Jesse O’Brien’s horror/comedy Two Heads Creek aims to tackle the swelling issue of racism and nationalism in Australia and the United Kingdom through the most unusual of means: cannibalism. Though it’s hard not to appreciate the attempt, Two Heads Creek’s absurd premise often overtakes the seriousness of the threat posed by racism and nationalism.
By: Jolie Featherstone If Alice in Wonderland was a tarot card, its inverse would be The Dinner Party.
In The Invisible Man, the titular character – once a spooky Universal Classic Monster – receives a contemporary reimagining by writer/director Leigh Whannell.
Extra Ordinary, a horror-comedy from Irish filmmakers Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman, is loaded with ideas, concepts, and gags. But while these bits are funny individually, they don’t collectively contribute to an overarching story.
Abominable (not to be confused with last year’s animated film) is a film that I know I’m going to watch more than once, but that isn’t to say it’s good.
The year is 1988. Floods of teenagers flock to a Midwestern heavy metal concert despite controversies sparked by unidentified Satanists on a murder spree and the region’s fearmongering Bible Belt. A trio of rowdy friends (Alexandra Daddario, Maddie Hasson, Amy Forsyth) have a run-in with a group of aspiring metal musicians (Keean Johnson, Logan Miller, Austin Swift). Both parties have a rocky start with each other, but the head-banging camaraderie in the air is enough…
What is the point of making a found footage film when it is surrounded by a traditional narrative style? Not like Cannibal Holocaust, where the traditional style was used as a framing device to present the found footage, but rather a traditional narrative that occasionally cuts to a shot from the point-of-view of a camera with a red record signal in the corner. With Marcel Walz’s Rootwood, there isn’t even a documentary concept surrounding the whole thing, as…
The possession horror sub-genre has become a formula. A normal family suddenly starts experiencing disturbing behaviour (usually from a child) that can only be described as otherworldly, cueing a priest or a similar follower of the good word to go through with an exorcism. It’s the job of the production to rise above this predictability to offer audiences individual strengths (creepy imagery and atmospheric scares, sometimes a scene-stealing performance like Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s in The…
Greenlight works as a thriller, but I can also see it being a cathartic outlet for student filmmakers looking to cut their teeth in an exclusive industry.
What role does the precarity of labour play in young people choosing to take on dangerous jobs? In the #MeToo era, how does one go about separating an artist’s actions from their work? Is anonymity possible in the 21st century? What is the difference between violence and a simulation of violence? If unethical acts lead to brilliant art, is it ethical to consume the art? What do these questions have in common? Well, for one, they…