Director: Robert Eggers
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattinson .USA/Canada. 1h 49m.
An uncategorizable and slightly experimental frolic through unfinished literature and art. Rober Eggers and his brother Max attempt to finish a short story written by Edgar Allen Poe with a gusty and challenging drama that borders on fantasy.
Two Wickies (Lighthouse Keepers) are stranded on their isolated island for an extended time due to a prolonged storm and they begin to trip down a psycho sexual rabbit hole during some intense alone time that draws in cabin fever.
Director: Patrick Picard
Starring: Joe Adler; Lian Aiken .USA. 1h 12m
A great alternative title for this movie would be “A nice guy deals with an entitled cunt”, but there’s a little more to Patrick Picard’s sleek thriller, loosely based on Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.
The film is a steady paced psychological breakdown of “the nice guy” Francis (Aiken) by his supposed school friend, Jen Paul Luret (Adler), a privileged, rude and cruel young man who’s bordering on crazy. Living in a high tech and lavish home in the remote wilderness with his sister, who’s rarely seen throughout the movie, almost as frequently as the Bloodhound itself, which seems to be a strange masked man that hides around the home and is honestly the freakiest aspect of the entire movie, i found a clip here to wet your whistle.
Director: Edward Drake
Starring:Jonathan Lipnicki, Avery Konrad, Timothy V Murphy USA. 1h 30m
Coming of age is a difficult time for any young girl but it’s especially troubling for Chance in Drakes power struggle vampire film with a gritty power struggle a troubled hero and s touch of je ne sai qoir but it doesn’t go that extra mile to really set itself apart from all the other TV vampire movies but it’s still thoroughly enjoyable to watch family fireworks.
Opening with a family trying to control their wayward and violent teen daughter Chance (Konrad) they send her to live with her pious grandfather and extended family on a remote estate. Slowly the easily distracted teen uncovers a family secret and her only chance of survival comes from the dead and an assassin destined to end her family’s reign.
Director: James McTeigue Starring: John Cusack, Alice Eve, Luke Evans, Brendan Gleeson,Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Sam Hazeldine, Dave Legeno. USA. 1h 51m
Journalism and celebrity are the subjects of this Victorian clad detective story. Fictionalising the final days of Edgar Allen Poe, giving him some majesty while being down and out in Baltimore 1849. No one wants to publish his iconic flavour of the macabre anymore and his life is in tatters.
The only one who can stop a serial killer is the man who inspired him
Director: Olivier Assayas Starring: Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Sigird Bouaziz, Nora Von Waldstratten. USA/UK/France. 1h 45m
At times it’s easy to forget that Personal Shopper is a horror movie. If you’re into something which burns slow but delivers a whack at the end then this might feel like it’s let you down, but there is a huge revelation at the end but it might not be what you were expecting. At times it’s mundane and even dull, but Assatas’ genius technique is to force the viewer to not to see what’s coming so when something does stand out it has a larger impact. It’s not hard to connect Kirsten Stewart to keywords such as “Blank” and at times it’s a perfect emotion for the film that deals all too honestly with grief, alienation and death.
Director: Neil Jordan Starring: Gemma Arterton, Saoirse Ronan, Sam Riley, Caleb Landry-Jones .UK. 1h 58m
Every few years vampires find themselves reinvented and they refuse to remove their fangs from our necks. Jim Jarmusch swung back with Only Lovers Left Alive, a revival of the romantic mixed with his own take on the eternal blood sucking genre, and it’s been two decades since Interview with a Vampire, the film that made millions swoon…
Byzantium switches between modern day and yesteryear through dreamy sequences and guttural gore as Gemma Arterton, often dolled up in numerous sexy outfits, and her supposed daughter Saoise Ronan play vampires who after years of running from hunters, end up in a dead end seaside town. After shacking up with a timid hotelier, Daniel Mays, they set up their own brothel in his shabby establishment.
By the time the girls have settled into their new home, the authorities are taking an interest in them, but these agents have a good idea of the monsters lurking within the innocent faces and they are highly equipped to track down these undead wenches in order to make them more dead.
The strange unsettling drama will always been known as one of the new wave of modern neon movies, at times it sets itself among vibrant titles like Into the Void (20??), and yet there’s a creepy nostalgia when remote waterfalls turn into torrents of blood, but as the girls struggle through adversity in the 19th and 20th century, with and without corsets, the compelling story of power and hunger has a heavy feminist subtext that adds weight to the already fantastic adventure. The girls are very unique from other vampires, while they are super strong and have acute senses, but their tool of the trade is a retractable fingernail which they use to kill, with this slightly feline temperament and talons the movie oozes yet another feminine thread.
” I’m never merciful, and knowledge is a fatal thing.”
-Clara
The story often stops and starts, falling over its own timeline, the girls seem to spend a lot of time sandboxing, falling in love with sick boys, updating their fries, struggling with the school system and the bittersweet gothic backstory determines why the girls hate men so much. But with such a long play time it seems to take a long time to describe what we have already guessed, and yet we still don’t really know where they are intending to go.
Certainly one for those who like a bit of mysticism and pretty visuals as much as a compelling story but don’t expect to have too many memories of the film other than pretty visuals as it frustratingly loses its personality along the way.
Rating: 6/10
TLDR
Byzantium (2012) A pair of vampires start up a brothel in a local seaside town, while running from the authorities who are aware of their unique abilities. Dreamy Neon drama with a romantic gothic overtone to a new vision of feminism violence in stockings. pic.twitter.com/gTHRXWKVxf
— Admit 1 Film Addict (@admitonefilmadd) July 18, 2021
Related: Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Enter the Void (2009) Lists: Vampire romances Vol 1, Neon Cinema Spotlight: Sam Riley, Caleb Landry Jones
Director: Jack McHenry Starring: Tom Bailey, Maureen Bennett, Alfred Bradle, Robert Llewellyn, Timothy Renouf, Charlie Robb, Jessica Webber. UK. 1h 20m
Genre bending comedy horror doesn’t get much better than this frightful mini epic. Here Comes Hell, sees a small group of gorgeous 1930’s socialites hooking up to see one of their friends’ new purchases, which just happens to be a charming haunted mansion located deep in the British wilderness. The party includes a seance as getting a psychic grandma in on your party is thought to be terribly fun.
Director: Guillermo Del Toro Starring:Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam. USA. 1h 59m
With the lack of modern genuine gothic literature making it to the big screen, Crimson Peak had a lot to make up for, however despite it’s well crafted story, delicious cast amongst opulent sets, I wasn’t blown away by this epic ghost story. There’s a massive divide between Guillermo Del Toro’s Spanish and American work. Crimson Peak battles with its style and substance, for the most part it will wow it’s audience with an oil slick blend of colours but it seems to pluck the worse elements of gothic literature to mix but remains true and doesn’t step a foot out of the box. Continue reading Crimson Peak (2015)→
Director: Peter Newbrook. Starring. Robert Powell, Robert Stephens, Jane Lapotaire, Alex Scott, Ralph Arliss. USA. 1h 39m.
A moralistic story written with a heavy gothic horror backdrop by Christina and Laurence Beers has been cleverly adapted by Peter Newbrook in a pseudo Hammer Horror-esque style. In a large opulent mansion a brilliant Victorian scientist becomes obsessed with the idea of becoming immortal. Continue reading The Asphyx (1972/3)→
Director: Ivan Kavanagh Starring: Rupertt Evans, Anatonia Campbell-Hughes, Hannah Hoekstra, Kelly Bryne. UK. 1h 32m
A paranoid love story inflames within the confined walls of a haunted house, but not just any ghost is lingering in the shadows, it’s the ghost of a violent killer. This is enough to make any film spooky but Canal just end up dragging out the age a repetition of the same old suspense scenes and delivers little else. Written like a gothic novel and presented as a bleak drama with added Ring (1998) style ghostly scares, and The Red Shoes (2005) style red herrings, the film attempts to blur the lines between the supernatural and a genuine psychological thriller.. Shrouded in the historical mysteries of the house and deluded paranoia, the film packs a punch (be it a weak love tap) on two sides of the horror spectrum simultaneously, this can easily be mistaken as a confused Continue reading The Canal (2014)→
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