Spell (2020)

Director: Mark Tonderai
Starring: Omari Hardwick, Loretta Devine .USA. 1h 31m

18 years on from Ian Softleys powerful hoodoo thriller Skeleton Key (2005), the time and tested horror had graduated into Spell, which is a strange name for a rootworking movie but nonetheless no one will be surprised when the incantations, grimoire and ritual work is let loose. However this darkened story has closer ties with Misery (1990) and the Hills Have Eyes (1977/2005).

Silent Hill (2006)

Director: Christophe Gans
Starring: Radha Mitchell, Laurie Holden, Sean Bean, Kim Coates, Tanya Allen, Alice Krige, Deborah Kara Unger .USA/France/Canada. 2h 5m

Before the massive remake revolution audiences used to get some kind of excitement when their beloved media was about to be revamped into something new and shiny. However over the years we were battered to death by abysmal rehases that missed the plot and we all lost faith that any remake was going to be worth our time… but before we learnt the painful lesson there was some hope that Silent Hill, in the hands of Christophe Gans, might, just might make a decent horror movie. After all the games are fucking terrifying so even if you miss the mark, you’ll still end up with something unsettling and creepy right? Right?

Shifty (2008)

Shifty (2008) Director: Eran Creevy Starring: Riz Ahmed, Daniel Mays, Jason Flemyng, Jay Simpson .UK. 1h 26m

You could argue that the British Urban genre is still in its infancy, or at least it’s fixated on youth and troubled adolescence that it’s hard to see it in a mature sense. However debut director Eran Creevy raises the bar with this uber smart, darkly funny and engaging drama all stuck together on a meager budget. Usually the scene is something daryl troubled like Kidulthood, Cherry Tree Lane, and they all have their visceral points to make but Shifty is more chilled and less aggressive but it does highlight street violence and the grimey underbelly of our streets but it’s achievement of highlighting the friendship of two amazing friends and the characters they meet along the way will make an audience smile before smacking them with a gory ending.

Sea Fever (2019)

Director: Neasa Hardiman
Starring: Hermione Corfield, Dag Malmberg,Jack Hickey, Olwen Fouéré, Dougray Scott, Sonnie Nielsen, Ardalan Esmaili, Elie Couakaze. UK/Ireland. 1h 25m

Sea fever, much like cabin fever strikes when everyone least’s expects it, sometimes it can be contained and only affects one person, other times it turns into group hysteria and it can be a struggle to figure out what’s real and not., but in Hardiman’s offbeat body horror, with ties to Celtic mythology, emerges a story that becomes a deep dive into our small part in the ecology of this watery planet.

Sotto Il Vestito Niente II / To Beautiful to Die (1988)

Director: Dario Piana Starring: Francois-Eric Gendron, Florence Guerin, Randi Ingerman, Giovanni Tamberi, Nora Ariffin, Italy. 1h 35m

The only way to confirm that you were watching a horror movie in the 1980’s was the moment a pair of boobs were flashed across the screen, the exposure of flesh was the indicator that you were in for some slaherific blood and gore, monsters and creeps and this 1988 film is a perfect victim of its age! The intro plays out like a dated underwear advert (something the director was king of having filmed over 600 of them), but this panty advert lasts what feels like 20 minutes, but luckily the models are soon hacked to pieces so don’t get too attached..

The Salton Sea (2002)

Director: DJ Caruso
Starring: Val Kilmer, Vincent D’Onofrio, Adam Goldberg, Lusi Guzman, Doug Hutchison, Peter Sarsfaard, DB Wong, R Lee Ermey, Meat Loaf, Danny Trejo. USA. 1h 43m

Coming from the early 2000’s there’s still a 1990s fever dream running through DJ Caruso drug fueled action thriller, starring Val Kilmer as a lone wolf Danny Parker (AKA Tom Van Allen) who spends his days infiltrating a group of colourful druggies while trying to hatch an elaborate revenge plan against those who wronged him.

Shootfighter Fight to the Death (1993)

Director: Partick Alan
Starring: William Aabka, Michael Bernardo, Maryam d’Abo, Martin Kove, Bolo Yeung, Edward Albert. USA. 1h 40m

Slightly lesser known but wildly loved, Shootfighters plays on a few fight to the death tournament tropes but there’s a lot of genuine talent, not much love interest based distraction and tongues of sweaty muscles and heart, just like it should be!

Starting out with a disgraced fighter being kicked out of a legal fighting ring, Mr Lee (Kove) then travels from the Far East to Tiuana and starts up a similar righting ring but the winner of each match is only crowned when one man is unconscious or dead. Mr C (Albert) is a sly fox sidekick to Mr Lee and his job is to entice down and out fighters with bills to pay into the tournament with the promise of winning big, he manages to rope Ruben (Zabka) into the next tournament and his best friend Nick (Bernardo) tags along to keep an eye on his friend during this dangerous fight game. Somewhere back home there’s a couple of love interests but they really don’t add anything to the guy action packed adventure.

Spider (2002)

Director: David Cronenberg
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne .UK/Canada. 1h m

In the early 2000’s David Conenberg packed away the New Flesh and made an intensely beautiful and fascinating account of Patrick’s McGraths novel. Even without the body horror and gore, psychotropic vibes and the paranoid surreal, Conenberg still manages to disturb.

Starring Ralph Fiennes, as a deeply disturbed middle aged man, simply known as Spider. He’s just been released from a long term mental institution into a drab boarding house in London’s King Cross area. The tatty rooms and pealing wallpaper permeate a 1950’s atmosphere and isn’t the idea surroundings for recovery, however it’s here that Spider travels back to his childhood, spiraling back into the trauma as he remembers his obsessive belief that his father (Bryne) did away with his mother (Richardson) to start up a new life with a prostitute.

Brothers In Arms / Semper Fi (2019)

Director: Henry Alex Rubin
Starring:Jai Courtney, Nat Wolff, Finn Wittrock, Arturo Castro, Beau Knapp .USA. 1h 39m

It’s hard not to feel a little bit conflicted with the ending of Brothers In Arms AKA Semper Fi. The film successfully builds up a golden camaraderie between a pair of brothers Callahan (Courtney) and Oyster (Wolff) who, along with their Marine Corp Reserve Brothers, they manages to pull off the impossible and with the best intentions but in the big scheme of righter and wronger, was it really justified?

Shutter Island (2010)

Director: Martin Scorsese Starring:Leonardo DiCaprio, Emily Mortimer, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsle, Max Von Sydow, Patricia Clarkson, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas USA. 2h 18m

Scorsese is a legendary director but more often I find I can work out his films from the get go and this one I called in the intro and then didn’t enjoy a single second of the movie because for me it was so clear what was going on. But in hindsight I can see the appeal for anyone who didn’t clique what was going on, it must have been gripping and playing on all of their emotions.