Episode 1 – The Slaughterhouse & Episode 2 – The Painful Truth Comparisons to Fox’s American Horror Story are inevitable for Shudder/AMC’s Horror seasonal anthology series, Slasher. Each season presenting a new story and setting, and just like it’s contemporary, it brings with it a multitude of returning actors in different […]
Reviews
Julia Scott: Funny That Way (2020) Nothing short of fantastic for both the familiar and unfamiliar (Review)
For those of you who don’t know, the 31st of March marked Transgender Day of Visibility, a worldwide event first observed in 2009 which celebrates trans and non-binary individuals, in addition to helping raise awareness of anti-trans discrimination. I suppose there’s no better day that Bohemia Media and playwright Susan […]
Married to the Mob (1988) Jonathan Demme’s Wise Guy Screwball Farce (Review)
Radiance Films continues an impressive run in its debut year with a new 2K restoration release of Jonathan Demme’s hit 1988 farce Married to the Mob, the movie that launched Michelle Pfeiffer’s star into its bright ascendency. Pfeiffer stars as Angela de Marco, a young Long Island housewife whose unfaithful […]
Laurin (1988): A Luscious Piece of European Gothic Cinema (Review)
This new Blu-ray release of Laurin from Second Run highlights the debut of German director Robert Sigl, who made the feature when he was only 26 years old. Two accompanying short films provide some context for the preceding and following work to Laurin. Both star Sigl, with ‘Der Weihnachtsbaum/The Christmas […]
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Almost 50 years later, it has lost none of its power (Review)
Sally, her brother Franklin, and three of their friends are sidetracked when travelling to a grandparent’s house. Their impromptu detour leads them into the clutches of the Sawyer family, and the deranged killer known as Leatherface. There has been so much written about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre over the years […]
The Unheard (2023) Compelling Thriller Elevated by Innovative Sound Design (Review)
Never mind the eyes, it’s the ears playing tricks on our unsuspecting protagonist in the Unheard, a clever little thriller by ‘The Beach House’ director Jeff A. Brown. Lachlan Watson plays Chloe, a young profoundly deaf Gen Y-er who we meet while preparing for an experimental procedure to repair her […]
The Pawnshop (Kinoteka 2023 Review)
The great documentarian Molly Dineen once said her preferred subject was “anything British that’s dying”. Łukasz Kowalski’s debut film The Pawnshop, presented as part of the 2023 Kinoteka festival of Polish cinema, shows that this formula works for anything Polish as well. It’s set almost entirely within the four walls […]
The Suspicious Death of a Minor (1975) Giallo Essentials: White Edition (Review)
The term ‘Giallo’ tends to evoke images of black gloves, much darkness, and a de-emphasis on the plot in favour of lurid colours. A viewer could be forgiven, therefore, for their surprise when coming across a film labeled Giallo that features jaunty music, comedy pratfalls and gymnastics, and an engagement […]
Boyhood (2014) Epic Achievement that Somehow lacks a Definitive Direction (Review)
I think Boyhood will go down in my viewing history as one of these films that I appreciate more than I actually like. While it is ultimately a straightforward coming-of-age film, it is certainly ambitious, as sporadically filming a group of actors over the course of twelve years and making […]
The Perpetrators (BFI Flare 2023) bite-sized cinematic rumination on depictions of queerness and villainy (Review)
The Perpetrators is a ghost story. This is likely obvious to anybody familiar with the film’s concept, with its lead character being a pre-pubescent phantom, but beyond that, this 14-minute short is a tale of the collective ghosts of a queer past, ones which still continue to haunt the LGBTQ+ […]