Now here’s something I never had on my bingo card with the emergence of Arrow Video’s new specialist sub-brand Toy Robot Video. Back in the halcyon days of literal home video (VHS) and DVD, before you got to your chosen feature you’d be treated to a reel of trailers for […]
Movies & Documentaries
Elsinore (BFI London Film Festival 2026)
The story of Ian Charleson was one I was unfamiliar with, something which I was slightly ashamed of when I finished watching Elsinore, the first film I saw at LFF and one of the hardest for me to form thoughts on. While overall it was a strong and powerful watch, […]
The Screaming Skull (1958) A Campy and (already) Derivative Haunted House Chiller
If the film’s macabre candlelit prologue is to be believed, The Screaming Skull (1958) is a motion picture so terrifying that it could pose a threat to the viewer’s life. The film’s first-time director, regular Hollywood western supporting-player Alex Nicol, was so confident of this that he proudly assured that […]
Ghost in the Cell (2026) A Kind Heart Under the Gore and Slap-Happy Combat
Perhaps it’s a marker of my strange sense of humour but I found my funny bone thoroughly tickled by Joko Anwar’s splatter-comedy Ghost in the Cell, where a ghost dismembers prisoners and turns them into grizzly art exhibits that nevertheless amaze in their ingenuity. Think of Smile 2 but directed […]
High Road to China (1983) A Boy’s Own Adventure
There’s an alternate universe where Harrison Ford’s single biggest (or only) franchise role is that of Han Solo in the Star Wars series, and that’s because the role of Indiana Jones went to first choice, Tom Selleck. In our universe (or, reality, as some might say), Selleck had to pass […]
Grind (Grimmfest 2026)(II)
The world isn’t short of sources of horror at the moment, but there is a particular dread that creeps over people of my loose age group – older millennial, raised on Gen X culture, able to remember a world before the internet – whenever someone talks about “hacking” their personality. […]
Survive Style 5 (2004) The Return of a Stone Cold Cult Classic Weirdo
As far as Japanese movies which aren’t available in the UK are concerned, Survive Style 5 is one of the big ones. An entire generation of Japanese cinema fans were introduced to this slice anarchy by a long out of print Manga Entertainment DVD. That release climbed to the legendary […]
The Shout (1978): cryptic, constantly rewarding folk horror classic
Jerzy Skolimowski’s The Shout is the kind of film Criterion made their reputation on. It’s not just that it’s extremely good – although it is – but your appreciation of its good qualities can only be heightened by having it selected as part of this collection. Without this curatorial effort, […]
Wildwood (BFI London Film Festival 2026)
I think I’ve had several different introductions to this review floating around in my head for two or three years now. It’s been so long since Laika announced Wildwood as their next animated project after Missing Link, a film that unfortunately severely underperformed at the box office, and for a […]
Crawlers (Grimmfest 2026)
While the mini revival of creature feature horror films may have its outliers like Johannes Roberts’ Primate, but it’s the arachnid who has been receiving the lion’s share of new movies. We’ve had Sébastien Vanicek’s audacious Infested, Kiah Roache-Turner’s interstellar Sting, and earlier this year Christopher Smith’s Spider Island — […]