Month: August 2016
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FrightFest 2016: The Love Witch review
★★★★☆ Anna Biller’s The Love Witch is a movie aesthetes of kitsch will embrace with open arms. Not that the film’s distinct look is mere window-dressing or getting by on camp charm alone. A political work of true authorship if ever there was one, Biller not only directed, she wrote the screenplay, she’s the film’s…
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FrightFest 2016: My Father, Die review
★★★★☆ Revenge is a dish best served over several courses in Sean Brosnan’s brutal redneck noir tale My Father, Die. Full of Old Testament values and punishing degradation, it pits a father and son against each other in skirmishes that go well beyond traditional family rows into the realm of pure Freudian nightmare. Brosnan dedicates…
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FrightFest 2016: Another Evil review
★★★★☆ Ghosts from Our Past: Both Figuratively and Literally, the title of a controversial book co-authored by Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) and Abbey Yates (Melissa McCarthy), in Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, serves as a handy description of Carson Mell’s superb horror comedy, Another Evil. Vacationing at his mountain cabin property, Dan (an abstract painter) and his…
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FrightFest 2016: Abattoir review
★★★☆☆ Home is where the Abattoir is, in Darren Lynn Bousman’s film noir chiller. Swapping torture porn frolics – he helmed several sequels in the Saw franchise – for a more subdued approach, his latest work, arguably his strongest yet, is pitched as a ghost story with a nightmare twist. Based on an unpublished graphic…
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FrightFest 2016: Programme highlights
FrightFest 2016, the UK’s premier horror film festival, runs over the forthcoming August Bank Holiday weekend. With over sixty movies set to screen, plus their short films showcase, Andy Nyman’s very popular quiz and several industry-related talks and events, FrightFest continues to expand its brand and deliver a varied selection of titles from across the…
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Film Review: War Dogs
★★☆☆☆ Raucous entertainment and early promise inevitably succumbs to drab predictability in Todd Phillips’ War Dogs. Based on the true story of David Packouz (Miles Teller) and Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), two twentysomething friends who bluffed their way into a multi-million dollar Pentagon contract and were subsequently arrested by the FBI, here we have a…
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Film Review: The Purge: Election Year
★★☆☆☆ The New Founding Fathers of America have decreed that every year on 12 March for the space of twelve hours all criminal law will be suspended. If you want to attack someone you can, assault and murder are not only permitted but encouraged as a way of collectively purging the populace of all their…
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Film Review: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
★★☆☆☆ Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is one of those films where you can hear the pitch while you’re watching the movie. “It’ll be This is Spinal Tap for the millennials, for the Beliebers,” is probably how it went. And the prospects were good. It’s a comedy from the team who brought you the sporadically…
