FrightFest
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FrightFest 2012: ‘After’ review
★☆☆☆☆ You won’t find many more misguided and excruciatingly dull features at this year’s Film4 FrightFest than Ryan Smith’s disastrous cut-and-paste job After (2012). Shamelessly plundering a number of the very best horror fantasies from recent years including Donnie Darko (2001) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), After’s wafer-thin, ludicrous plot floats from one inconsequential revelation to…
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FrightFest 2012: ‘Dead Sushi’ review
★★☆☆☆ To misquote the crows from Disney’s 1941 classic Dumbo; “I’ve seen a horse fly, I’ve seen a dragon fly, I’ve seen a house fly, but I ain’t never seen sushi fly.” Many of the good folks who attended this year’s Film4 FrightFest, however, will have no need of such a statement if they managed…
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FrightFest 2012: ‘Sleep Tight’ review
★★★★☆ One of the stand-out films of this year’s Film4 FrightFest, Jaume Balagueró’s Sleep Tight (Mientras duermes, 2011) is an incredibly nuanced Spanish chiller, featuring a magnificent central performance from Luis Tosar. With nods to voyeuristic classics such as Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) and Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), Balagueró proves himself an astute director,…
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FrightFest 2012: ‘Chained’ review
★☆☆☆☆ Surveillance (2008) director Jennifer Lynch returns to Film4 FrightFest screens this weekend with serial killer horror Chained (2012), which stars old-hand Vincent D’Onofrio and Eamon Farren. The film revolves around Bob (D’Onofrio), a taxi-driving psychopath who captures a young boy (Evan Bird) after murdering and raping his mother. Once chained up in Bob’s remote…
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FrightFest 2012: ‘Wrong Turn 4’ review
★☆☆☆☆ Released in 2003, the inaugural Wrong Turn was an average slasher/horror that left no real impression on the genre and grossed a healthy, yet far from exemplary amount at the box office. Somehow, that film has now spawned three sequels (four by the end of this year), the latest entitled Bloody Beginnings (2012). Declan…
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FrightFest 2012: ‘Kill Zombie!’ review
★★☆☆☆ There’s little pretension to be found in Martjin Smits and Erwin Ven Den Eshof’s ‘Dutch of the Dead’ outing Kill Zombie! (Zombibi, 2012), which receives its UK premiere at this year’s Film4 FrightFest. This amateurish horror comedy ostensibly does what it sets out to do – kill zombies – in large numbers and by…
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FrightFest 2012: ‘The Arrival of Wang’ review
★★★☆☆ Italian directing duo the Manetti brothers continue their genre-hoping voyage through the cinematic universe with The Arrival of Wang (2011), an extra-terrestrial sci-fi horror that’ll no doubt titillate and captivate audiences at this year’s Film4 FrightFest. Gaia (Francesca Cuttica) is an Italian interpreter who’s persuaded by a shady government agent (Ennio Fantastichini) to translate…
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FrightFest 2012: ‘Paura’ review
★☆☆☆☆ Some films just leave you feeling sullied, and sadly Paura 3D (2012) is one such monstrosity. It would be good to find something positive to say about this faux-giallo by the Italian Manetti brothers – behind the far-superior sci-fi The Arrival of Wang (2011) – but sometimes words just fail you. If you see…
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FrightFest 2012: ‘Outpost II’ review
★★☆☆☆ Outpost II: Black Sun (2012), the new Nazi zombie-fest from director Steve Barker which stars Richard Coyle and Catherine Steadman, receives its UK Premiere this weekend at the 13th edition of Film4 FrightFest. Sadly, the film seems destined to leave undead fans distinctly cold due to its surprisingly dull and pedestrian narrative. Dead Snow…
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FrightFest 2012: ‘Eurocrime!’ review
★★★☆☆ If the titles Milano Calibro 9 (1972), Street Law (1974) and Napoli Violenta (1976) mean anything to you, then you might want to check out Mike Malloy’s new doc Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ’70s (2012), which affectionately documents Italy’s decade-long love affair with the cop film genre. The…