The Unheard begins with noise, and then silence. The noise is both auditory and visual in nature, as an old family video plays with its staticky images jumping and skipping and the audio track loudly distorting. A mother and child can be seen, both inside and outdoors, and a voice can be heard calling ‘Mommy’…
The Dead 2: India first published by Grolsch FilmWorks Key to what made brother Jonathan and Howard Ford‘s feature debut The Dead (2010) a success was its placement of oldschool zombie archetypes into a minimalist storyline amidst astonishing natural locales shot very wide (as though in reference to that other filmmaking Ford). Although this sequel…
The Dark Tourist (aka The Grief Tourist) first published by Grolsch FilmWorks “She’s more a man than all the other guys on the 4 to 12 put together,” security guard Jim Tahna (Michael Cudlitz) says of his work colleague Sanchez whom he relieves every night for the graveyard shift. “She’s like a friend. We share…
Curse of Chucky first published by Grolsch FilmWorks A mysterious package is delivered to a big old house that contains its own mysteries. Within live an overmedicated, overprotective mother (Chantal Quesnelle) and her wheelchair-bound adult daughter Nica (Fiona Dourif), and you can just tell – whether from the overcharged way in which both women respond…
Cannon Fodder first published by Grolsch Film Works Ever since Romero’s Night of the Living Dead appeared in 1968, shuffling ‘ghouls’ have proven an excellent vehicle for importing social and political commentary through genre’s back door. So when Marc Foster’s World War Z (2013) landed in a walled Jerusalem beleaguered by mindlessly aggressive hordes beyond,…
Afterschool first published by Film4 Summary: The feature debut of Antonio Campos (Buy It Now) concerns a fatal incident at an élite prep school and its repercussions for one troubled pupil. Review: Nothing quite puts us in our place as viewers like an image of someone looking at images – and that is precisely where Afterschool opens….
All The Old Knives first published by Sight and Sound, June 2022 Review: Janus Metz’s All The Old Knives takes its title from the 2015 novel by Olen Steinhauer (who also wrote the screenplay) – and if that word ‘old’ promises a throwback to the past, it is referring not just to the reinvestigation of an…
Francisca Alegria’s feature debut The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future (La vaca que cantó una canción hacia el futuro) begins with both nature, and with its contradictions. To the accompaniment of a fly’s audible buzzing and birdsong, a dead rat is seen lying on a bed of fallen, browned leaves. Growing from…
Adalynn begins with its title character (Sydney Carvill, perfectly personifying anxiety) talking, in voiceover, about the strong bond between a polar bear and her two cubs, and how damaging any severance of that bond would be, even as we see three ursine figurines getting wet in a shower. This sequence introduces not only the film’s…
Monolith had its international première at SXSW 2023 The Interviewer (Lily Sullivan) has undermined herself. Unnamed but ever-present in Matt Vesely’s feature debut Monolith, she is a journalist whose latest exposé has put her under a cloud, and led to her losing her job with the Evening Journal. Maybe her subject David Langley was guilty…
The opening titles of Ash and Bone are impressionistically intercut with images of a young, terrified woman (Denise Emilia Sandulescu) with a splash of blood on her white top, as she limps through dark woods, and flags down a car only to realise – too late – that her pursuers are inside. She is summarily…