Reviews

Your Love Is Mine is an Australian feature-film, focusing on the relationship between two young people in a small country town. Mechanic, Sam (Lester Ellis) and bartender Violet (Senie Priti) fumble their way through each day together in a dead-end town. They embrace each other’s company and talk about the future, hoping for a better…

Given his imposing stature, it makes sense that all the 196 centimetres of chiselled muscle that make up Dwayne Johnson would be put to good use within the superhero genre.  But just why has it taken so long for the artist formerly billed as The Rock to don a skin-tight suit and get to saving…

Two Witches is a gritty, realistic take on a beloved Halloween subject. Broken up into three parts (The Boogeywoman, Masha, and Epilogue), this witch horror pushes the envelope to some extreme witchy behaviour. As cited in the film, witches eat babies and worship the devil. They do both things in Two Witches and much, much…

One of the closing night films at A Night of Horror International Film Festival, Zebra Girl (directed by Stephanie Zari) brings a melancholic yet disturbing story to the table. The film is based on a one-woman play titled Catherine and Anita. In it, Catherine (Sarah Roy) marries an academic by the name of Dan (Tom…

When looking at the treatment of indigenous populations the world over, it would be safe to say that any “crime” they have committed is simply existing.  Largely white populations, who have so often taken away the rights and lands that they inhabited originally, hope that apologies and acknowledgements are enough to reconcile their behaviour, but…

The premise for Barbarian is almost insultingly simple that its ultimate outcome feels all the more revelatory, thanks to writer/director Zach Cregger expanding on his narrative familiarity with intrigue, dark humour and unsettling terror. A film that has two distinct halves but manages to still feel cohesive in spite of its shift, Barbarian initially sets up…

Loosely translated to rats nest, Razzennest is unlike your typical horror flick. Refusing to be defined, this arthouse take on the genre offers many layers of meaning to unpack. The premise, an ‘audio commentary’ on a visual art film from director, Manus Oosthuizen, who (along with members of the crew), sit down with film critic,…

Despite the fact that last year’s Halloween Kills drove the chant home that “Evil Dies Tonight”, the contrary proved more accurate as the series’ central figure quite brazenly refused to go down with the bloody beatings he was afforded towards the climactic moments of David Gordon Green‘s divisive sequel. Said figure, Michael Myers, has been…

Before Romeo & Juliet, there was Romeo & Rosaline. Adopting a personality that takes inspiration from the likes of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet, 10 Things I Hate About You, and A Knight’s Tale, Rosaline is a charming romantic comedy that manages to present its meta commentary on the pros and cons of Shakespeare’s work…

Project Wolf Hunting tells the story about a police operation that is taking place after a disastrous prisoner transport over air travel ended disastrously due to an airport bombing. The alternate route of transportation is via freighter boat and the mission is simple – transport prisoners from the Philippines through the Pacific Ocean to South…

Maybe you can try a little too hard sometimes? David O. Russell is no stranger to big swings, both from a narrative point of view and in his casting.  And here have been times that such an effort has paid off, with Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle standing as (arguably) his most accessible titles. …

You’d be forgiven for knowing more about Don’t Worry Darling‘s on-set drama and supposed promotional tension than the film itself at this point.  It feels redundant to mention the specifics of such because, ultimately, it has very little bearing on the film’s quality itself; though there is a certain irony in director Olivia Wilde having…

Adapted from the short film Laura Hasn’t Slept, Smile tells the story of Rose Cutter (Sosie Bacon) – a doctor who is experiencing strange, horrifying occurrences after a traumatic incident she had with a patient who killed herself. The patient had displayed clear signs of trauma and mentioned witnessing a suicide and seeing the victim…

Like so many of the House of Mouse’s IPs, Hocus Pocus has been conjured once more.  Disney weren’t entirely sure they had a success on their hands some 30 years ago with the release of the original film – what with the studio releasing a Halloween-themed family film in July, for starters – and were…

A buddy comedy centred around a suicide pact isn’t exactly going to be the easiest sell (or the most pleasant viewing experience), and coming out on the other side of a global pandemic where mental health issues surged certainly doesn’t help matters either, but here we are with On the Count of Three, an at-times…

Not exactly an origin story in the traditional – or autobiographical – sense, but a healthy start all the same as to how legendary horror writer Edgar Allan Poe fuelled his creativity for all things macabre, Christopher Hatton‘s Raven’s Hollow indulges in the author’s aesthetic for an atmospheric chiller that favours story over scares. In…

, Fall tells the story of Becky (Grace Caroline Currey), an adventurous go-getter who is always up for a challenge in service of thrills and living life to the fullest. She is happily married to the charismatic Dan (Mason Gooding, in a small role). Whilst climbing together on a cliff face with the voracious Hunter…

Given how wild everyone – or teenage girls, to be a little more accurate – are for pop’s main man-candy Harry Styles, it will no doubt throw much of his female following off as to how graphic the sexual scenes are in My Policeman, a queer love story that perseveres with grand intentions but, sadly,…

One of the more unlikely franchises of a resilient nature, V/H/S/, a retro-appearing horror anthology effort that often compiles a series of genre directors flexing their creative muscle through short horror narratives, is now in its fifth iteration in the form of V/H/S/99. The horror tales that often are confined within the V/H/S/ films are always…

When The Wonder first begins there’s a rather pretentious and, ultimately, unrewarding additive that runs the risk of undoing all that will follow.  Niamh Algar‘s soothing vocal tone greets us as our eyes glaze over a constructed film set.  Algar informs us that we are indeed watching a film, but the players involve believe in…

Though he certainly didn’t lose any of his sense of comfort by travelling across the Atlantic for his last film – 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – there’s a sense of grandeur in writer/director Martin McDonagh returning to his homeland for The Banshees of Inisherin, an impossibly funny and, at times, heartbreakingly bleak dramedy…

As much as this film titles itself after an infant whose actions drive much of its horrifically-laced narrative forward, it’s the newborn’s mother that earns much of the focus in Baby Ruby, an unsettling psychological drama from Bess Wohl, the writer/actress making her directorial debut here. That mother is Jo (Noémie Merlant, best known for…

The idea of a Fletch remake/reboot/sequel has long been discussed for almost three decades now.  The obvious suggestions of Jason Lee and Jason Sudeikis were thrown around for contention to follow in Chevy Chase’s comedic footsteps during its production, but after consistent stop/starts it has fallen to Jon Hamm to pick up the mantle and…

“Mommy and Daddy will be right next to you the whole time.” From the opening line of dialogue in Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans, an autobiographical coming-of-age tale that boasts itself as his first writing credit since A.I. some two decades prior, we get a sense of what’s to come as, outside a New Jersey movie…

There’s something incredibly refreshing about The Good Nurse in that its true-crime temperament isn’t marred by overt manipulation – as so many of such adapted tales can be. Jessica Chastain (as typically great and committed as expected) is Amy, the titular good nurse, a single mother who is hiding her own ailment as she dedicates…

The claustrophobic and emotional resonance Florian Zeller created with 2020’s The Father is unfortunately nowhere to be found in The Son, a prequel of sorts based off another of Zeller’s stage plays. A chamber piece on the subject of dementia that rightfully won Anthony Hopkins his second Best Actor Academy Award, The Father expressed subtlety…

Rian Johnson had far too much fun paying homage to the works of Agatha Christie in 2019’s star-studded crime comedy Knives Out.  To say he executed it perfectly would be putting it mildly, but whilst a sequel to such a set-up seemed like a given, how anything secondary would be navigated was another mystery in…

Bodies Bodies Bodies tells the story of a group of exuberant 20-something youths who plan to party for the weekend in a remote mansion. Partygoers include Sophie (Amandla Stenberg), a rich kid who has a dark backstory involving drug use, her partner Bee (Maria Bakalova), a working-class reticent young woman, David (Pete Davidson), an unruly…

Few actors possess and exude as much movie star wattage as George Clooney and Julia Roberts.  And it’s his attractive gruffness and her screen-lighting smile that keep Ticket To Paradise from being a destination you’d request a refund for. Local audiences – predominantly those based in Queensland – are sure to get a thrill from…

If X was Ti West‘s homage to classic 70’s horror effort The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, then Pearl could almost be aligned with The Wizard of Oz, just with, you know, a lot more blood and dry-humping scarecrows. The fact that X was an initial singular success story was enough of a win for independent horror…