Back in 1970, Crimes of the Future was in fact David Cronenberg’s second feature – but since then both he and the future have changed considerably, and accordingly his latest feature of the same title is in fact an entirely different film, even if it looks back to motifs from his earlier films, especially Rabid…
Antidote has its UK première at FrightFest A couple of minutes into Peter Daskaloff’s Antidote, Sharyn Berkley (Ashlynn Yennie) is rushed into hospital with acute appendicitis, but after being taken in for an emergency operation, she awakens handcuffed to a bed in a different institution, the scar in her belly already healed, and a softly…
Greywood’s Plot begins with two videos. In the first, an old VHS camcorder films a horrific, if impressionistic, act of surgery being performed in a shed, and ending with a flatline. The second opens with the line “This is where my existence ends,” as Dom Stafler (played by the similarly named Josh Stifter, who is…
An all-woman four-piece rock band is playing a raucous gig in a biker bar when a big guy invades their performance space and starts groping the lead singer Amy (Michelle Argyris). True to their stage name the Ms. 45s (from Abel Ferrara’s notorious 1981 rape-revenge film), this quartet – including Amy’s sister Emma (Emily Alatalo)…
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…
First published by Little White Lies “I know I can be a bit of a demented bitch sometimes, but you still love me, right?” So 18-year-old Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord) asks her mother Phyllis (Traci Lords), her words echoing through Excision like a desperate cry for help. Insensitive, manipulative, delusional and increasingly dangerous, wannabe sawbones Pauline is certainly hard to love, but at the same time…
First published by movieScope “I don’t know of a teenager who doesn’t profile as a sociopath.” So says gawky, greasy-haired Pauline (the extraordinary AnnaLynne McCord), looking to all around her like the teen misfit from Welcome to the Dollhouse, even as her vivid dreams, merging sexuality and surgery, reveal she may be closer to the unhinged…
The Human Centipede (First Sequence) first published by Little White Lies “It’s a very sick film, we know that, we tried our best to give you everything you need.” This was how, at the Film4 FrightFest 2009, Dutch writer-director (and avant-garde artist) Tom Six introduced the world premiere of The Human Centipede (First Sequence) to what was arguably its…