Grind at Chattanooga Film Festival, 20 June 2026 “You know what they say about the definition of madness,” says Vicky (Hannah Alline), one of several recurring characters in Brea Grant, Ed Dougherty and Chelsea Stardust’s anthology Grind. “It’s like doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results.” Vicky’s words encapsulate…
The Last Stop in Yuma County first published by VODzilla.co, 17 Jan 2025 In Arizona, Yuma is both a city and a county, but in a film title, the name is a shorthand evocation of a particular genre. For what Lesley Selander’s Fort Yuma (1955), Delmer Daves’ 3:10 to Yuma (1957, and James Mangold’s 2007…
Cursed in Baja first published by SciFiNow for its world première at FrightFest 2024, 23 August “It’s time,” says a prison guard (Hugo Armstrong) to the inmate Pirelli (Jeff Daniel Phillips, also the writer/director) at the beginning of Cursed in Baja, before leading him to an elevator. What seems to be the final walk of…
Every Heavy Thing had its world première at Fantasia 2025, 21 July “It’s interesting to me that no matter how evolved we become as human beings,” says tech genius William Schaffer (James Urbaniak) some way into Every Heavy Thing, “we still have these primal urges that are impossible to control.” This is a principle built…
Suitable Flesh first published by SciFiNow for its world première at Tribeca 2023 Suitable Flesh begins with a POV shot from inside a body bag being zipped open. As psychiatrist Dr Dani Upton (Barbara Crampton) and the morgue’s pathologist (Graham Skipper) look down, Dani comments, “It’s impossible to tell that’s a person, much less who…
Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls had its international première at the Glasgow FrightFest 2023. When a film comes with a title like Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, it is announcing its generic affiliations to the fantasy realm. Yet the title character Onyx the Fortuitous is in fact Marcus J….
King Knight first published by Movies On Weekends Richard Bates Jr.‘s King Knight begins with an animated picture book, and a “once upon a time”-style narration, as though we are about to watch a Disney fairytale – although the book’s final image is a map of contemporary California, as the narrator declares “sometimes the most beautiful flowers grow up…
Run Hide Fight first published by VODzilla.co (in a slightly truncated version) Perhaps cinema’s first school shooting depicted was in Lindsay Anderson’s if…. (1968), whose antihero (Malcolm McDowell, in his on-screen debut) opens fire on fellow pupils, teachers, parents and visiting members of the establishment in a recalcitrant assault upon society’s stuffy status quo. On April 20, 1999, the horror of…
Teddy (Osric Chau) and Claire (Sara Canning) are co-presenters on their travel vlog Superhost, compiling and uploading to-camera pieces about the high-end holiday rentals where they stay. They are also a genuine couple – and right from the opening scene of writer/director Brandon Christensen‘s Superhost, there is a clear tension between their real relationship and…
Much as genre producer Travis Stevens’ feature debut, the haunted house movie Girl On The Third Floor (2019), exposed the toxic masculinity at the heart – and in the very architecture – of the American home, so too his follow-up Jakob’s Wife continues this gendered (and genre’d) preoccupation with domestic relations. The very title of…
Sacrifice (aka The Colour Of Madness) first published by VODzilla.co At the heart of Sacrifice (aka The Colour Of Madness) is a painting of a man on a tiny vessel, its tattered sails surrounded by monstrous waves. This image of being lost at sea will come to pervade both the film and its reception, as…