Martyn Conterio
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Film Review: Earwig
★★★★☆ Lucile Hadžihalilović doesn’t make many films, Earwig being her third in almost twenty years. Yet in just three works (her previous being 2004’s Innocence and 2015’s Evolution), she has established herself as a filmmaker of uncompromising vision, the weird stories she tells focused on childhood, with strong elements of body horror.
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#LFF 2021: The Medium review
★★★★☆ From celebrated South Korean filmmaker Na Hong-Jin, The Medium is an occult shocker set in an isolated village in northern Thailand. A tropical (and therefore suitably febrile) take on the demonic possession and found-footage sub-genres, its creepy theatrics build to a freaky climax.
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Film Review: Rose Plays Julie
★★★★★ In Rose Plays Julie, the latest from dynamic duo Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, a child of adoption studying veterinary medicine decides to seek out her biological mother and father. Her journey of discovery and resolution in holding her parents to account makes for haunting viewing. With their regular collaborator Aidan Gillen, Molloy and…
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Film Review: Prisoners of the Ghostland
★★★☆☆ Sion Sono’s debut film in the English language is an East-meets-West genre medley centred on the hero monomyth, and crucially the samurai movie’s influence on both the modern western and post-apocalyptic actioner. Meanwhile, Nicolas Cage gets to do his thing, and that’s always welcome. Prisoners of the Ghostland is an oddball movie that leaves…
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FrightFest 2021: Evie review
★★☆☆☆ Emmerdale actor Dominic Brunt moonlights as a horror filmmaker. Evie, his fourth time on bullhorn duties, co-directed with Jamie Lundy, is based on the Celtic and Norse myth of the selkie, a derivative of the better-known mermaid. For Brunt, Evie is both a step up and a step back. Its gloomy beach-set scenes are atmospheric and rugged.…
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FrightFest 2021: Knocking review
★★★★☆ A middle-aged woman, released from a psychiatric facility, moves into a block of flats. Settling in and finding her feet again, one night she begins to hear a thumping sound. Nobody else hears it. Is she going mad or is she on to something? The fictional feature debut of Swedish documentary filmmaker Frida Kempff, Knocking is…
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FrightFest 2021: No Man of God review
★★★★☆ Amber Sealey’s chamber piece dramatises a series of 1980s prison interviews undertaken by pioneer FBI profiler, Bill Hagmaier, with Ted Bundy. The resulting film shines a light, as best it can, into the darkest place known to humankind: the mind of a serial killer. When we meet Ted Bundy in No Man of God, the affability, cocky bravado,…
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FrightFest 2021: Post Mortem review
★★★★☆ Hungary, in the aftermath of the First World War. Travelling photographer Tomas (Victor Klem), is drawn into a frightening supernatural mystery, occurring in a remote peasant village. Armed with his trusty camera and primitive recording equipment, the former soldier goes hunting for ghosts. After the first globalised conflict killed millions, there came in its…
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FrightFest 2021: Offseason review
★★★★☆ Mickey Keating’s Offseason is an atmospheric, supremely confident horror show. The director conjures an oppressive air of creeping fear and dreamlike dread, that’s as much an ode to Southern Gothic melodrama as it is the traditions of folk horror. There’s the sense watching Keating’s sixth feature that he is on the road to greatness and…
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FrightFest 2021: Night Drive review
★★★★☆ In Night Drive (2021), a former tech bro turned Uber-style chauffeur picks up a young woman with a penchant for trouble. As a long evening unfolds and Russell (AJ Bowen) begins to question how far he’s willing to go, a surprising twist develops. Brad Baruh and Meghan Leon’s indie comedy boasts two excellent lead performances given…