Tropes on a Forest Road. Mother and daughter on road trip. Breakdown on deserted road. Monster attack. That’s about it in THE MONSTER, an average thriller that ambitiously tries to be more than the B-movie it is. Zoe Kazan is a white trash alcoholic single mom, and Ella Ballentine is disenchanted teen daughter Lizzy. As if sensing the minimal substance … Read More
GERALD’S GAME
Freedom is just a handcuff away. Vacation. Tote bag. Two pairs of chrome steel handcuffs. Long-married couple Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) and Jessie Burlingame (Carla Gugino) are trying to revive their marriage with a new game. After Jessie is handcuffed to the bedposts, she loses her taste for the game and says No. Uncuff me. Gerald coyly says no. Then he … Read More
SPLIT 2017
Multiple McAvoy, Numinous Night. Professor X has been hearing those voices in his head again… If you like James McAvoy, then you’ll love SPLIT. It stars James McAvoy. And James McAvoy. And James McAvoy. And James McAvoy. And James McAvoy. And James McAvoy. And James McAvoy. Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan returns to form as master filmmaker with his deviously intriguing … Read More
GET OUT
… because a black mind is a terrible thing to waste. You know what they say: You’ll always remember your first time – with a black man. In a startling writer-director debut, Jordan Peele’s arm-gripping thriller GET OUT is a renaissance for the horror genre. But it won’t do shit for race relations. Chris is about to meet his girlfriend … Read More
THE PURGE
Knife-kill disguised as social commentary. Blessed be the New Founding Fathers for letting us Purge and cleanse our souls. Blessed be America, a nation reborn. — opening titles, THE PURGE. It is 2022 in America. The country is doing well, if the opening titles are any indication: unemployment at 1%, crime at an all-time low. And there is one night … Read More
THE VISIT 2015
Don’t Get Old, Get Evil. Two young children visit their grandparents for the first time. And smell death. Uh, wait – that’s pretty normal. Two children visit their grandparents for the first time – and find soiled adult diapers! … Well, uh, still pretty normal. Two children visit their grandparents for the first time. And see vomiting and dementia. Still … Read More
ARRIVAL 2016
Mind Encounters of the Close Kind. Unless I’m mistaken, she’s stuck in a time-loop, where extra-terrestrials, having arrived, affect her past, present and future… How do we say Hello? And how do we tell the stupid people of Earth to butt out of the conversation? ARRIVAL is an intelligent science fiction Möbius strip that speculates on the first contact between … Read More
ALIEN 3
One Singular Serration… One maximum security prison planet. One xenomorph extra-terrestrial alien. Let the screaming begin. That no one can hear you doing in space… And well I should bastardize the original slogan for the original ALIEN (1979). After the shotgun-sequel ass-klownery of James Cameron’s ALIENS (1986), with hundreds of hissing, cavorting aliens cluttering the frame, the filmmakers of ALIEN … Read More
NON-STOP
A particular set of thrills. An air marshal must stop a mysterious texting terrorist carrying out his threats to kill one person every 20 minutes. And sending poo emojis. The airplane thriller NON-STOP is, in fact, non-stop thrills, with Liam Neeson plying his intensity as air marshal Bill Marks (basically a reprise of his role as Bryan Mills, special forces … Read More
THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS
A Bridge Too Roar. In 1898 Kenya, the construction site of a railway bridge over the Tsavo River is terrorized by two man-eating lions so vicious and elusive they become known as THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS. Lt. Col. John Paterson (Val Kilmer, high off TOMBSTONE and BATMAN FOREVER) is sent to the stricken Uganda-Mombasa Railway work site (by financier … Read More
EUROPA REPORT
Moon Struck. The first manned mission to Europa, Jupiter’s fourth-largest and most famous Galilean moon, seeking the suspected oceans of water beneath its icy crust, seeking organisms that may be emitting the heat signatures that NASA discovered, but mainly seeking to overcome that annoying “found footage” feeling. Fucking found footage. These days, every indie movie with great ideas and no … Read More
THE SIGNAL
Bending new boundaries with classic old tropes. Two young computer hackers discover a third hacker is sending them enigmatic messages. Chasing down the origin of THE SIGNAL will shatter their reality; will shatter even the concept of what reality is. THE SIGNAL is a dynamite sleeper; a spellbinding tale of extra-terrestrial communication in this modern age. There had to eventually … Read More
THE LAZARUS EFFECT
Dead on Arrival. THE LAZARUS EFFECT, about a team of scientists trying to bring people back from the dead, ironically loses its effect when the person brought back from the dead starts killing people. Talk about wasted opportunity! In the grand tradition of PET SEMATARY and FLATLINERS, documentarian David Gelb (on his first feature) directs a movie that thrums with … Read More
THE FLY
Insect Aside. A scientist accidentally mixes his genes with a fly – and DOESN’T become a superhero! THE FLY is classic science fiction poetry in motion: Tampering in God’s Domain and Paying the Price / Radiation Causing Monstrosity / Aloof Scientist Experiments on Himself / Forbidden Technology must be Wiped Out… An intriguing and terrifying thriller, from the days when … Read More
AREA 51
Some footage should just stay unfound… I… HATE hand-held camera movies! Makes me sick. Literally. I’m nauseous watching these idiot characters filming every single second of their narcissistic lives with Irritating Shaky Cam. A “found-footage” film, AREA 51 joins a growing list of Irritating Shaky Cam movies that RUIN – d’you hear me, filmmakers? – RUIN any story the film … Read More
THE LAST DAYS ON MARS
Martian Cold War. Life not as we know it takes down a Martian expedition. It’s a cold, people. Bacteria. Great, and I forgot to pack the Vicks Vaporub… THE LAST DAYS ON MARS boldly breaks conventions even whilst being one big convention. Within the framework of this clichéd thriller, writers Sydney J. Bounds and Clive Dawson, and director Ruairi Robinson … Read More
EX MACHINA
True Intelligence is only an artificial heartbeat away. Somewhere between conscious and unconscious, somewhere between nature and nurture, somewhere between tits and ass, lies… EX MACHINA. Young computer programmer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson,UNBROKEN) wins a contest to spend a week with reclusive company boss Nathan (Oscar Isaac, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS) the inventor of the world’s largest search engine, Bluebook. Flown out to … Read More
INTERSTELLAR
Odyssey Three: When Surfer Dudes Boldly Go… In his 2014 Oscar speech, Matthew McConaughey told us his hero was “himself, in ten years’ time.” Everyone thought he was a narcissistic jackass. Until INTERSTELLAR, when he travels to the future through a wrinkle in time and meets – himself! Standing lofty on the shoulders of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and CONTACT, … Read More
SUDDENLY 2013
Suddenly Unnecessarily. SUDDENLY is the 2013 remake of the 1954 Frank Sinatra film of the same name. But while the 1954 original is a treatise on guns and war and their effects on society, this 2013 remake is a moronic action movie created specifically to give erections to Republicans. Any wonder – it’s directed by Uwe “Toilet” Boll, the groovy … Read More
SUDDENLY
Suddenly Moral Ambiguity. An assassination attempt on the president of the United States – by Ol’ Blue Eyes! In a bucolic American town named SUDDENLY, three men posing as FBI take a residential family hostage, using the family’s house as a vantage point to assassinate the president. Frank Sinatra (FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, 1953) is John Baron, the crazy-eyed leader … Read More