First published by Sight & Sound, December 2015 Review: Films trafficking in religion and evil must eventually decide where they stand on their own Satanic mechanics. While, e.g., Scott Derrickson’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), adapted very loosely from the true story of German teenager Anneliese Michel, flirted at first with rationalism and reality,…
First published by EyeforFilm On stage at the Film4 FrightFest 2009 to introduce his latest feature, writer/director Ti West declared: “It’s a very different film from The Roost.” Yet what The House Of The Devil has very much in common with his batty 2005 debut, apart from the ever-welcome presence of independent cinema’s tallest character…
Review first published in Little White Lies. As The Lords Of Salem opens, we first see protagonist Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie) nodding off in a car; and then the 17th-century Puritan Jonathan Hawthorne (Andrew Prine) scribbling in his diary about the witch Margaret Morgan (Meg Foster) and her ‘blasphemous music’ (“driving me to the point of…