How many indigenous actors can you name? Whether Australian, Canadian or American, I assume it will be a handful at most. More often than not, they are consigned to the sidelines, limited to a specific type of story — a range which has become more limited with the western fading […]
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
Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (Imagine Film Festival 2025)
I was unaware of Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s lo-fi comedy TV series, Nirvanna the Band the Show, before pressing play on Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie for the Imagine Fantastic Film Festival in Amsterdam. The title should have been self-explanatory, yet it’s so absurd I completely took it for granted. […]
Mag Mag (Imagine Film Festival 2025)
While self-explanatory, a director only gets to debut once, so they better make it count. A note that the popular Japanese comedian Yuriyan Retriever took in her stride with her first feature film, Mag Mag, which played at 2025’s Imagine Film Festival in Amsterdam (and Frightfest’s 2025 Halloween event, too). […]
Relentless (Grimmfest 2025)
An underrated aspect of the horror festival is the programming process as you need to satisfy the demands of the genre faithful, whilst also providing palate cleansers since a weekend of nothing but horror is exhausting. After previously playing Grimmfest in 2019 with his movie, Artik, writer/director Tom Botchii returns to […]
Marama (Fantastic Fest 2025)
Colonialism is an ill of the “political class”, an eternal manifestation of the 1%’s insatiable greed. Their empire way of thinking has drawn together some far-flung corners, such as North Yorkshire and the Maori people of New Zealand, as facilitated by the violence of Captain James Cook. While Captain Cook may be […]
Kenichi Ugana Interview: The Curse (Fantastic Fest 2025)
We continue our 2025 coverage of Fantastic Fest with something a little different now… Yesterday, I talked about the latest movie from Japanese indie director, Kenichi Ugana. A bit fan of his previous work, The Gesouidoz, as soon as I saw it was part of this year’s fantastic fest line-up, […]
The Curse (Fantastic Fest 2025)
Long wanting to catch Kenichi Ugana’s work, it wasn’t until we caught the inimitable punk fever of last year’s The Gesouidoz (at London Fanta) that we finally caught up with the eclectic director making a name for himself on the international festival circuit. When his name popped up again for […]
Looking Forward to Celluloid Screams 2025
The UK festival scene is strong, but one facet of it is stronger than all other – the horror festivals. We know the top of the totem pole is in central London, yet spotted up and down the country are all manner of weekend long events for the macabre genre. […]
Where is Juan Moctezuma? & Human (Frightfest 2025)
When in the moment of covering a film festival with multiple stages and screens, there are conflicts that mean you often don’t get the chance to see everything you’d like to. Today, I’m talking about two wildly different movies that fell victim to this – Where is Juan Moctezuma? (dir. […]
Frightfest 2025, Day 3 & 4 (Redux Redux, The Descent, Mother of Flies & More)
This final entry will mush together my third & fourth days, as I only watched 2 movies on the Monday before heading into the labyrinthine underground system and my long coach journey home. My third day started by skipping the first movie, sometimes you just have to. As good as […]