Dark Stories first published by Through the Trees Single mother Christine (Kristanna Loken, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, 2003) comes under attack from a psychopathic Chucky-like semi-animated doll that has just been delivered to her home. Bound to a chair in the basement, she tells the knife-wielding mannequin a series of five ‘scary stories’…
Sometimes there is no need for words between friends. Take Frank & Zed, who for many years have been eking out together their cameraderie and co-dependency, with little more than the occasional monosyllabic grunt shared between them, even as time takes its toll on their bodies. If the very title of writer/director Jesse Blanchard’s film…
Fires on the Plain first published by Little White Lies, as the 41st part of my Cinema Psychotronicum column In Elem Klimov’s extraordinary anti-war film Come and See (1985), the toll of Nazi outrages in Byelorussia was reflected on young protagonist Florya’s face, shown often in harrowing close-up and seeming to age visibly and dramatically in…
Deadgirl first reviewed for EyeforFilm (here slightly altered) A deserted classroon. A desolate library. A silent gymnasium. A cafeteria where the only sign of life is an overturned milk carton slowly dripping its contents onto the floor. Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel’s Deadgirl may be character-driven, but it opens with a montage of abandoned spaces in a…