Is there a worse fate than being buried alive, trapped in the darkness, running out of air, undiscoverable to the rest of the world? It’s everyone’s worst nightmare and then some, but as you’re clinging to what little light, breath and life you have left, what’s happening to not just […]
Simon Ramshaw
Frankie Freako (Fantastic Fest 2024)
What ever happened to freaky little guys? For many of our childhoods, they were scuttling around everywhere – from Gremlins to Ghoulies, the rubbery wee nightmares were wreaking havoc in fictional suburban homes, instilling fear in children who really ought not to be watching such traumatic whimsy. Many of those kids are now […]
An Taibhse – The Ghost (Frightfest 2024) Review
The boom surrounding the Irish language has been tripping off the tongue of many audiences and critics alike for the past few years, but there’s rarely been a period for its revival like this week. The Quiet Girl and Arracht have been Gaelic triumphs for the nation over the past half-decade, and since […]
Azrael: Angel of Death (Frightfest 2024) Review
Silence is golden in horror right now. From the whole concept of A Quiet Place to a sequence in Alien: Romulus that thrives on sound levels rising no higher than a heartbeat, films are throwing themselves down a gauntlet in keeping their characters schtum to milk tension. E. L. Katz’s post-Rapture survival horror Azrael: Angel […]
Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs (2024) and the Long Legacy of His Father, Anthony
CONTAINS SPOILERS The shadow of Psycho looms long over many things. What would, say, the modern movie twist be without it? Rug pulls don’t come much more severe than the true nature of Mrs Norma Bates, let alone Alfred Hitchcock’s brutal decision to cut down his protagonist less than halfway through the runtime. Would […]
The Dead Don’t Hurt (2023) Classic Western Fare with a Wistful Edge (Review)
To paraphrase Bob Marley: “who shot the western?” There are a number of smoking guns when it comes to this particular murder. Was it Michael Cimino, the megalomaniacal visionary behind Heaven’s Gate, an epic so wildly out of control that it killed an entire film studio? Was it the audience […]
The Sacrament (2013) Ti West’s true-story Exploitation goes South (Review)
No one does genre pastiche quite like Ti West who, after working his way up from no-budget shorts to no-budget features, finally took off in 2009 with the one-two hits of a ready-made cult classic (House of the Devil), and a straight-to-video sequel (Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever). There’s an […]
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023) But Do Expect a Lot from This Film (Review)
During a film that reckons with (and is a reckoning for) meme culture, there is an intrusive meme that springs to mind. Imagine a picture of a long-in-the-tooth Jean Luc-Godard with a mournful ‘Died 2022’ hovering over him. Now, next to it, imagine the poster of Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, with a celebratory ‘Born 2023’ above it. A […]
Prison Walls: Abashiri Prison I-III (1965) – Layered Yakuza Trilogy takes you on a wild journey (Review)
Rare is the cinematic saga that maintains consistency. For every Lord of the Rings, there’s ten Star Warses (pick any of the trilogies) or Jurassic Parks (ditto), veering wildly from side to side as they try to work out just what put millions of bums in seats to see the […]
Breathe (2024) Starry low-budget thriller is lacking in atmosphere (Review)
Science fiction is often a genre that is complemented by social critique. After all, what better way to rip apart where we’ve been than looking forward to where we may be going? Currently in theatres is the alpha prime of big swing social sci-fi: the latest instalment of the Planet of […]