The Banishing first published by VODzilla.co It is 1938, a time of great uncertainty. Linus Forster (John Heffernan) has just taken up an appointment as vicar in a small parish near Colchester. With its dwindling congregation and generous stipend, the job ought to be a sinecure, but as Linus moves into the vast, dusty Morley…
Eight domestic horrors – seven British – at the Halloween FrightFest 2020 first published by Sight & Sound Includes capsules of: Hosts; The Owners; Concrete Plans; Benny Loves You; The Banishing; Caveat; The World We Knew; Honeydew Though international in outlook, FrightFest has long championed genre cinema from the United Kingdom – and this year’s…
Skylines (Sklyin3s) first published by VODzilla.co As Critters 4 (1992), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Leprechaun 4: In Space (1996) and Jason X (2001) have taught us, the laws of cinema dictate that all gonzo franchises will eventually lose their grip on any kind of grounding reality and end up in space. Colin and Greg Strause’s Skyline…
Slaxx first published by VODzilla.co “They’re Fairtrade, sweatshop-free and 120% organic,” says Peyton Jules (Erica Anderson), model and spokeswoman for Canadian Cotton Clothiers (or CCC), a chain of clothing stores whose latest line of jeans, the Super Shapers, will go on the shelves at exactly 8 o’clock the following morning. In a branch of CCC,…
Honeydew first published by VODzilla.co Honeydew opens with a wheat field. “Honour God with your bodies,” a red-haired girl then says indoors, as she reads into a tape recorder from Corinthians 6 about the coming end days, and simultaneously devours a breakfast of meat, eggs and sauce before her. In the background, a loaf of…
Dune Drifter first published by VODzilla.co Marc Price’s feature debut Colin (2008) was notoriously made for under £100, and it at times really shows – but it also reinvigorated the zombie genre by showing an urban outbreak uniquely from a zombie’s point of view. Which is to say that the aptly named Price instantly became…
The Stylist first published by VODzilla.co “I guess we all want what we don’t have,” says Claire (Najarra Townsend), admiring her hair in the mirror near the beginning of The Stylist. Except that it is not really her hair, and these are not even her words. For so damaged, so empty, is Claire”s sense of…
Hosts first published by VODzilla.co The opening credits of Adam Leader & Richard Oakes’ Hosts are accompanied by a spiralling shot through a narrow rocky tunnel towards the mouth above and the clouds beyond. That image will recur at several points in the film, but will remain something of a mystery. Not long afterwards we…
Redwood Massacre: Annihilation first published by VODzilla.co In The Redwood Massacre (2014), five co-eds go to party in the legendary murder site the Redwood House, only to discover that the legend is true. In other words, writer/director David Ryan Keith’s feature was a by-the-book slasher whose many clichés were offset by the horrific brutality of…
Benny Loves You first published by VODzilla.co Jack is a geeky incel manchild, still living with his parents, in a bedroom festooned with a teen posters, games, juvenile tchotchkes and stuffed animals. Yet when, on his 35th birthday, both his parents die in a double whammy of freak domestic accidents, Jack is left with debts…
Blood Harvest (aka The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw) first published by VODzilla.co “In 1873 a group of families separated from the Church of Ireland and established an isolated settlement in North America.” This text which opens Blood Harvest (aka The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw, aka The Ballad of Audrey Earnshaw) might make the viewer imagine…