Cloud Nothings are a band with one foot squarely in the past, with a sound revelling in what actually made the “grunge” era of the nineties good (if you want to listen to a band who revelled in the worst of grunge, check out Creed – better yet, don’t). Their other foot, though, is stamping…
Japandroids have been one of my favourite bands since their incredible debut Post-Nothing. Their Australian fanbase has expanded rapidly since the recent release of Celebration Rock – a damn good thing, since it meant that the duo finally made the long trip over from Vancouver to play their first-ever Australian show in the gentle warmth…
The early Nightmare on Elm Street films – whether they’re good (one and three) or bad (the rest) – focused on maximalist scares – full of big special effects, buckets of gore and a sneering Freddy centre-frame. In New Nightmare the scares are subtle, building upon real fears – a child’s fear of the boogeyman…
Spartacus is and always has been a show drenched in violence (also sex, though that’s mostly peripheral to the narrative). This is clear from opening scenes where we see Spartacus and his men slice their way through countless nameless Romans. This is a concern for me in this final season. The violence in the first…
Last Saturday, my partner Jae and I spent a day liveblogging the Triple J Hottest 100 at TripleJae. We spent the day finding out our predictions were half-good, half-terrible, comparing the infamous Warmest 100 to the actual results, and, of course, our thoughts on all the songs in the countdown. We were both baffled by…
Justified has been pleasantly understated and understatedly pleasant over the first episodes of this already-impressive season; even moments like Boyd cleverly poisoning (and, as we found this week, killing) his preacher rival felt almost light-hearted. “The Bird Has Flown” brings some weight and consequence back with two plotlines, each wringing genuine pathos out of situations…
When I picked up this “part-sequel part-remake” of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre second-hand from a video store for a couple dollars, I was fully expecting a very bad movie. And, hoo boy, it did not disappoint! This film actually warrants the description “so bad it’s good.” It loosely rips off the plot of the original,…
Essays about drug-taking are rarely compelling: they read as a kitchen list of “crazy” events that the author has experienced, undoubtedly profound when experienced but lacking resonance on paper. Hannah sets out with the express goal of trying to write such an essay, having a cocaine-fuelled night on the town with Elijah. This episode narrows…
Frontière(s) is the best horror film I’ve seen from the last decade. It’s been characterised as “torture porn” or a French ripoff of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and while neither description is completely inaccurate, they don’t capture the blistering intensity, the bone-shaking strength of the film. Frontière(s) is set after the election of an unseen…
The Driller Killer is a scabrous pustule of a film, grotesque, ugly, but transfixing despite this. It was the directorial debut of Abel Ferrara (best known for Bad Lieutenant), but there’s little to suggest future promise here, with murky, grimy cinematography and clumsy editing – plus a superfluous lesbian shower scene suggesting Ferrara’s porn pedigree.…
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