Satan’s Slaves first published by SciFiNow There is a scene near the beginning of Joko Anwar’s Satan’s Slaves where 22-year-old Rini (Tara Basro), responding to the ringing of a bell, enters a bedroom and walks past a mirror to her ailing mother Mawarni (Ayu Laksmi) whom she is surprised to see out of bed and on…
Pappy’s World (2018) It is Christmas, and while her Grandpa (Fred Polone), an Uncle Remus figure with fake grey beard and tattered straw hat, lies snoring in a chair, a girl (Jaz Frazier) uses his cane to reach the forbidden wrapped box at the top of a teetering pile of presents. Inside she finds Pappy…
The Secret of Marrowbone first published by Sight & Sound, August 2018 Review: Refugees from a monstrous father in England, Jack (George Mackay), Billy (Charlie Heaton), Jane (Mia Goth) and young Sam (Matthew Stagg) arrive with their mother Rose (Nicola Harrison) at a farmhouse on the American coast, hoping to leave the past forever behind. That…
Habit first published by Sight & Sound, August 2018 Review: Adapted by Simeon Halligan from Stephen McGeagh’s 2012 novel, Habit follows the template established by Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) of starting off as one kind of film before jumping the genre border – in a sex club – at the halfway point. Even…
American Animals first published by RealCrime Magazine “This is not based on a true story,” reads text at the beginning of Bart Layton’s American Animals – only for the words ‘not based on’ to disappear. This latest from the director of documentary The Imposter (2012) reconstructs a very real library heist that was conducted at the…
The Whispering Star first published by SciFiNow A title reads ‘Saturday’, and we see a tap on a kitchen sink dripping. ‘Sunday’, reads a new caption, and the tap is still dripping. From early on, it is clear that Sion Sono’s The Whispering Star (Hiso hiso boshi, 2015) is going to be concerned with time. As…
Patrick first published by VODzilla.co Patrick opens not with sights, but with sounds. First a strange staticky noise like electricity, and then the sound of a car parking and approaching voices. An eye opens in close-up, as a male voice is heard asking, “What happened to that lunatic son of yours, anyway?” – and it is…
This year, something of a habit is emerging, as nuns have become the focus of an inordinate amount of horror cinema. Aislinn Clark’s The Devil’s Doorway and Darren Lynn Bousman’ St Agatha used their cloistered settings to explore the manner in which both church and society in the last century abused and exploited so-called ‘fallen’ women…
Arrow Video FrightFest 2018: Terrified (Aterrados) (2018) Terrified (Aterrados) begins as a literal kitchen sink drama. In an ordinary Buenos Aires home, young housewife Clara Blumetti (Natalia Señoriales) hears susurrant exhalations coming from her kitchen’s basin, like the sounds of bad plumbing. The only indication that there is anything out of the ordinary here are…
Arrow Video FrightFest 2018: Ghost Mask: Scar (2018) Ghost Mask: Scar opens with a childhood memory, narrated by its protagonist as an adult. A little girl rushes joyously to meet with her divorced dad, but joy turns to agonising grief as she realises that he and his new wife are taking home only her sister…
Arrow Video FrightFest 2018: He’s Out There (2018) He’s Out There begins with the voice of little Kayla (Anna Pniowsky) reading from a children’s book, while the camera circles the outside of a lakeside house where there are signs of a horrific event: a crashed car atilt, a rope, a second car with a tool’s…