Film
Fantasia Festival Review: The Mortuary Collection
If you want to make a good horror film then it’s important to choose a suitable backdrop. Cabins in woods and very old houses are particular favourites with genre filmmakers around the world. If you’re going to tell a story then you need an atmospheric and complimentary setting. Given the clientele, mortuaries have also proved …
Film Review: Random Acts of Violence
Violence is seemingly everywhere in the modern world, seeping into every aspect of our culture. In our books, comics, video games, films, TV and all over the internet. Turn on the news and you’re never too far away from it. The argument that violent movies, comics or computer games act as catalysts for barbarism has …
Fantasia Festival Review: Feels Good Man
Anyone who spends time on the internet, especially on social media or somewhere like 4Chan, will know what a meme is. If you would have told me 20 years ago that people around the world would go crazy for the simple combination of an image and catchphrase, I would have just laughed at you. However, …
Film Review: Ava
It’s certainly not easy growing up as a teenage girl in the modern world, regardless of where you live. You probably feel assailed from every side. If it’s not the media’s relentless obsession towards beauty and perfection or the toxic social media, it’s boys being utter twerps. At least growing up in a Western democracy …
Fantasia Festival Review: Clapboard Jungle
The internet is an unforgiving place at the best of times. For every person championing a new film there seems to be five others intent on pulling it down. Nowhere is more toxic than ‘#filmtwitter’, but it has to be said that some critics don’t exactly cover themselves in glory. It’s easy just to pick …
Fantasia Festival Review: Free Country
It has become commonplace today for American studios to remake successful films from around the world. As we’re sadly all too aware, it usually doesn’t end well. The list of appalling, dreadful, poor or simply pointless plastic Hollywood ‘re-imaginings’ is as long as your arm. However, there are relatively few European remakes. Christian Alvart’s new …
Fantasia Festival Review – The Columnist
In the beginning, the internet was a magic and mysterious place. A place where you could connect with people around the world at the touch of a button. Where information and excitement was only a dial-up away. Then it all went to shit. Whilst the ability to consume and share is now easier than ever, …
Fantasia Festival Review: Sleep
(If we’re lucky) We spend a significant proportion of our lives asleep. To function properly, it is estimated that an adult requires between seven to nine hours of sleep per night. However, for many of us this is more of a dream than an achievable reality. Especially given our increasingly sedentary lifestyles which revolve more …
Fantasia Festival Review: Fried Barry
Drugs are bad for you. Fairly obvious, I know, but it’s a fact that is regularly being reinforced by cinema. The Hollywood narrative is such that characters who are addicts or dealers are almost certainly going to meet a grizzly end. Occasionally, a film comes along which manages to accurately capture the essence of addiction. …
Fantasia Festival Review: Yummy
Whilst cosmetic surgery feels like something which should have stayed in the 20th century, it’s still as popular as ever today. Our obsession with perfection and eternal youth is even more insipid than ever. Given the ethics and debates around these ‘improvements’, it has provided fertile ground for genre filmmakers. Rabid, Goodnight Mommy and Seconds …