At one point in the Winchester Mystery House’s history the building reached the lofty peaks of seven floors high. That was before the Great San Francisco earthquake hit in 1906 and brought some of them tumbling down. The Spierig brothers open their film in the same year before the quake hit and where rumblings of
Reviews
Like many a slasher, Psychotic! opens with an extended POV shot, as the killer first ogles Shannon (Rachel Laforest) through her window, and then enters the apartment with knife raised. Yet the would-be assailant is interrupted by the arrival of party guests, and reduced to hiding (like a final girl) under the bed and sharing
When Logan Wallace’s father passes away in a tragic accident, his mother drags him to her sister’s isolated mountain home in the hopes that it will help them grieve. There’s just one catch, the lavish accommodation is on the market and the pair would have to vacate the premises every so often while strangers have
The Death Cure, the final adaptation of James Dashner’s dystopian Maze Runner novels, starts with a combination train robbery/prison break sequence that recalls not one, but two set-pieces from the first act of Fast & Furious 5 – or Fast Five as it’s known outside the UK. The success of that formula-shifting entry in the
Pixar has a rich history of tugging at the heartstrings with a powerful profundity, from the opening ten minutes of Up to the way Inside Out explored how important it is to save room for the sad feelings as well as the good, the animation studio has regularly displayed its keen emotional intelligence. With its
The best decision the first Insidious movie made, back in 2010, was casting Lin Shaye as maverick demon-hunter Elise Rainier. The worst decision? Killing her off at the end of the film. Because as the franchise has gone on, it’s only become clearer than Shaye – already a horror icon thanks to appearances in countless
Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó made a bold breakthrough on the arthouse circuit with 2014’s White God, which concerned a mistreated dog leading a canine uprising. With Jupiter’s Moon, he’s back with another high-concept story and back in social allegory mode. A young migrant fleeing his home in Syria, Aryan (Zsombor Jéger) is separated from his
A gritty LA cop movie with genre elements should be the perfect fit for End Of Watch (yes, and Suicide Squad) director David Ayer, and Bright sounds like it should be a lot of fun on paper. In practice, it’s a plodding, uninspired twist on Alien Nation that lacks that film’s wit and invention and squanders every
Our Evil (Mal Nosso), the feature debut of writer/director/producer/editor Samuel Galli, is a film of two halves. In the first, hulking, bald, middle-aged Arthur (Ademir Esteves) wakes at 2.32am, searches the dark web, skimming over items like ‘credit card cloning’ ‘cannibalism’ and ‘necro’ to open a section on ‘assassination (South America)’, where he watches an online
Preconceptions can sometimes make or break a film. It’s very easy to dismiss a reboot before even the title card has flashed on screen, and Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle has been particularly unlucky in that respect seeing as the loss of the origin film’s star, Robin Williams, is still raw three and a half
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, and the last two Star Wars films have explored and plundered their past with great success. Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi knows and loves its predecessors and it certainly isn’t above a heart-warming (or a heart-breaking) call-back every now and then, but it’s a bold step away from what’s come
Lu Over The Wall, the latest film from Japanese director Masaaki Yuasa, is an ace new entry in the small but strong pool of animation centred around mermaid or fish-people, alongside Disney’s The Little Mermaid and Studio Ghibli’s Ponyo. Following his parents’ separation, glum teenager Kai lives in his father’s home in a rural fishing
If you’re watching Ana Asensio’s Most Beautiful Island in a crowded cinema, there will come a point when you’ll be able to feel the tension in the room. There’s a question that the first-time director will make you ask before withholding the answer, and as the minutes tick by, the sense of not knowing, of
When Ryan Murphy announced that American Horror Story’s seventh season was set to revolve around the 2016 US Election, viewers were rather skeptical as to whether it would work. While considered a genuine nightmare for some (and perhaps, even more frighteningly, a divine moment for others), Donald Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton certainly didn’t seem
Given all the comprehensively reported behind the scenes drama, the fact that Justice League is coherent seems like a minor miracle. Not only is it coherent, it’s actually fun in places. Zack Snyder’s film (a reported 15-20% of which is Joss Whedon’s) doesn’t leave you on the same high as Wonder Woman and it’s certainly
Marvel has form when it comes to excellent casting choices. From Robert Downey Jr through to Krysten Ritter, they’ve hit the nail on the head more often than not. However, getting Jon Bernthal to play The Punisher is simply a masterstroke. His performance isn’t just compelling, it elevates everything around him. It made the first
Originally published and released as part of the quarterly comics hamper ShortBox, Rosemary Valero-O’Connell’s What Is Left is a perfect example of the mini-comic format. Compact and expansive, full of feeling and imagination, the book wrings mystery and meaning out of an intriguing sci-fi premise. In an unspecified future, spaceships are powered by a Memory
A strict catholic upbringing leaves shy Thelma (Eli Harboe) feeling like an outsider as she embarks on her University education in Joachim Trier’s sensitively handled supernatural Nordic chiller. Trier stamps his own nuanced spin on female coming-of-age horror by introducing a refreshing and richly drawn gay character struggling with her sexuality that strikes a similar
If characters in a horror movie are watching an old black and white movie on TV late at night, and it’s not Night Of The Living Dead, it’s almost certainly Carnival Of Souls. So even if you’ve never seen it before, you might have seen bits of it. You’ll definitely recognise some of the imagery,
A perfect seasonal gift for any and all horror obsessives (is there a Halloween equivalent of the stocking filler?), this short, sweet comic is a welcome return to solo-penned stories from Hellboy creator and all-round industry legend Mike Mignola. While the expanded Hellboy universe is still going strong, Mignola has favoured co-writing various spin-offs and
“I am what is commonly known as a serial killer. I don’t love that nomenclature. I sort of consider myself a murderer, but my numbers are such that I’m classified as a serial killer… I’ve killed 39 people.” So says Aaron (Mark Duplass) within minutes of meeting Sara (Desiree Akhavian), hired to film a documentary
Ten years after the death of the notorious trap-setting Jigsaw killer (Tobin Bell), the games have begun again. Mutilated corpses are turning up with jigsaw-shaped pieces cut out of their skin and tape recordings of John Kramer’s voice embedded in their flesh. Could Jigsaw be back from the grave? It’s only been seven years since
One of the latest novels to address the possibility of a world transformed by the effects of global warming, Paul McCauley’s Austral is set a number of years into the future. Antarctica has been colonised, the retreating ice revealing the landscape underneath, and humanity are building a new world there. The eponymous central figure is a
It’s easy to draw comparisons between Sleeping Beauties and several other books in Stephen King’s back catalogue. There’s the unstoppable pandemic and battle between good and evil of The Stand, there’s the isolated small-town panic of Under The Dome and The Tommyknockers, and the institutionalised abuse of women of Dolores Claiborne. However, this latest novel,
Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ provides a rousing anthem for Taika Waititi’s irreverent, fun and wildly entertaining superhero film. Waititi is best known for his offbeat independent comedies such as What We Do In The Shadows and Hunt For The Wilderpeople and he ably transfers his brand of idiosyncratic humour with relish to the seventeenth entry
Given that Stranger Things so perfectly hit that zeitgeist-y sweet spot and so clearly enjoyed its pop culture success, we had our concerns about whether Matt and Ross Duffer would be able to perform the same trick twice. No one likes a second season slump. So, good news: we didn’t need to worry. For the
Tree (Jessica Rothe) didn’t have a great birthday. First she woke up hungover in a stranger’s dorm room, then she was late to school, and then her sorority sister ruined her outfit by spilling a drink all over her. Just to put the cherry on the crappy cake, she got stabbed to death on her
Last weekend saw Nottingham’s Broadway Cinema play host to Mayhem Film Festival, and we headed into screen one for four days full of horror, sci-fi and cult movies from around the world. It was our first time at Mayhem, and it definitely won’t be the last. With an excellent and eclectic selection of features and
Downsizing has just about the best concept you’ll find in a film all year. In a bid to cut down on the environmental impact of humans, scientists find a way to shrink humans. And because everything is so tiny, normal mid-level workers can sell up, downsize, and live like millionaires. That’s the idea Paul (Matt
Not to be confused with Carlos Algara and Alejandro Martinez-Beltran’s Mexican film of the same name, Verónica is, like its director Paco Plaza’s previous [REC] and [REC] 2, set mostly in a Spanish metropolitan apartment building where something diabolical finds a way in. There, 15-year-old Verónica (Sandra Escacena, in an impressive big-screen debut) is left