Martyn Conterio
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DVD Review: We Are Still Here
★★★★☆ Ted Geoghegan’s We Are Still Here (2015) is an aptly gruesome tribute to the halcyon days of 1980s splatter movies and the cosmic horror mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. It specifically channels and mimics the visual palette and tones of Lucio Fulci, the director who earned his stripes in the Italian genre filmmaking boom of…
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Film Review: ‘Crimson Peak’
★★★☆☆ As gorgeous to behold as Crimson Peak (2015) often is, Guillermo del Toro’s latest film has zero dramatic gravitas. It’s pop-up book Gothic, rather than a full-bodied recreation of dreamlike exotic weirdness. As a doom-filled romance, it doesn’t pass muster because the characters, no matter how excellently played by Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska and…
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Film Review: Aaaaaaaah!
★★★★☆ Steve Oram’s directorial debut Aaaaaaaah! (2015) comes on like a collaboration between Dogme ’95 and Chris Morris. It’s hard to think of another film closely like it in British cinema. It really is that out-there and singular. You can bet your bottom dollar on Aaaaaaaah! becoming a cult oddity in years to come, but…
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FrightFest 2015: ‘Tales of Halloween’ review
★★★★☆ Tales of Halloween (2015) is the latest stab by well-regarded horror directors at the anthology format. Created by Axelle Carolyn, the intent is to replace the V/H/S series as a showcase for filmmakers whose names will be very familiar to genre fans. Avoiding found-footage like the plague, Tales of Halloween is a slickly presented…
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FrightFest 2015: ‘Sun Choke’ review
★★★★★ Ben Cresciman’s intense psychological horror film Sun Choke (2015) is the story of a woman staring into the abyss of nothingness and liking what she sees: absolute nothing, a retreat from the chaos of the light. It’s been likened to grand auteurs such as Bergman, Lynch and Polanski, and those debts are easily enough…
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FrightFest 2015: ‘Pod’ review
★★★☆☆ In the varied annals of horror cinema history, attics and basements operate as spaces ripe for psychoanalysis. When not serving as metaphors for ills of the human mind, they function as focal points for demonic manifestations, and sometimes portals to other dimensions. Kitchens aren’t scary, right? Parlours are only creepy if the house is…
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FrightFest 2015: ‘Nina Forever’ review
★★★★★ It’s as rare as rocking horse excrement for horror movies to exhibit emotional depths not related to the visceral thrills of the jump scare and the insidious, bone- chilling fright. So invested in the art of the slay and sending the audience into paroxysms of fear, the genre and its practitioners have either forgotten…
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FrightFest 2015: Landmine Goes Click review
★★★★☆ Levan Bakhia’s Landmine Goes Click (2015) is the kind of genre flick that comes along sometimes – where a director’s intentions can be misinterpreted. The brutalisation of three female characters is horrific, but it would be a presumptuous leap to suggest the film itself flexes a misogynistic creed. Such assertions would woefully misconstrue Bakhia’s…
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FrightFest 2015: ‘Emelie’ review
★★★★☆ Despite a third act change of tone, that plays out like a hybrid of Home Alone (1990) and The Shining (1980), there is still plenty to admire in Michael Thelin’s debut movie. For much of its brisk eighty-two minutes running time, Emelie (2015) is a devilishly good thriller of notably transgressive bent, giving the…
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FrightFest 2015: ‘Deathgasm’ review
★★★★☆ With What We Do in the Shadows, Housebound and now Deathgasm (2015), New Zealand is fast becoming the go-to place for crowd-pleasing horror comedies. Jason Lei Howden’s directorial debut is primed for unalloyed genre thrills, making you laugh until your sides hurt and subverting the rom-zom-com format. If fears going in hinged on the…