CineVue
For the latest reviews of arthouse, documentary and indie film in cinemas and on the festival circuit.
★★★★☆ Pulled into this year’s Film4 FrightFest shorts programme at the last minute after impressing the powers that be, Yellow (2012) is a strange, seductive and visually striking short by young director Ryan Haysom. Shot in Berlin, Yellow not only showcases the talent of Haysom and his cinematographer Jon Britt, Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ As mainstream US horrors go, Scott Derrickson’s latest twist on the found footage formula, Sinister (2012), provides an enjoyable ride of bumps-in-the-night thrills and spills. The traditionally solid Ethan Hawke stars as a true-crime writer (a clear link to his turn earlier this year in French psychological drama The Continue Reading
★☆☆☆☆ 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 Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ 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 Continue Reading
★★★★☆ 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 Continue Reading
★☆☆☆☆ 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 Continue Reading
★☆☆☆☆ 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 Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ 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 – Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ 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 Continue Reading
★☆☆☆☆ 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 Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ 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 Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ 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 Continue Reading
★☆☆☆☆ Cult actor Michael Biehn makes his directorial debut with The Victim (2011), screening at this year’s Film4 FrightFest. This weak attempt at grindhouse opens with two local cops taking two strippers into the woods for a ‘private party’. One of the crooked cops gets carried away and ends up Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Writer/director Conor McMahon showcases the cutting-edge humour of edgy British comedian Ross Noble in his feature debut, making Film4 FrightFest entry Stitches (2012) a pleasant surprise in a gross-out, schoolboy fashion. There are certainly a number of marked similarities to that other anarchic jester jape, Funny Man (1994). However, Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Ensemble effort V/H/S (2012) is just the type of film Amicus Productions would have churned out if they were still active. A portmanteau horror, with a returning narrative thread to string the short films together, V/H/S blends together a series of overly familiar and somewhat tired genre tropes and Continue Reading