dramatic register that leans into melodrama, a deliberate pitch that has become increasingly common in modern horror, and Rich embraces a mode where […]
Nervous (Frightfest 2026)
One of the opening‑night main‑screen titles, Nervous set the tone for the sheer number of Korean projects at this year’s FrightFest. It’s the latest from Abner Pastoll, director of A Good Woman Is Hard to Find, and reunites him with Sarah Bolger. Here, Sarah (Sarah Bolger) and Sungsoo (Sungsoo Yune) […]
The Flesh Itself (Frightfest 2026)
Brazilian cinema is having quite the moment, with not one but two wildly different horrors arriving at FrightFest. One is a gross‑out comedy of insane-o escalation; the other, Ian SBF’s The Flesh Itself, is about absolute desperation. Three soldiers, deserters fleeing the horrors of the Paraguayan War have abandoned the […]
The Nameless Ballad (Frightfest 2026)
OOne of the many films receiving its World Premiere at FrightFest 2026 is The Nameless Ballad. Federico Zampaglione’s film has a familiar setup: a musician who has recorded a hit debut album is under pressure from his record label, so he retreats to an isolated Italian villa, hoping the change […]
Bad Karaoke (Frightfest 2026)
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 […]
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 […]