There’s really no other way to say it – M. Night Shyamalan‘s Old is bad. It’s very bad. In fact, in some instances it’s downright awful! Mirroring the same career slump he experienced after the 1-3 punch of The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000) and Signs (2002) with such misfires as The Lady in the Water […]
Read More
There’s nothing particularly original about The Resort. In some manner hoping to be a type of The Shining-in-Hawaii set-up, Taylor Chien‘s supernatural scarer at least doesn’t tread on the expected genre trope of the found footage angle – something that this type of narrative could easily have adopted. A film that unfortunately lets itself down […]
Read More
To claim nothing is as it seems in Rob Schroder‘s Ultrasound would be a vast understatement. Requiring significant patience and understanding of its components, this horror/science-fiction hybrid begins on one disturbing note before unravelling into something far more psychologically mysterious. It all opens rather straightforward, however off-kilter, with Glen (Vincent Kartheiser) driving home one night […]
Read More
Starting on a blackly comic note and ending on a vastly different one of dramatic grit, Mickey Reece‘s Agnes is a truly confounding piece. Inserting a narrative and tonal shift half-way through its proceedings, Reece has created a unique film without question, but it’s one that is likely to irk viewers who could respond so […]
Read More
Having essentially built itself around the “based on a true story” hook, the Conjuring universe of films have been served well by a selling point that’s either something you buy into or simply accept as neat marketing. Whilst there’s no denying that Ed and Lorraine Warren did exist and built a name for themselves as […]
Read More
After over a decade of vacating the director’s seat on the Saw franchise, Darren Lynn Bousman has returned to the series that gave birth to his career as a staple within the horror genre. As the latest instalment releases in cinemas across the country, Spiral: From the Book of Saw (read our review here), our […]
Read More
Defying the critical odds in 2004 and spanning an unlikely 8-film-strong series in the process, the original Saw became much more of a phenomenon than expected, and, arguably, than originally intended. Often synonymous with the horror sub-genre of “torture porn”, James Wan‘s grimy, low budget affair delighted in its gory aesthetics, but tried its best […]
Read More
There’s nothing particularly original about The Resort. In some manner hoping to be a type of The Shining-in-Hawaii set-up, Taylor Chien‘s supernatural scarer at least doesn’t tread on the expected genre trope of the found footage angle – something that this type of narrative could easily have adopted. A film that unfortunately lets itself down […]
Read More
It goes without saying that the ending of a film is as crucial to its success as any other major component. And in horror films especially, the satisfaction element of its climax is one the genre often lives or dies by. Hunter Hunter, from writer/director Shawn Linden, is such a film that almost relies entirely […]
Read More
Grief is often something that runs throughout the core of the horror narrative. And depending how it is structured, it can act in a nature that’s either cathartic or repressive. In Alex Noyer‘s Sound of Violence it’s a mixture of both psychological expressions, with the additive intricacy of music production – another key element to […]
Read More
Written and directed by Sophie Mair and Dan Gitsham, The Thing That Ate The Birds is an atmospheric short that teases a darker universe we can only hope could be expanded on. Abel (Eoin Slattery) and Grace (Rebecca Palmer) are on the verge of separation, but the tragic circumstances surrounding their farmland have pushed their […]
Read More
One of those films that has a log line that feels all too familiar, Lee Haven Jones‘s The Feast presents itself as a supernaturally inclined horror film on the surface, only to gradually morph into an allegory of sorts that runs deeper than the film’s initial mentality would have you believe. Set in a secluded, […]
Read More
Creepy children are always good fodder for horror-leaning films, and Here Before, whilst more psychological thriller than all-out horror, is no exception with writer/director Stacey Gregg utilising the premise and twisting it just so. Andrea Riseborough leads the charge as Laura in this small, gradual thriller that focuses on young Megan, a seemingly friendly school […]
Read More
The type of indie horror flick that has a lot of promising-enough elements for it to earn audience investment, Come True may ultimately culminate in disappointment – in fact, it’s downright frustrating – but an atmospheric dread and hauntingly effective score keep Anthony Scott Burns‘s intense feature on a more upward trajectory overall. At the […]
Read More
It doesn’t take much for director James Ashcroft to create the most horrific of situations from the simplest of ingredients laid bare in the early stages of the eerie Coming Home in the Dark. A loving family, an idyllic New Zealand locale, and a duo of passing strangers provide all that is needed for Ashcroft’s […]
Read More
Coming off of such aggressive roles in features as Dragged Across Concrete and Brawl In Cell Block 99, the thought of Vince Vaughn flailing his arms and strutting with the poise of a flustered teenage girl is one that’s all the more appealing when you view it in its actuality. And it’s the hulking 6’5 […]
Read More
As the trailer for Christopher Landon‘s body-swap horror-comedy Freaky premieres across the globe, The AU Review’s Peter Gray was fortunate enough to chat with the director, touching on the casting of Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton, his love of the horror genre, and if we can expect a third Happy Death Day. After seeing […]
Read More
Prior to watching Natalie Erika James’ Relic, I’d read constant comparisons to Hereditary and The Babadook. The former has too strong a grasp on literal malevolence to align in any way with James’ debut feature, but The Babadook certainly shares a great deal with this Australian-made indie-horror, given both are rooted in German expressionism and […]
Read More
If we have learnt anything throughout cinema’s depictions of estranged families, it’s that the more alienated you are from one another, the more unpredictable your journey will be. This proves especially true in Come To Daddy, a pitch black comedic thriller that director Ant Timpson bathes in gory oddity. There’s an unease immediately present from […]
Read More
*The AU Review will continue with its planned SXSW 2020 coverage. We have been in contact with the respective representatives for available films in order to give them the coverage they intended. Perhaps diving a little too heavily into the metaphorical stance on storytelling, Claire Oakley‘s Make Up is a self-discovery tale dressed up like […]
Read More
*The AU Review will continue with its planned SXSW 2020 coverage. We have been in contact with the respective representatives for available films in order to give them the coverage they intended. The Midnight Shorts Competition has long been an audience favourite at SXSW. A bite-sized marathon of twisted ideas that usually fuses gore, overt […]
Read More
Had the Tom Cruise-led revamp of The Mummy not crashed and burned at the box office upon its release in 2017 then we’d be seeing, or more correctly not seeing, a very different Invisible Man. In an optimistic strategy from Universal Pictures – in their bid to compete with fellow juggernauts Marvel and DC – […]
Read More
John Krasinski returns to direct the follow-up to his 2018 box office monster A Quiet Place, although he won’t actually be taking any screen time on this outing. That will be left to his wife Emily Blunt, who is once again on the run from noise-sensitive aliens with her two kids in tow. The highly […]
Read More
What a strange little arthouse horror flick Koko-di Koko-da is. What starts out as a relatively straight-forward tale of a once-happy family trying to maintain a sense of worth before breaking down entirely, quickly descends into an experiment of madness, one that is often repetitive and unlikeable but no less inherently fascinating. The aforementioned once-happy […]
Read More
There is good reason Stephen King’s story of It has endured for decades. Amongst his best work, the famed horror author has always been strongest when he’s sketching elegant parallels between fight and flight. Sure, that’s been done to death in modern cinema, and the dynamic between the two states has been mined by horror […]
Read More
Just as much of a surprise as the delightfully twisted original – 2017’s Happy Death Day – Happy Death Day 2U is revelatory not because it improves on its predecessor’s horror temperament, but because it completely bypasses the slasher genre trope and cements itself firmly within the grounds of science-fiction. Given how much fun writer and director […]
Read More
When you think of zombie comedies, it’s difficult to look beyond the witty brilliance that is Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004). Whilst we’ve had our share of interesting takes on the walking dead in the years since, the arrival of Anna and the Apocalypse stands as the choreographed high-kick the genre needed. Not […]
Read More
Trick: The 2018 incarnation of Halloween acts as a direct continuation of the 1978 original, essentially wiping out all seven sequels (and the two Rob Zombie-helmed revisions) that succeeded in the years since. Treat: It’s good. Like really f***ing good! After surviving the maniacal clutches of psychotic killer Michael Myers forty years prior, Laurie Strode […]
Read More
Before Truth or Dare even begins, you know exactly what kind of movie you’re about to see. Hoping to be some sort of new-era Final Destination, but failing miserably in the process, Truth or Dare follows every beat you expect it to, and it’s in this predictability that the film succeeds in being a massively entertaining ride for all the […]
Read More
Even when working off a plot device that doesn’t exactly test the limits of originality, a clever script and utter dedication from its workers can transform the familiar to something beyond our expectations. Such is the case with A Quiet Place, an impossibly eerie chiller that presents civilisation as a fallen project, and those who […]
Read More
