When is someone’s sentence truly over? The punishment often matches the crime, but what happens when the crime is so distasteful that any judicial ruling pales in comparison to what the world has in store when the accused is released? It’s a weighty, thorny topic, and nigh-on impossible to reckon […]
Simon Ramshaw
Dracula: A Love Tale (2025) A flamboyant but bloodless take on the iconic bloodsucker
His name has been whispered on the winds for years unknown, inspiring dread in those who feel its creeping power in their bones. Travelling the seas from his European homeland, his conquests of lust and violence have been writ into legend. And now, as 2025 draws to a dark close, […]
Kontinental ’25 (2025) Hard-to-swallow satire from Romania’s smartest joker
Romanian satirist and experimental filmmaking punk rocker Radu Jude told us to not expect too much from the end of the world in, well, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, an epic farce of an essay about what it means to barely get by off the […]
Deathstalker (Fantastic Fest 2025) Retrograde 80’s trash finds glorious new purpose
In an age when to be dorky is to be damned, when eons have passed since the final battle between charm and naffness sealed the fate of many brave artist-warriors yet to be born, a hero will rise. His name… is Steven Kostanski. His conquests are legendary in the latest […]
The Piano Accident (Fantastic Fest 2025) France’s greatest prankster goes straight
Quentin Dupieux is the rarest of all filmmakers: someone who is at their best when actively getting in their own way. A prankster of both the music and film scenes, his dual-career as electro-maestro Mr. Oizo and teasing deadpan feature film sketch-comedy auteur has inspired as much laughter as it […]
Takashi Ishii: 4 Tales of Nami (1992 & 1994) – A hard-edged quartet of torment worth enduring
William Shakespeare asked “what’s in a name?” in one of his most famous works. Takashi Ishii asked “what’s in a Nami?” in four of his. Between 1992 and 1994, one of Japanese cinema’s greatest lovers of neon wove this name through a streak of subversive and sleazy films, making his […]
The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man (2024) – Bonafide outsider cinema with intent to provoke
Some titles just sell themselves. My local cinema recently held a double-bill night of decadent steaming trash with the original and updated Toxic Avenger films, attended by good-hearted cult film fanatics with laughter loaded in their bellies. Ready for an evening of yucks and yacks, they were not prepared for the trailer […]
Bambi: The Reckoning (Frightfest 2025) Public domain horror that (almost) finds its footing
The public domain gold rush is alive and well from one side of the globe to another, with low-budget filmmakers picking away at the mummified remains of fresh ideas from nearly a century ago. The US seems content with pedalling out three cursed Popeye films in one year, as well […]
Transcending Dimensions (Frightfest 2025)
When did spirituality stop being cool? Our collective faith in faith seems to have taken a beating from the moment we stopped believing in religious middle-managers who got outed for the narcissists and manipulators they often were … but as a species and as individuals, does that cut us off […]
Hotspring Sharkattack (2024) Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the sauna…
For all its naff reputation, maybe Deep Blue Sea said it best: sharks really are “God’s oldest killers”. Many filmmakers have taken that idea as gospel, from Spielberg to Turtletaub, Anderson (Wes) to Wheatley (Ben), taking great glee in putting their characters in harm’s way via a ginormous aquatic beastie. Yet shark […]