Director: Jane Schoenbrun Starring: Anna Cobb; Michael J Rogers .USA. 1h 26m
In reasponse to a slew of online challenges, either real or unreal, our children have been exposed to the horrors of Slenderman and Momo, and challenged to chuck ice water over themselves to spread awareness or apparently the comitt suicide in the blue whale challnge or wishing for death in Randomnautica, and this is only the tip of the iceberg of this cyber phenomenan. We’ve already seen what an entity from the web can do to a young woman in Daniel Goldhaber’s Cam (2017), but this is something of a step in the “weird” direction..
Director: Mike P Nelson Starring: Matthew Modine, Adain Bradley, Bill Sage, Emma Dumont, Dylan McTee, Charlotte Vega .USA. 1h 30m
Wrong Turn is a franchise that, in my opinion, kinda did what it needed to do, gross out audiences in a blood soaked adventure that ends when there are no more young people to carve up. After the ultimate mutant hillbilly interaction, it took the inevitable path of destruction with numerous sequels getting cheaper as the madness carried on, but for some reason during the height of lockdown, we needed a reboot! Director Mike P Nelson decided to take his off road story further off the beaten track, and attempts to make a high functioning and credible horror from something that’s often watched purely for the body count, made the entire concept weary more than hardcore.
Director: Dick Lowry Starring: Meredith Baxter, Stephen Collins, Michelle Johnson, Kelli Williams, Stephen Root, and Lori Hallier. USA. 1h 36m
We’ve had Alien Vs Predator and Freddy Vs Jason and even Godzilla vs Mothra, but have you ever seen a jilted wife fight her husband, the horror generated by a blond bombshell feeling the grips of age and jealousy is nothing compared to the other hollywood beasts. If at some point ,Betty Broaderick turned up at a 50ft woman and shot lazers from her eyes at his “deadbeat” husband while people flee in terror then no one would be shocked.
In it’s own rights there’s an air of horror about (directors) taught drama. The case of Betty Broaderick was one which shocked America and the world was glued to her televised court case, the details all too much to chromphrend for a lot of people. How can a wife be so cold hearted, but no matter what Betty did or was accused of, she also had her fans, it wasn’t even a matter of Hybristophilia, there was a jisted ex wife uprising on the cards, so what did Betty do?
Director: Giuseppe Vari Starring: Lou Castel, Adolfo Celi, Beba Loncar. Italy. 1h 32m
One of the easily overlooked Giallo/Politizen films which has a storyline which trips over into the Psychotropic realms there’s a ton of sleeze to get through in Vari’s vibrant thriller.
Fashion photographer Carlo (Castel) and hit model girlfriend Olga (Loncar) are rolling in the dunes when Carlo notices a shady encounter, a couple of men start beating a third man unconscious and set fire to him in his car, Carlo catching all these on film, knowing they are onto something big and take the photos to Uncle Fifi, Olgas wheelcharir bound porno director relative, for advice on how to get the most money for the precious photos.
There has been a breakthrough in modern horror anthologies, from V/H/S (2012)to Southbound (2015), Dark Tapes (2016) to ABC’s of Death (2012), there’s been a highly dedicated sense of the bizarre and foreboding squeezed in alongside a curative surreal and darkly comic backdrop of horror. With Argentina becoming the forefront of genuine wholesome and brilliantly crafted cinema lately from superb freaky titles like Terrified(2017) and Cold Sweat (2010), there’s no wonder that this combination of short dark thrillers sets a new bar in the horror genre.
Director: Hlynur Pálmason Starring: Ingvar Sigurdsson, Ida Mekkin Hlynsdottir, Sara Dogg Asgeirsdottir. Iceland. 1h 49m
It doesn’t take long to get a good grasp of the top talent in Iceland, not only does a majority of the movies released there really hit a nerve and the industry continues to release one banger after the next, but with such a tiny population you’re going to see a lot of repeat offenders and not surprisingly a lot of the more popular faces have buckets of incredible talent and some of those come together in this study of grief.
Director: Ali Djarar Starring: Danny Webb, John Game, Neal Ward, Monty Burgess. UK. 1h 1m
This Indie ghost sleuthing found footage horror plays out like a version of Most Haunted, with some hints of Grave Encounters (2013) and Devils Familiar (2020) running through, just sadly not the good bits! All the amazing ideas of a mysterious house being a portal to a Lovecraftian void created by a cult, is washed away with too much banter and not enough on screen action. but it’s a tangible tale and I’m sure if you like any Ghost Hunting TV show then you’ll get a kick out of it.
Genre blending can go horribly wrong be it apocalyptic horror and comedy which resulted in Sharknado or romantic comedy which results in boredom. You need to be careful how you mix and match established flavours, if dont right, it can birth a tremendous gripping film such as this stand out item from Italian maestro Massimo Dallamano, being a big contender with a host of really notable titles the classic cinematographer comes into his own with a trio of brilliant movies, for me the golden trio, for me at least are, Dorian Gray, What have you done to Solange and similarly titled, What have they done to our daughters? A film with takes a the best of the poliziotteschi movement, ultising daring police chases, shoot outs and crime sleuthing, and let’s lose a terrific Giallo serial killer, clad in leather this psycho deptaches their victims with a cleaver and rides a powerful motorbike.
Director: Michael Wadleigh
Starring: Albert Finnery, Diane Venora, Edward James Olmos, Gregory Hines, Tom Noonan, Peter Michael Goetz. USA. 1h 55m
Based on: Wolfen by Whitley Strieber
Director: Marc Forster Starring: Brad Pitt, .USA/UK. 1h 56m
For every great book there is a highly anticipated and terrible movie. Even the “good” movies fail to hit all of the high notes of a novel, but spending 2 hours watching one person’s perspective of something that might have taken you a week or month to read will never compare. At least World War Z was very open that it was never an attempt to “be” the book but just to give a flavour of one of the books ethos, but more importantly for studio this was going to be the biggest grossing movie with the best stars and have fancy graphics and the world was going to love it.
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