Monster Summer is a nostalgic 90s horror flick that sets out to capture the attention of the whole family. It seems very rare that a ‘scary’ film actually pulls off a multi-generational appeal but director David Henrie and writers Cornelius Uliano and Bryan Schulz do just that: it’s spooky, fun and won’t give your children nightmares, well, too many. It’s sort of like The Goonies meets Scooby Doo....
Ed Berger’s Conclave is interesting. It may be tempting to skip a pontificating deep-dive into the ritual process of electing a new Pope, for fear of ponce and boredom. However, Conclave keeps its head above water for two hours by exploring the various ambitious tom foolery and backstabbing those left clutching the rosary will get up to, to be elected for the top job. Half the priests in the room ...
Star-studded and stuffed with promise, The Critic should be a recipe for an engaging and delicious murder mystery but unfortunately its debut has been met with some pertinent critique of its own. Loosely based Curtain Call, a novel by Anthony Quinn, and directed by Anand Tucker, The Critic stars Sir Ian McKellen as Jimmy Erskine, a cruel queer critique of theatre, based at the Daily Chronicle, and...
In Adam Cooper’s directorial debut Sleeping Dogs, Russell Crowe (Gladiator, Virtuosity) plays Roy. A retired Washington county homicide detective. Based on the novel The Book of Mirrors with screenplay co-written by Cooper. Roy is vulnerable and grizzled, battling Alzheimer’s disease and recovering from an experimental procedure to stimulate regrowth of neural pathways. This part of the narr...
Writer/Director Mark Leonard Winter brings audiences his debut The Rooster. A contemporary psychological drama set amongst the backdrop of an isolated, Australian forest community. On opening, two things are obvious. One, The Rooster is a visual treat. Masterful shots showcase the gorgeous landscape of rural Victoria. Two, you’re either going to ignore or be frustrated by the often distracting and...
Retribution is an ordinary action movie that takes no risk, offering little reward. The film is produced by Studio Canal, directed by Nimród Antal, starring Liam Neeson. This review will be short, thankfully, much like the one hour and thirty-minute runtime of this flick. Retribution isn’t the worst action movie, but it’s safe to say it’s the second-worst action movie of 2023. I&...
Infinity Pool, the most recent film from Brandon Cronenberg, is a twisted extended metaphor for the trappings of luxury and inner darkness we all harbour, with some graphic and artfully kaleidoscopic sex scenes thrown in for good measure. It is set on a fictional island that seems to be a pastiche of various locations around the globe that have been exploited by the super rich as they construct hy...
Julius Avery and Russell Crowe invite us to the mouth of hell to witness a bipolar cinematic spectacle. With 2018’s Overlord, Avery proved his talent for directing pulpy action horror films. The Pope’s Exorcist is more of the same, without the full metal jacket and with a few doses of comedy. The film as a whole can’t decide exactly what it is supposed to be, but as a piece of entertaining popcorn...
The first Sidney Prescott-less Scream instalment re-locates the carnage to the Big Apple, cranks up the number of stab wounds, and revels in murder memorabilia in this satisfying entry in the long-running horror series that is proving hard to kill. Buckle in, there is some ground to cover. It’s a year after the Scream ’22 killing spree and survivors Sam (Melissa Barrera), her younger h...
On the big screen since February 2nd, Universal Pictures and M. Night Shyamalan (Signs, The Village) invites you to witness the apocalypse. Knock at the Cabin demands an hour and forty minutes of your time, perhaps as the credits roll you may wish it really was the end of the world. Based on Paul Tremblay’s 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World, the film takes a few liberties, becoming some...
From Ana Lily Amirpour, acclaimed director of a film about a dangerous girl who punishes bad people with her fangs, comes Mona Lisa And The Blood Moon, a film about a dangerous girl who punishes bad people with her mind. Starring Jeon Jong-seo as the eponymous heroine, Craig Robinson as the cop pursuing her and Kate Hudson as you’ve never seen her, this is a highly enjoyable neon-soaked romp that ...
Don’t Worry Darling is the latest film from Actor/Director Olivia Wilde. Following the success of 2019’s Booksmart, Wilde turns her attention to telling a much darker story – This time in the form of a psychological thriller. The film is about the lives of a seemingly perfect couple – Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) – who live in the ideal suburban community of ‘Vic...
