The Shallows has a simple task: make sharks scary again. And it succeeds admirably, while offering (perhaps unintentionally) interesting commentary on sexualised heroines in horror movies.
A good horror flick is metal-as-fuck. Tasmanian director, Sean Byrne, embraces this sentiment with a twisted, electric-guitar-infused follow-up to his debut feature, The Loved Ones. With Devil’s Candy, Byrne once again demonstrates uncommon cinematic focus, but the end product is not without its off-key moments. The film immerses itself in alternative artistry from the hard…
James Wan’s haunted house oeuvre is a well-oiled machine. Creaky floorboards and fearsome presences roll off the production line like clockwork; creepy, broken, grandfather clockwork. And, although The Conjuring 2 is bound by formula, when the scares are this good, I’m happy to buckle my seatbelt and enjoy the ride. Wan’s recent good form (Insidious et al) is…
The filmmakers behind Patchwork – writer/director Tyler MacIntyre and his co-writer Chris Lee Hill – have an obvious affection for classic horror cinema. It’s not merely the way their story remixes the familiar Frankenstein mythology into a three-brained she-zombie (Tori Stolper/Tracey Fairaway/Maria Blasucci), complete with an 8-bit cameo of Frankenstein’s monster. But from the Maniac homage…
One of the perks – or side effects, if you consider my bank account – of my foray into cinephilia has been my introduction to the UK Blu-Ray/DVD distributors, Arrow. While perhaps less prestigious than the widely-celebrated Criterion Collection, Arrow combine a fantastic, diverse library – cult and trashy horror under Arrow Video and arthouse…
As an allegory for the United States of America, Ravenous is so fucking perfect that it needed to be a comedy. The idea of imagining early Americans as cannibals granted supernatural powers by feasting on human flesh – the extrapolation to the modern day left to one’s imagination – would’ve been hard to stomach played…
I’m somewhat uncomfortable with horror movies that take witches as their monster. The history of ‘witchcraft’ is inextricably tied up with horrific events like the Salem trials – events that repeat themselves today across developing countries, events driven primarily by a patriarchal fear of women as transgressors. Those accused of and punished for ‘witchcraft’ are…
It’s fitting that Kiwi splatter-comedy Deathgasm introduces its characters with notepad-scribble-flourishes. You see, this film – which combines death metal fanaticism with crude humour and imaginative gore – feels like the product of a couple Year 10 boys giggling at the back of science class, cobbling together ideas in the margins alongside deeply-etched pentagrams and…
If you’re looking for an action-packed, entertaining blockbuster, you won’t find it in the final Hunger Games instalment. The atmosphere here is dour and soaked in dread; fitting, really, given we’re observing the final days of a bloody revolution. Constricted by the expectations of her role as an icon – much like the actress playing…
I’ve never been much for antiques. By and large, that’s a reflection of budgetary issues – the furniture I own is nearly all cheap-as-chips or hand-me-downs – but I’ve just never really been invested in the aestheticisation of aging and decay that seems to drive aficionados of antiques. Guillermo del Toro, though, seems like a…
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