horror
Reborn review - horror on the Hollywood skidsSaturday, 16 May 2020
The Frankenstein-style, electrical storm-sparked resurrection of a dead baby in a hospital morgue, and her theft by its creepy attendant, is followed by a homage to Stephen King’s supernaturally potent teenagers, from Carrie to Firestarter, in a... Read more... |
Why Don't You Just Die! review - Russian rouletteFriday, 17 April 2020
It’s hard to feel sympathy for a young man plotting to stove his prospective father-in-law’s head in with a hammer. But when Matvei (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) discovers his quarry is bull-necked cop Andrei (Vitaliy Khaev), this simple plan inevitably... Read more... |
The Platform review - timely, violent and effectiveSaturday, 04 April 2020
Horror has always been a good vehicle for satire, from John Carpenter’s They Live to Jordan Peele’s Get Out. Some metaphors opt for the subtle precision of a surgical knife, and others the hit you over the head. The Platform on Netflix is the latter... Read more... |
Bacurau review – way-out westernThursday, 02 April 2020
After his two mysterious, tightly-coiled and idiosyncratic first features, Neighbouring Sounds and Aquarius, the masterful Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho lets his hair down with an exhilarating, all-guns-blazing... Read more... |
Vivarium review – housing ladder to hellFriday, 27 March 2020
Imagine being trapped in your perfect home forever. It’s easy if you try now, as Vivarium’s allegory about property and parenthood is deepened by events. Following young couple Gemma (Imogen Poots) and Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) through a Black Mirror-... Read more... |
The Lighthouse review - shiver me timbersThursday, 30 January 2020
A creepy lighthouse on a remote island, a blistering storm, a mermaid languishing on the shore and two fabulously bewhiskered actors chewing up the scenery like there’s no tomorrow. The Lighthouse feels like it’s been washed up in a bottle... Read more... |
The Grudge review - non-stop shocks wear out their welcomeThursday, 23 January 2020
The 18-year-old Japanese horror hit Ju-On (The Grudge) was remade once before, as – yes – The Grudge (2004), with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Now it's re-rebooted in this stylishly photographed but fatally crass incarnation directed by Nicolas Pesce, who... Read more... |
The Outsider, Sky Atlantic review - double trouble in small-town GeorgiaTuesday, 21 January 2020
Stephen King’s novels have generated an impressive lineage of successful adaptations. This HBO treatment (on Sky Atlantic) of his 2018 novel The Outsider, developed by Richard Price and featuring screenwriting input from Dennis Lehane, is shaping up... Read more... |
Dracula, BBC One review - horrific, and not in a good wayThursday, 02 January 2020
“Bela Lugosi’s dead,” as Bauhaus sang, in memory of the star of 1931’s Dracula. But of course death has never been an impediment to the career of the enfanged Transylvanian blood-sucker. Filmed and televisualised almost as frequently as Sherlock... Read more... |
Ghost Quartet, Boulevard Theatre review - a beguiling journey into the beyondFriday, 01 November 2019
London’s latest new theatre opens with an appropriately otherworldly Halloween offering: American composer Dave Malloy’s teeming 2014 song cycle, which played at the Edinburgh Festival in 2016. It’s a superb piece for demonstrating the benefits of... Read more... |
Doctor Sleep review - heartfelt return to the Overlook HotelWednesday, 30 October 2019
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining ended in ice, Stephen King’s in fire which consumed the Overlook Hotel. King’s frightening, emotionally rich novel was written by an alcoholic about an alcoholic, Jack Torrance, and his suffering family. Kubrick’s film... Read more... |
The Addams Family review - more treat than trickFriday, 25 October 2019
Starting life as a comic strip in 1938, The Addams Family seems to have reinvented itself for every generation. It’s the story of an odd-ball family from ‘The old country’ (where that is geographically located is by-the-by), who love the grim and... Read more... |
