Z first published by VODzilla.co You wait for one ‘imaginary friend’ narrative with an intense mother/son relationship at its heart, and two come along. In Adam Egypt Mortimer’s Daniel Isn’t Real (2019), a young student must contend with the possibility that he has inherited his mother’s mental illness, even as Daniel, the destructive imaginary friend…
Dreamland first published by Little White Lies, as entry 101 of my Cinema Psychotronicum column “We’re in a different world,” says a grizzled hitman (Stephen McHattie) of his surroundings near the end of Dreamland. He is not wrong, and the clue is in the title. For Bruce McDonald’s film falls into a body of works…
Come To Daddy first published by VODzilla.co The word ‘UFO’ appears twice in Come To Daddy. When, in response to an unexpected letter, 35-year-old Norval Greenwood (Elijah Wood, Maniac, 2012) comes visiting the father who walked out on him when he was five, and claps eyes on the remote cliffside home – all rough timbers…
Rabid is up front about what it is. Before we have seen the first frame of narrative, plain yellow text on a black background reveals that what we are watching is “Based on the Original Film by David Cronenberg.” Yet remakes are a complicated business. They can be painstakingly faithful to their model, like Gus…
Pontypool first published by Film4 Synopsis: In parochial Pontypool, a shock jock probes, prods and provokes the end of the world (as we know it). Cult Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald (Roadkill, Highway 61, The Tracey Fragments) directs this reality-warping horror. Review: “Pontypool. Pontypool. Pantypool. Pont du Flaque. What does it mean?” If, as William S Burroughs liked to assert, language…