The horror genre is often characterised by ongoing sequels, as filmmakers devise ever more convoluted ways to bring back the threat. In recent years, the legacy sequel has become popular, from Scream V (and VI) to Halloween (2018 and its sequels) to The Exorcist: Believer. Amongst these continuations, there have […]
Movies & Documentaries
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 […]
The Severed Sun (Fantastic Fest 2024)
Ever since I first clapped eyes on his 2018 short The Sermon, I’ve been assiduously following the work of Cornish based filmmaker Dean Puckett for the last five years. A folk horror tale about a homophobic church community living in rural isolation, the short was imbued with a wonderful 1970s aesthetic […]
The Substance (2024) One of the Finest Horrors of the Year (Review)
At first blush, Fargeat’s latest feature recalls that recent female-directed Franco-horror opus, Ducournau’s Titane. Both mix sex and horror in provocative ways that reaped laurels at Cannes, with The Substance winning Best Screenplay at this year’s festival. Both display a fascination with smooth surfaces and the ways women become pariahs […]
Pharaoh (1966): Polish epic offers a very different kind of sword-and-sandal picture (Review)
When people think of cinema made in non-democratic countries, they often imagine something austere, high-minded, and either incomprehensibly arty or intelligence-insultingly didactic. It’s almost as if we in the liberal world imagine ourselves to have invented entertainment, which simply isn’t the case as it was often easier to get a […]
Hostile Dimensions (2023) Funny, light-hearted trek through the Multiverse (Review)
In an infinite multiverse, there is infinite potential for terror. The idea of parallel universes is nothing new, yet in the past couple of years, there has been a colossal boom in “multiverse movies”, and yet, in spite of films on this subject matter being released with frequency to the […]
The Box Man (2024) Gakuryu Ishii’s Boxing Clever (Review)
Gakuryu Ishii may not be well-known in the West, but his aesthetics and work ethic have seen him become regarded as one of the most pre-eminent punk rock directors in the world (not that this is a long list). The former Sogo Ishii (he changed his name), launched into the […]
Sayonara Girls (2022) & Kalanchoe (2017) Raw, Authentic High School Stories from Indie Japan (Review)
There’s a fun irony in saying hello to a new on demand platform joining our coverage umbrella with a movie all about saying goodbye (or sayonara as this is a Japanese movie). Sakka brings “quality Japanese independent films to the worldwide audience, with as few filters as possible to the […]
Mildred Pierce (1945) Joan Crawford’s Academy Award-Winning Role Steals the Screen in Every Scene (Review)
The story of an abusive parent is a tale as old as time, and sadly, a reality for many – from the exploitation of finances and constant verbal vilification, to emotional manipulation that makes the victim feel like escape is a pipe dream. What’s significantly more unheard of is the […]
Crumb (1994) A Meditation on an Important – and Controverisal – American artist (Review)
I have to admit that I’m no Crumb-head, and I came to this documentary – made by friend-of-Robert and ex-collaborator Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World) – knowing the man’s legendary underground comics and other works mainly only in passing. Crumb is now available in the UK in a Criterion Blu-Ray that […]