Martyn Conterio
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FrightFest 2017: Imitation Girl review
★★★★☆ It would be unfair to dismiss Imitation Girl as an Under the Skin knockoff. Both are art films featuring an alien landing on Earth and assuming the form of a young woman, the theme of identity crisis is strong and there’s black gunk. That’s where similarities end.Julianna (Lauren Ashley Carter) is a porn actress living in…
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FrightFest 2017: 68 Kill review
★★★★☆ Misogynistic exploitation cinema or a study of misogyny? Premiering at this year’s Horror Channel-sponsored FrightFest, director Trent Haaga’s 68 Kill is a violent, button-pushing caper with excellent performances from AnnaLynne McCord and Sheila Vand.68 Kill opens with the image of a fly trapped in honey. Given that the plot concerns a weak-willed young man…
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FrightFest 2017: Cult of Chucky review
★★★☆☆ As the adage goes “Don’t fuck with the Chuck”, and the rule still applies. The maniacal doll is up to no good (for a change) in Don Mancini’s Cult of Chucky, a series revitalised from the remains of the Child’s Play series and showing no signs of slowing down.Following directly on from events in…
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FrightFest 2017: Our programme highlights
FrightFest is a genre fan’s Christmas – a Black Christmas, naturally. 2017 marks its 18th edition and the UK’s premier horror cinema festival has returned to what was always its best venue: The Empire Theatre in Leicester Square, now run by the Cineworld chain. Attendees will remember well the experience of sitting in that giant…
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Film Review: American Made
★★★☆☆ Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman and megastar Tom Cruise collaborate for the second time on American Made, a rogue’s tale set in the bloody world of 1980s drug trafficking. Cruise rides the Breaking Bad and Narcos train, only not as well as either.Taking a time out from saving the world, Cruise puts on…
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Film Review: The Untamed
★★★★☆ While Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu are busy across the border in Hollywood, Amat Escalante has taken up the reins as his country’s controversial festival darling. He is, in effect, the bad boy of contemporary Mexican cinema.Since his emergence in 2005, when he presented Sangre in the Un Certain Regard…
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Interview: Bruno Dumont, dir. Slack Bay
From European arthouse’s leading misery-guts to absurdist clown, the career switcheroo from Bruno Dumont is without doubt the most surprising volte–face of recent times. His new film is Slack Bay, a 1910-set love story featuring class conflict, inept detectives, cannibalism and incest. Martyn Conterio: As we’re conducting this chat in the office of video-on-demand service…
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Film Review: Spaceship
★★★★☆ Alex Taylor’s Spaceship makes no bones about its American arthouse influences. In transporting the acclaimed pairs’ teenage wasteland visions of America to Aldershot, Taylor’s creative gambit could have been a move fraught with the perils of imitation.Yet there is imagination and poetry all its own making, in Spaceship. It’s not only found in the…
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Film Review: Alien: Covenant
★★★★☆ Hide. Pray. Run. The ad campaign for Alien: Covenant enforced the strict message that it’s much closer in spirit and tone to Ridley Scott’s Alien. It pretty much screamed to you: “Forget Prometheus!” The 2012 franchise relaunch, for all its faults, remains the stronger work.It might have disappointed many, but the sense of wonderment…
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Film Review: Mulholland Drive
★★★★★ Diane Selwyn from Deep River, Canada finds herself in Deep Trouble, USA. Arriving at Los Angeles International Airport as Betty Elms, she is sunny in disposition, charming, a touch naïve and hopeful for days ahead. Betty/Diane is the hungry-for-success type you saw singing and dancing on the hood of their car in the grand…