Wrath of the Gods world première at FrightFest, 28th August 2026 Wrath of the Gods opens with a primal scene, inverted. In psychoanalysis, the primal scene represents a young child’s first, formative exposure to their parents engaged in sexual intercourse, which is misunderstood by the child as violence. Primal scenes have become a regular trope…
Five female BFFs wish the party would never stop. Amber (Helena Howard), Lavinia (Bella Thorne), Zosia (Zión Moreno), Lola (Chloe Cherry) and Maddy (Sophia Ali) have all recently graduated, and are on the cusp of their adult lives – but in writer/director Izabel Pakzad’s debut feature Find Your Friends, they are treating this summer like…
The Benefactress (an exposure of cinematic freedom) comes with four introductions. The first is a text-form content warning (“The following film contains material that may be harmful or traumatising to some audiences – VIEWER DISCRETION IS STRONGLY ADVISED”), and while the horror genre (in particular) is full of such warnings as a kind of conventionalised…
In Ashgabat, Turkmenistan in 2006, a little girl (Samantha Ela Özdas) tearfully throws her stuffed toys into flames, watches them burn, wipes away her tears and screams wildly in close-up into the camera. This prologue to Can Evrenol’s latest feature Saýara not only introduces us to its main character in her formative years, but also…
Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (Seperti dendam, rundi harus dibayar tuntas) first published by Little White Lies “Only a man who can’t get it up can face death without fear.” This line comes from near the beginning of Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, just after we have seen the film’s young…
Poundcake had its international première on Fri 25 Aug at FrightFest Someone is terrorising the streets of contemporary New York City. Like Jason Voorhees, (who notoriously visited Manhattan), Michael Myers, or Leatherface, this pattern killer comes with his own iconic headgear (a gimp mask) and weapon (chain). Still, far from slicing up young co-eds, or…
[note that, after this review was written, a new murder set-piece, which I have not seen, has been added to the very beginning of Bliss of Evil] With his earlier features Status Quo (2013) and Louie Louie (2018), writer/director Joshua Morris has become associated with romance, but the bed with which his latest feature Bliss…
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…
The Ledge had its UK première at the Glasgow FrightFest 2022, and was first published by VODzilla.co The night before Kelly (Brittany Ashworth) and her friend Sophie (Anaïs Parello) are due to scale the dangerous face of Antelao, highest pinnacle in the Dolomite Mountains of northeastern Italy, they are joined at the complex of cabins…
For the Sake of Vicious first published by VODzilla.co For the Sake of Vicious opens with a sequence which, for all its lack of context, is a good index of what is to come. A man wakes up surrounded by other bodies on a basement floor, only to be knocked out by another man standing…
El Apego (aka The Attachment Diaries) opens with a tracking shot that follows, from behind, a pair of legs in high heels, walking along a roughly cobbled pavement in heavy rain at night. This is pure film noir – an impression greatly aided by the strict monochrome presentation – yet this woman’s progress is intercut…