The Toxic Avenger first published by Little White Lies, 29 August 2025 “Just play the fucking hits,” is the advice given by grotesquely combed-over, club-footed Fritz Garbinger (Elijah Wood) to members of local band The Killer Nutz, some way into The Toxic Avenger. He is talking about an open-air performance that they have to give,…
In the Cut first published by Movie Gazette, 28th Oct 2003, in a different version Feminist filmmaker Jane Campion is best known for directing period dramas (The Portrait of a Lady, 1996; The Piano, 1993; An Angel At My Table, 1990), but recently she has departed from the past with Holy Smoke (1999) and now…
MaXXXine first published by Sight and Sound, 4 July 2024 The only film genre simultaneously more morally censured – and more popular – than horror is porn. That censor-baiting sweet spot where sex and violence intersect has already been explored by Ti West’s 1970s-set X and its Great War prequel Pearl (both 2022). Mia Goth led both…
Flatliners first published by Little White Lies, as entry 159 in my Cinema Psychotronicum column “I don’t know, you guys: it’s Halloween, there’s a full moon. Don’t you think we might be pushing it just a little bit?” So says Randy Steckle (Oliver Platt), some way into Joel Schumacher’s Flatliners, as he and four fellow…
Tremors first published by Little White Lies, as entry 157 in my Cinema Psychotronicum column Ron Underwood’s Tremors opens with Valentine McKee (Kevin Bacon) standing on the edge of a rocky cliff, and urinating onto the ground far below. He is first shown from the front in an extra wide shot too distant to allow…
Hollow Man (2000) and Hollow Man II (2006) first published by Little White Lies as the 85th entry in my Cinema Psychotronicum column “No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any…
First published in Sight & Sound, July 2016 Review: “1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3.” Michael Taylor (David Mazouz) likes to count. Fearless, not always communicative, and blessed (or cursed) with an ill-defined ability to ‘see different’, this autistic boy, with his unusual, often demanding behaviours, dominates and occasionally disrupts the workings of the Taylor…
Super first published by Little White Lies “You’ve gotta forget about that bitch, she’s a fuckin’ whore,” Frank (Rainn Wilson) is consoled after his wife Sarah (Liv Tyler), a recovering addict, leaves him for jovial drug dealer Jacques (Kevin Bacon). Frank, however, cannot forget – after all, the day of his marriage to Sarah was one…