Festivals
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FrightFest 2011: ‘The Dead’ review
★★☆☆☆ Howard J. Ford’s The Dead (2010) – starring Rob Freeman and Prince David Oseia – takes the zombie film to the vast and parched continent of Africa, treading new territory in an attempt to breathe new life into a tired and worn out genre. When the last evacuation flight out of war-torn Africa crashes…
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FrightFest 2011: ‘Kill List’ review
★★★★★ With Kill List (2011), Ben Wheatley (director of the critically acclaimed Down Terrace [2009]) has created this year’s most horrendously violent and bizarrely surreal film by simply amalgamating the generic conventions of a hitman thriller with the eerie iconography of occult horrors such as The Wickerman (1973).Jay (Neil Maskell) hasn’t worked in eight months,…
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FrightFest 2011: ‘Fright Night’ review
★★★☆☆ Craig Gillespie’s Fright Night (2011) follows the recent Hollywood fascination for re-imaginings with this remake of Tom Holland’s original 1985 cult favourite. Starring Colin Farrell as a libidinous vampire, David Tennant (best know to UK audiences as the former Doctor Who) and Anton Yelchin, this stereoscopic reboot attempts to add a little more bite…
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FrightFest 2011: ‘Panic Button’ review
★★★☆☆ UK director Chris Crow follows up his debut feature Devil’s Bridge (2010) with Panic Button (2011), which screened at this year’s Film4 FrightFest. When four strangers meet for the first time at an airport, they all seem very familiar with each other. Having each won a free trip to New York through their membership…
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FrightFest 2011: ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ review
★★★☆☆ Apparently, Guillermo del Toro has been itching to make this one for years. In his youth, John Newland’s 1973 haunted house tale became a by-word for ‘creepy’ between himself and friends. Having secured the rights to produce his own version of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) over a decade since, del Toro’s…
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FrightFest 2011: ‘Rabies’ review
★★★★☆ In Latin, the word rabies translates literally as ‘madness’; something the pretty girls and boys visiting this deserted woodland could never have imagined. Aharon Keshales’ Rabies (Kalevet, 2010) violently breaks all the conventions of the slasher genre whilst simultaneously executing all the most successful scare techniques from every critically-revered horror film of the last century.…
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FrightFest 2011: ‘Troll Hunter’ review
★★☆☆☆ In the run-up to its Saturday screening at this year’s Film4 FrightFest, I can exclusively reveal that Norwegian mockumentary Troll Hunter (2010) revolves around the act of…troll hunting. It really is that simple – and one of the most striking examples of one dimensional, vacuous cinema seen in recent years (with the exception of…
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Venice Film Festival 2011: Preview
The 68th Venice Film Festival kicks off at the end of this month (31 August) with a whole host of world premieres including Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (read our preview here), Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights, George Clooney’s The Ides of March, David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method and Abel Ferrara’s apocalyptic drama 4:44 Last…
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Sheffield DocFest 2011: Alternative roundup
It has been little over half a year since the last Sheffield Doc/Fest, and while the impetus for the move to June was somewhat undermined by the sodden outdoor screenings, the sheer breadth of films and events more than warrant its return. Morgan Spurlock’s latest effort, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011), opened the festival…
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Sheffield DocFest 2011: Festival roundup
Sheffield Doc/Fest has rightly won a reputation for being one of the most important aspects of the documentary film calendar for industry professionals and fans of the form alike. This year it had moved its slot from November to June and did not suffer from the change one iota, teaming with delegates and full houses…
