The Horseman first published by EyeforFilm, 12 March 2009 “She’ll be all right – we’re lovers, not fighters.” Out of context, the words might sound reassuring, but they come from Chuck (Damon Gibson), a caring husband who also likes to make rough (in every sense) sex tapes on the side, and who who will shortly…
In A Cold Vein first published by SciFiNow for its world première at FrightFest, 8.15pm Friday 22nd August In A Cold Vein opens, not unlike Brock Bodell’s Hellcat (2025), in medias res, with its protagonist, as disoriented as the viewer, regaining consciousness in the back of a moving vehicle. Even though Dean O’Reilly (Evan Gamble)…
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…
It opens with an abstract image. To the accompaniment of jazz drums and psychedelic flutes, a red blob grows and emerges out of the ambient darkness. This resembles a cosmic event, like the alignment of the planets at the beginning of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). In fact, as the first word in…
Restless reviewed from Glasgow Film Festival 2025 for Sight and Sound, May 2025 A middle-aged woman, visibly upset, gets into her car at night, turns on some classical music, drives into secluded woodland, and gets out with a shovel to dig a grave. The opening sequence of Jed Hart’s Restless in fact comes near the…
Female Yakuza Tale (Yasagure anego den: Sôkatsu rinchi) first published by EyeforFilm, 11 June 2007 In Norifumi Suzuki‘s Sex & Fury (1973), kick-ass heroine Ocho Inoshika had devoted her whole existence to avenging her father’s murder, tattooing her own flesh with symbols for the three people who owed her bloody satisfaction, and even adopting a new name…
In the late 1700s, teenaged travelling performer Tornado (the amazing Kōki,) finds a band of thieves and cutthroats – led by the ruthless Sugarman (Tim Roth) – pursuing her across the sparse heathlands after she has opportunistically pilfered and buried the two sacks of gold that they themselves had stolen. As the bandits’ murderous viciousness…
Lady Snowblood (Shurayuki-hime) first published by Little White Lies, September 2012 In 1873, just outside Koichi village, a young teacher and his son are brutally slain by a gang of four scam artists plotting to exploit for profit the locals’ fear of a newly imposed national military draft. Gang-raped over several days, the teacher’s wife…
Sex & Fury (Furyo Anego Den: Inoshika Ocho) first published by EyeForFilm, 11th June 2007 While Female Convict Scorpion and Lady Snowblood (both played with cold-eyed relish by the incomparable Meiko Kaji) were two of the most memorable heroines of Japan’s ‘pinky violence’ cinema, they certainly did not hold the monopoly on eastern kick-ass sex-kittens….
From its opening sequence, Brandon Christensen’s Night of the Reaper is hard-coded as a product from the second half of the Eighties. It is not just the cathode ray television playing music videos on MTV, or the kitchen fridge containing drink cans labelled Coca-Cola Classic, or the touch-tone phone in the living room, but also…
Bamboo Revenge had its world première at FrightFest 2025, Monday 25th August Sometimes all that there is to a film can be found in the title. David R. Ellis’ Snakes on a Plane (2006), Anthony C. Ferrante’s Sharknado (2013) and Elizabeth Baks’ Cocaine Bear (2023) all come with their Unique Selling Point inscribed right upfront…