horror
A Banquet review – horror, done beforeFriday, 11 March 2022
One feels, or perhaps hopes, that if she could have avoided it, first-time feature director Ruth Paxton might not have started A Banquet as she ultimately did: with Holly Hughes (Sienna Guillory) arduously scrubbing the frame of her... Read more... |
10 Questions for filmmaker Romola GaraiWednesday, 02 February 2022
The prolific actor Romola Garai first demonstrated her ability as a filmmaker with Scrubber, a gripping 20-minute feminist drama about a young middle-class mum and homemaker (Amanda Hale) who escapes her deadly routine through bouts of anonymous... Read more... |
The Humans review - staring headlong into the abyssMonday, 10 January 2022
A small film that packs a significant wallop, The Humans snuck into view at the very end of 2021 to cast a despairing shadow that extends well beyond the Thanksgiving day during which it takes place. Adapted from the much-traveled Tony-winning play... Read more... |
Hellbound, Netflix review - supernatural assassins usher in an age of terrorFriday, 03 December 2021
Netflix is sometimes criticised for bringing too much of everything to its online feast, but the way it’s opening up previously under-exposed territories is becoming seriously impressive. Suddenly, South Korea is beginning to look like a powerhouse... Read more... |
Mark Bould: The Anthropocene Unconscious review - climate anxiety is written everywhereTuesday, 02 November 2021
Our everyday lives, if we’re fortunate, may be placid, even contented. A rewarding job, for some; good eats; warm home; happy family; entertainment on tap. Yet, even for the privileged, awareness of impending change – probably disaster – intrudes.... Read more... |
The North Water, BBC Two review - a terrible voyage into the great beyondSaturday, 11 September 2021
It’s perhaps unfortunate that The North Water arrives on BBC Two only a few months after The Terror, since it’s impossible to avoid the parallels between them. They’re set only a few years apart (1859 for The North Water, 1845 for The Terror), both... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Lake MungoTuesday, 15 June 2021
Lake Mungo (2008) is a dread-laden Australian Gothic thriller that masquerades as a straight-faced documentary.It’s also an analysis of grief that questions who or what it's for; a disquisition on representation that emphasises our psychological... Read more... |
Kylie Whitehead: Absorbed review - boundary-blurry, darkly funny debutWednesday, 02 June 2021
Absorbed meets Allison at the end of her relationship with Owen. They are at a New Year's Eve party when she realises that their 10-year partnership has wound down. So far, so normal. But even within this introduction, we are drawn into Allison's... Read more... |
Army of the Dead review - triumphant return to zombieland by director Zack SnyderWednesday, 19 May 2021
Zack Snyder’s CV includes such fantastic fare as Watchmen, 300, Man of Steel and his career-launching zombie-fest Dawn of the Dead, so who better to helm a zombies-in-Vegas heist movie? Army of the Dead has suffered an interminable gestation,... Read more... |
Blu-ray: RawTuesday, 04 May 2021
Raw opens with a bang, a distant figure on a remote country road stepping out in front of a car, causing it to crash into a tree. What’s really happened isn’t made clear until we’re well into French director Julia Ducournau’s 2016 feature. Part... Read more... |
Brenda Navarro: Empty Houses review - the pains and pressures of motherhoodThursday, 11 March 2021
The horror novelist Sarah Langan recently compared motherhood to being treated like a game of Operation. “The point of the game is to correct us by removing our defective bones, to carefully pick us apart. It’s open season.” For the Mexican writer... Read more... |
Blu-ray: LinkTuesday, 09 March 2021
Man’s strange relationship with other species haunts this freaky simian horror film from Psycho II director Richard Franklin. Terence Stamp is Dr Phillips, an archetypal, lab-coated mad scientist, grumpily testing the limits of ape intelligence, and... Read more... |
