Now just a year away from its thirtieth birthday, Slamdance remains focused on low-budget films from emerging directors. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s alienated from the mainstream, though. The 2024 festival has specialist strands dealing with two areas that have been unexpectedly prominent in mainstream media of late. One of […]
Pop Culture
20 Movies for Japanuray
Between Social Media and Marketing agencies, Japanuary is one of these traditions that happen every year, in which people portmanteau months to programme month long sessions into a particular movement – or, in this case, national cinema – into their cinematic diet. Giallo January is another common theme that people […]
Alex’s Favourite Films Of 2023: End-of-Year Roundup
2023 is quickly approaching its end, and this year has been massive for me. A-Levels and starting university in the same year is a whole new level of responsibility that I would not wish on my worst enemy. However, despite all of these mad changes and busy workloads, I’ve actually […]
Doctor Who: The Giggle (2023) – A Fantastic (for now) Collision of Past, Present and Future (Review)
After a short but sweet run of 60th anniversary specials, the era of the Fourteenth Doctor is over and Ncuti Gatwa is now officially the iconic Time Lord, though this handover process hasn’t happened in the usual way. We will get to this in due course, never fear, because there […]
Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder (2023) A Wacky But Wonderful Subversion of Expectations (Review)
SPOILERS AHEAD I can’t remember a Doctor Who episode like Wild Blue Yonder in my time as a fan. Perhaps the closest thing I can think of is the monumental Peter Capaldi showcase Heaven Sent, which similarly had a barebones cast in a mysterious location with something deeply sinister lurking […]
Onyx the Fortuitious and the Talisman of Souls (Soho Horror Fest 2023)(Review)
5 fans are invited to the ritual to end all rituals. So starts the hilarious intro to a rollercoaster ride that has all the wit, nostalgia and laughs of Tenacious D and Clerks 2. It reaches into how we all felt as teenagers. Surfing the internet, finding the things you […]
The Coffee Table (Soho Horror Fest 2023)(Review)
Caye Casas’ first solo feature is a difficult film to review because its plot hinges on an unexpected and horrifying event early on. It’s doubly difficult as it’s currently on the festival circuit with no clear future in terms of wider distribution, making it hard to recommend since it isn’t […]
Booger (Soho Horror Festival 2023)(Review)
You’re right, it’s quite a title, and it could have been worse as, if Ted Nugent wasn’t such an unacceptable figure these days, Mary Dauterman’s feature debut could have been called Cat Scratch Fever. Anna, the film’s protagonist, receives a nasty clawing from her pet cat Booger that results in […]
Satan Wants You (Soho Horror Fest 2023)(Review)
In November of 1980 a psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Lawrence Pazder from Victoria, British Columbia, wrote and published “Michelle Remembers” – an allegedly factual account of the childhood abuse of his patient, Michelle Smith, by a Satanic cult. Co-written by Smith herself, the book graphically describes how Michelle […]
Hippo (Soho Horror Film Festival 2023)(Review)
The title character of Mark H. Rapaport’s debut film, played by the film’s co-writer Kimball Farley, is an amateur film-maker who, quoting Nikola Tesla, promises his audience “man-made horrors beyond your comprehension” – and the Soho Horror Festival seem to have agreed by hosting the film’s UK premiere. It’s no […]