Foreigner first published by SciFiNow, for its world première at Fantasia, 31 July 2025 “Don’t change that channel,” says the TV continuity announcer whose voice opens Ava Maria Safai’s Foreigner, “we’ll be right back with more of Two Hearts, One Home.” And then there is an advertisement for the ominously misspelt hair-dye brand “Die Blonde”….
Teenage Camille (Samuel Kircher) knows neither weakness nor failure – and Valéry Carnoy’s debut feature Wild Foxes (La danse des renards, literally ‘the dance of the foxes’), co-written with Jacques Akchoti, captures this young man at his peak, before tracing his plummet. For here pride comes before a fall – but that fall, and its…
Fifteen (Quince) had its world première at SXSW, 15 Mar 2026 Fifteen (Quince) opens with two fantasies in rapid succession. In the first, 14-year-old best friends Ligia (Greta Martí) and Mayte (Macarena Oz) are the centre of attention at their joint quinceañera, dancing in perfect sync with both each other and some handsome white-clad young…
Mean Creek first published by Movie Gazette, 6 April 2005 From Mark Twain’s classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) to films as varied as John Huston’s The African Queen (1951), Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955), John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) and Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982),…
The Haunted Forest had its world première at FrightFest, 6.25pm Saturday 23rd August As a young couple (Andrew LaHaise, Emma Justine) makes out in a car parked at lovers’ lane, he tries to push her to go further. Interrupted by a thudding sound, he heads out to see what it is. A loud sound above sends…
Infinite Summer had its world première at Fantasia 2024 Infinite Summer opens with a brief monochrome history of zoos, going all the way back to the oldest known zoological collection from Hierakonpolis, Egypt in 3500 BCE. Its main character Mia (Teele Kaljuvee-O’Brock) works as a part-time guide at the Tallinn Zoo – yet the film…
Talk To Me first published by SciFiNow Talk To Me opens with one brother on an anxious quest for another, desperate to talk to him. The camera tracks Cole (Ari McCarthy) as he walks to and through a crowded house party, frantically searching for his brother Duckett (Sunny Johnson) – and when he locates Duckett…
Go first published by Little White Lies, as entry 176 in my Cinema Psychotronicum column Isao Yukisada’s Go has three beginnings. The first is a text quote from Shakespeare: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. Coming from Romeo and Juliet, this suggests that…
Brick first published by EyeforFilm, 11 May 2006 Film noir has cast its shadow over genres as wide-ranging as science fiction (Blade Runner), horror (Angel Heart), the war film (The Army In The Shadows) and even the documentary (The Thin Blue Line), while the classrooms, corridors and cafeterias of the high school flick have proved…
Welcome to the Dollhouse first published by Little White Lies, as entry 171 in my Cinema Psychotronicum column American pupils are 11 years old when they enter Junior High. It can be a difficult age – the cusp of puberty, where childhood collides head-on with adolescence, and where some shoot ahead while others are left…
“Are you good?”, teenaged Tony (James Paxton) will be asked by his best friend Forrest (Dillon Lane), in the first of three formally headed sections (‘Chapter 1 Wolf Like Me’, ‘Chapter 2 Casa Dracula’, ‘Chapter 3 Ghouls’ Night Out’) that make up Brad Michael Elmore’s Boogeyman Pop, the follow-up to his striking debut The Wolfman’s…