Gasoline Alley opens in a Los Angeles bar, where Jimmy Jayne (an excellent, lived-in turn from Devon Sawa), drinking alone in the wee hours, is approached by a pretty woman, Star (Irina Antonenko). “I just sensed you were a man running from shadows,” she says to him, as though he were a grizzled noir antihero…
By Night’s End opens with an external wide shot of a suburban, single-storey home at night. A ‘For Sale’ sign in the yard is briefly illuminated in red and blue by a passing patrol car, and then a man approaches from the foreground and enters the house. Shortly afterwards we see him again, half-jogging half-limping…
Hékate UK première at Sohome Horror Pride Virtual Film Festival Hecate is an ancient Greek goddess typically depicted – sometimes in triple form – with dogs, keys and torches, and associated with crossroads, witchcraft, poisons, night and the moon. Although this feminine deity is never mentioned in Nadia Benedicto’s Hékate beyond its title, her presence…
The title of writer/director/producer Carlos V. Gutierrez’s feature debut Locked In comes with multiple meanings. Most obviously it refers to the self-storage centre which here, as also in Shane Carruth’s Primer (2004), Michael Craft’s Storage (2009), Johannes Roberts’ Storage 24 (2012), Tom DeNucci’s Self Storage (2013) and Matt Winn’s The Hoarder (2015), serves not only…
Tony Takitani first published by Film4 in 2004 Summary: Issei Ogata finds loneliness, love, loss, and then loneliness again, in Jun Ichikawa’s stylish adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short story. Review: In the writings of Haruki Murakami, style is every bit as important as content. The events may be somewhat surreal, the characters eccentric, but the prose…
Mystery Spot first published by VODzilla.co There is a motel in the middle of nowhere. It once boasted the ‘Mystery Spot’, drawing visitors from all around with its array of optical illusions and “funhouse tricks to lighten people’s wallets”, but ever since a fire left this roadside attraction in disrepair, the guests have stopped coming,…
On his way from work to his wife Kathy (Caroline Chesworth) at home, Michael (James Dreyfus) stops in at the local social club – but he is not there to be social. All he wants is to drink a pint and read the newspaper all alone, in peace and quiet – but a man (Paul…
Killer Concept first published by VODzilla.co Blonde Mary-Rose (Maddie Ludt) chats on the phone in her kitchen as a hoodie-wearing figure with a machete watches her from the shadows of the street outside. These moments openly riff not just on John Carpenter’s iconic slasher Halloween (1978), but also on Wes Craven’s postmodern Halloween pastiche Scream…
Menarche is the transitional rite of passage in a young woman’s life when she first starts to ovulate and to bleed. An egg, and a lot of blood, will also play prominent parts in Hanna Bergholm’s feature debut Hatching (Pahanhautoja), as Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) emerges from childhood into adolescence and from innocence into experience, along…
“A sadist never understands why others aren’t enjoying his sadism as much as he is,” says Margaret (Rebecca Hall) in the opening scene of Andrew Semans’ Resurrection. Margaret is talking to an intern whom she is mentoring for a biotech company. Naïve, inexperienced Gwyn (Angela Wong Carbone) has reached out to Margaret about a boyfriend…
No Man Of God first published by VODzilla.co No Man Of God begins at its end, in 1989, with a TV news report stating that “after an exhausting series of appeals that lasted ten years, Ted Bundy is dead” – executed in the electric chair at the Florida State Prison. In this way, Amber Sealey’s…