There’s a fine line between stupid and clever, and it’s a line that Blumhouse horror Truth Or Dare finds itself dancing all over during the course of its 100-minute running time. It’s so easy to sneer at the apparent barrel-scraping of the title but there’s a wickedly mean-spirited potential to the idea of forcing a
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The prospect of watching one of Hollywood’s most likeable action heroes teaming up with a giant gorilla to take on rampaging mutated animals is undeniably enticing, and Dwayne Johnson’s latest action adventure gets a lot of mileage from its star’s breezy charisma, winning smile and total commitment to buddying up with a massive CGI character.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi proved to be a polarising piece of cinema. Many adored it, helping it make $1.3 billion at the global box office, but there were some who felt cheated by filmmaker Rian Johnson’s treatment of the characters and seeming dismissal of the film’s predecessor. Whether those doubters’ criticisms are justified or
“Do you want to hear a story? Do you want me to tell you about the Wildling?” Fritz Böhm’s feature debut Wildling opens with a story of monsters and bestiality told by a Daddy (Brad Dourif) to a little girl (Arlo Mertz) at bedtime. Yet the place where Anna hears this story – a wooden
When schoolgirl Barbara Thorson (Madison Wolfe) has trouble dealing with family problems and other aspects of reality, she escapes into the woods to find, hunt and kill the giants that lurk there and threaten to destroy her small coastal town and its unsuspecting residents. Based on Joe Kelly and JM Ken Nimura’s graphic novel of
There’s been a lot of discussion about what makes a film “horror” recently, but you won’t come away from A Quiet Place wanting to place it in any other genre. The third directorial effort from The Office star John Krasinski (and his first genre movie) is a nerve-wracking experience that has a brilliantly simple pitch:
The Tangled Lands is a collaborative fantasy from Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S Buckell, set in the world of Khaim. It is a world ruined by magic, which has been relied upon too much and turned against its wielders. A deadly thorn called bramble crawls across the land wherever magic is used, forcing an empire
James Brogden has followed Hekla’s Children with another tale of long-buried horrors unearthed, but the author’s interest in British history and folklore is combined with an ambition and narrative slipperiness that makes this a compelling chiller in its own right. The story begins with a fantastically rendered moment of horror in the form of an
Tucked away down a side street in Edwardian London is the most wonderful toy shop imaginable. Papa Jack’s Emporium sells patchwork dogs that are as loyal as the real thing, paper trees that really put down roots, and intricately painted toy soldiers who march off to war with one another. But when a real war
The warrior at the centre of Ava DuVernay’s updated adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 award winning science fiction novel is a young biracial woman who finds power in herself even as darkness and evil spreads across the universe. It’s a refreshing change to the usual hero seen in classic fantasy films and DuVernay layers her
Going to the movies as a form of escapism for a couple of hours, whether it’s to see a horror film, the latest Hollywood blockbuster, a romantic comedy or a science fiction extravaganza has always offered the chance to be part of an adventure. One that you could choose to share with friends while fighting
Accusing Pacific Rim: Uprising of missing that Guillermo del Toro magic feels like an obvious criticism but that doesn’t make it any less true. Because while this slightly belated sequel gets the job done, pitting Jagers against kaiju and offering a decent amount of heart and humour, it’s undeniably lacking that special something that won
Autonomous arrives bearing the endorsement of William Gibson, Lauren Beukes and Neal Stephenson, and io9 co-founder Annalee Newitz’s debut lives up to the hype. It’s a cyberpunk thriller but the author is much more interested in big questions than big futuristic fight sequences. The story is divided between Jack, a pirate who reverse-engineers patented drugs
You’d be forgiven for having low expectations for Tomb Raider, given that the previous Angelina Jolie-starring films were trashy at best, and that video game adaptations never seem to work. But prepare to be surprised, because the Tomb Raider reboot is actually good. We first meet Alicia Vikander’s Lara Croft as a bike courier in
The annual Glasgow Film Festival is a haven of genre, not only harbouring FrightFest in GFT1 for two and a half days of the festival’s duration, but also weaving many freaky frights and SF sights into the fabric of its main programme. This comes as no surprise – for genre, combining familiar narrative types with
With The Walking Dead a full eight seasons in and counting, AMC’s new great horror hope is The Terror. Boasting a stonking survival-horror premise, one hinged on actual historical events and a cruel paradox – when the great outdoors is so expansive, so mind-bogglingly vast, there’s almost zero chance of escape – throw in a supernatural
As behind-the-scenes footage at its end shows, Junk Head is a true labour of love for Takahide Hori, who directs, writes and edits this stop motion animation, as well as voice work, composing the score and most of the other odd jobs. A funny and both cute and creepy dystopian tale, it’s a truly unique
Thursday 1 March Last year it was Storm Doris that frustrated non-Glaswegian genre fans’ attempts to make their annual pilgrimage to the Glasgow FrightFest. This year the Curse continues with the UK-wide (and very much Glasgow-centred) cold snap which has brought rail, road and air transport to a grinding halt, put Glasgow in effective lockdown,
Fans of the epic anime series Attack On Titan have been kept waiting for the second season (the first debuted back in 2013), but this shorter run (down to 12 episodes from 25) definitely delivers. You might expect the curtailed running time to mean less character development, but the show’s creators broaden the scope, pushing
In the early 1920s, as Irish republicans try to break away from British rule in the Anglo-Irish War of Independence, a young woman living in a rural backwater is also trying to break free of an uneasy historical union in her own family. Rachel (Charlotte Vega, Another Me) lives with her twin brother Edward (Bill
Ted Geoghegan’s debut feature We Are Still Here had its fair share of nasty shocks but it was also something of a treat for horror fans: an affectionate retro tribute with a healthy dose of melodrama starring fan favourites like Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden. His second film, the brutal chase thriller Mohawk, doesn’t want
Season 1 of Jessica Jones was smart, relevant and thrilling, and she stole The Defenders without even breaking a sweat. Now she’s back for Season 2 of her own series, and the big question is: how can it possibly live up to the first? To begin with, the show is doing the tricky job of
Hachikō, a dog who faithfully continued to wait for his master for nine years after his death at Shibuya station, entered the Japanese culture as a symbol of loyalty in the 1930s. Statues have been erected in his honour and numerous films about his relationship with owner Professor Ueno have been made. These are the
Like a thumb pressed down viciously on an eye until it bursts, this nail bitingly tense psychological horror directed by Steven Soderbergh and shot entirely on an iPhone doesn’t let up until its final throes. Even then it is horrifying. A sinuous script written by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer follows a young woman named
The sins of the past rise up with a vengeance in Black Creek, an indie supernatural horror from prolific British writer-director James Crow. When a group of teenagers heads to a cabin in the woods to scatter the ashes of Mike’s (Chris O’Flyng) father, they stumble across a furious Native American spirit that’s on a
After the Season One finale shock twist that the characters of The Good Place were actually in the Bad Place all along, there was naturally a pinch of trepidation that preceded the Season Two opener. Even after 13 episodes of proof that the series rarely, if ever, hits a wrong note, one main worry still
Black Panther, the eighteenth entry in the Marvel franchise is a powerful, emotionally engaging and action-packed origin story about identity, African diaspora and the distribution of wealth. It’s a landmark moment in cinema, a black superhero finally gets his own film in the MCU and director Ryan Coogler uses his mega budget and writing skills
Nothing dates reviews quite like discussing the marketing surrounding a film, but when it comes to the Cloverfield franchise, the pre-release hoopla inevitably becomes part of the conversation regarding the final product. During Super Bowl 2018, an ad revealing the title and first footage of The Cloverfield Paradox ran, announcing that the film would be
Diverge opens at the end of the line for bearded Chris Towne (Ivan Sandomire), his ailing wife Anna (Erin Cunningham) and perhaps all life on Earth. Chris and Anna are trudging across arid salt flats, shot wide with a smouldering New York City occasionally visible in the background. Their infant Dylan succumbed to a fatal
Richard K Morgan’s Altered Carbon novels have been on showrunner Laeta Kalogridis’ wishlist for years now and it’s easy to see the appeal: a Blade Runner-esque setting, endless cyberpunk twists, and a pissed-off morally ambiguous hero navigating a world of complex mythology and endless seediness as downloadable consciousnesses have made immortality a reality. All this