Grimmfest
Grimmfest Review: Vesper
Science fiction is one of the difficult genres to get right on the big screen, particularly when it’s an adaptation of an existing property. The biggest hurdle to cross is world building. Fans of a book, or series of books, will already have their own ideas and impressions, so managing and meeting expectations is extremely …
Grimmfest Review: The Harbinger
Those of us in the West are fortuitous to be living in an unusually stable period of history. While the current pandemic has shaken the world in ways which were unimaginable just a few years ago, epidemics used to be commonplace. During outbreaks of the bubonic plague, towns hired plague doctors. These were often second-rate …
Grimmfest Review: Malibu Horror Story
Found footage remains one of the most popular areas of modern genre cinema. Spurred by the success of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, this century has seen a raft of films vying for the attention of horror fans. Filmmakers drawn by the relatively low production costs. In the majority of cases, they’ve fallen …
Grimmfest Review: Moon Garden
Relationships are hard. They require a lot of work and the person you were madly in love with just a year ago could now be your sworn enemy. Communication is key, but it’s far too easy to let petty differences build up until this becomes the hardest thing to do. The catalyst for such difficulties …
Grimmfest Review: Candy Land
When the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England, it held the promise of a brand-new life for those onboard. The Pilgrims (or Pilgrim Fathers) landed in the New World with a determination to establish a new form of Christianity. Their puritanical brand of worship set them apart, but today this has morphed into something much …
Grimmfest Review: Holy Shit!
It seems to follow that first time directors, usually for financial reasons, often confine their shoot to as few locations as possible. After climbing the ladder and receiving more financial backing, they tend to quickly expand their horizons; using multiple locations and digital effects. This doesn’t, for one second, mean that the film is likely …
Grimmfest Review: Magalomaniac
If you’re a fan of Netflix’s slick and stylish true crime dramas, you’ve probably noticed how bright and crisp they tend to be. Serial killers living in either spotless houses or in designer detritus. In reality, the picture tends to be a lot more squalid. While the base facts of the murders don’t change, the …
Grimmfest Easter Review: The Family
When Europeans made the long and dangerous journey across the Atlantic Ocean to the new world, they took their religion with them. Indeed, in many cases the more puritanical elements saw it as a great opportunity to practice their beliefs in peace. Numerous communities sprung up, drawn together by their piety. Often becoming fanatical and …
Grimmfest Easter Review: Post Mortem
The scientific and lay world have been fascinated with near death experiences for hundreds of years. In the same way we humans are overly preoccupied with our own mortality, our curiosity around the concept of an afterlife often gets the better of us. The desperation to believe that there’s something more than this mortal realm …
Grimmfest Review: Blast
Hollywood seems to be obsessed with making big budget action movies which are overloaded with ludicrous set-pieces, vastly overpaid stars and plotlines which could be written on the back of a cigarette packet. All covered in lashings and lashings of obtrusive and often terrible CGI. There’s an obsession with bigger and louder. However, some of …