In spite of what its title and country of origin might suggest, not a single spider appears in Birdeater (2023), the feature debut of Australian directing duo Jack Clark and Jim Weir; the webs of predatory entrapment that its characters become tangled in are of the metaphorical variety, constructed using […]
From the Festivals
Mom (Glasgow Frightfest 2024)(Review)
Fresh from the birth of their son, Meredith (Emily Hampshire) and Jared (Francois Arnaud), come home to settle in to life as a family, but a restless force has its eyes on the new parents, and the latest addition. Introducing Mom, the feature length debut from Adam O’Brien, getting its World […]
The Well (Glasgow Frightfest 2024)(Review)
In the Well, sent on behalf of her father to restore a classic painting following a fire, budding art restorer Lisa (Lauren LaVera) becomes entangled in a centuries-old ritual involving murder, sacrifice, and dark magic. Fresh off the worldwide success of Terrifier 2, Lauren LaVera takes the lead in this […]
The Funeral (Glasgow Frightfest 2024) (Review)
One question that will never receive a positive answer is “how was the funeral?” Sure, they can be pleasant experiences that celebrate the life of a loved one, but they’re always sad, potentially traumatic days. Enter The Funeral from Turkish director Ocrun Behram, which played at 2024’s Glasgow Frightfest the weekend just […]
Wake Up (Glasgow Frightfest 2024)(Review)
If the name “RKSS” sounds familiar to you, it’s likely because they were the French-Canadian trio responsible for 2015’s quirky post-apocalyptic gore-fest Turbo Kid – likely the stand-out title of the kids-on-bikes-sploitation wave that sprung up around the mid-2010s, when the world was caught in the grip of Stranger Things […]
Custom (2024): Sexual Power Dynamics Blurred in Unsettling Debut (Glasgow Frightfest 2024)(Review)
With a tantalising teaser played during last year’s London Frightfest, Tiago Teixeira’s feature debut Custom makes its world premiere at the Glasgow edition. It centres on Harriet (Abigail Hardingham, also an associate producer) and Jasper (Rowan Polonski), a couple who have struggled to get success with their art and have […]
All You Need is Death (Glasgow Frightfest 2024)(Review)
“Folk horror” is a term which has been applied to a large variety of vastly different, and occasionally disparate, pieces of genre film and fiction – yet what ties together almost all of those works is one central, core concept; that which is past is not dead, and furthermore, it […]
Documentary Shorts (Slamdance Film Festival 2024)(Review)
Like any industry film festival, Slamdance has its different strands – Graham talked about the experimental shorts, joining that there are animated shorts, and narrative shorts as well as the more traditional documentary and narrative feature sections that are also sub-divided. Fields that have some impressive alumni, with the festival […]
Experimental Shorts (Slamdance Film Festival 2024) (Review)
Even in a festival as dedicated to the unexpected as Slamdance, there’s only one strand where you can see a film whose descriptive subtitles specify the sound of “[downpour of fish]”. It’s the experimental shorts strand, a useful opportunity to press your ear to the film-making underground. The fishy rain […]
The Complex Forms (Slamdance Film Festival 2024)(Review)
Slamdance is a film festival positioned around micro budget productions, giving writers and directors an early step in their career – a step with considerable lineage given its on the doorstep of its third decade. That qualifier, micro-budget, gives a certain impression of what sort of narrative films the festival […]