Director: Richard Billingham Starring: Patrick Romer, Richard Ashton, Justin Salinger, Ella Smith, Tony Way. UK. 1h 50m
This strangely hypnotic movie doesn’t really have a beginning, middle and an end, per say but there’s a strange introduction to characters, and they are very unusual creatures. Once you get over the initial shock of their squalid lives and attitudes the movie kinda meanders until a pivotal moment where everyone’s life changes, most notable the teller of the story, Richard, and his little brother Jason, who at one point would rather sleep rough than go home, but what would drive a child to do this?
Director: Wes Ball Starring: Dylan O’Brien, Will Poulter, Ki Hong Lee, Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Aidan Gillen, Giancarlo Esposito, Thomas Brodie-Sangster. UK. 2h 22m
I’m a big sucker for well planned trilogies, but if I don’t feel there’s much going for them, like the Matrix, I’ll only watch the first and last. Generally the 2nd movie is just fluffy filler, something to make the fans ever eager for the penultimate showdown. I like to see the set up and close down and I feel that I’ve not missed anything by skipping straight to the final chapter here. At last we all get some closure to a franchise that has a curious beginning, the ending won’t be much of a payoff.
Director: Stephen Rick Starring. Patrick John Flueger, Val Kilmer, Mattea Conforti, Taylor Richardson, Paul Ben-Victor, Yul Vasquez. USA. 1h 30m.
There are a number of amazing tenant building horrors and thriller out here, Roman Polanski thrilled audiences with his trilogy of high rise fears, playing on the social and personal psychological terrors that can be conjured by a strange cult living within the walls or being left to one’s own devices, with no idea what kind of community you’re moving into there is a long running horror trope of new tenants finding strange secrets lurking in their new dream home, from either something creepy in the sub basements to demons haunting the halls, all of this is attractively laid out but in my opinion rubbished by a terrible ending, only written to continue a story that I don’t think anyone needs. Continue reading The Super (2017)→
Director: Sylas Dall Starring: Mary Madaline Roe, Morgan Chandler, Eden Campbell .USA. 1h 27m
For a first time full length feature, there’s a lot of potential here, great believable character creation and development, an interesting narrative and some sterling cinematography, however there’s just something amiss with Dall’s creepy drama. Firstly it can’t make up its mind if it’s a horror movie with kids, or for kids…
Dall has a gorgeous set up as he hurls his cast back into the early 1970’s, opening with a father an son who are on the road to attend an alleged possession case, while recording their findings they are convinced something demonic is going on, and attempt an exorcism using an arcane tomb, as with any credible horror, things go terribly wrong but the tape catches it all including the demonic forces and seems to hold on to them.
Whenever I need a real horror fix I usually find it within the ranks of non English, or at least non Hollywood movies, the last thing which really rocked my boat was the Turkish blazer, Baskin (2015) and the aptly named Aterrados/Terrified(2017) from Argentina to name a few, but in nearby Mexico I found a gem in Belzebuth. I was quite pleasantly surprised about this violent demonic film from seasoned director Portes, who’s mainly known for his fast paced action comedies, so to see him traverse this new genre like a pro says much about his outstanding directorial qualities and hopefully we’ll see more from him in the future, with this blinding spiritual sequel to Pastorela (2011).
Director: Jeff Lieberman Starring: Alexander Brickel, Kateryn Winnick, Stephen Graham, Amanda Plummer, Wass Stevens, Joshua Annex. USA. 1h 40m.
I found this lesser known gem in the bargain bucket, it came as one of those double sided discs with an equally bizarre b movie, Killer X (1999), it stayed on my shelf for years until I had a particularly shitty break up and I decided to settle down with a tub of ice cream and sob into it with a terrible movie to remind myself just how shit my life was at the time but this stunning movie really uplifted my evening.
Directed by Jeff Lieberman, a meistro who lives to live life on the edge with psychedelic and wayward classics such as Blue Sunshine (1977), Just Before Dawn (1981) and Squirm (1976) under his belt, but with this modern approach to horror, he seemed to not take any aspect of this movie all that serious but it still manages to be a creepy comedy horror with some very dark undertones, totally different from this retro classics but so brilliant in it’s own quirky rights.Continue reading Satan’s Little Helper (2004)→
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