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NIGHTSTREAM 2020: ’BLOODY HELL’ Crosses Australian Horror and ‘Iron Man’ to Excellent Effect

Australian horror movies have no qualms pushing buttons. Sean Byrne’s underrated classic The Loved Ones took teenage romantic obsession to new extremes. Wolf Creek toyed with audiences accustomed to a sense of justice within the slasher genre. Even The Babadook featured one of the most grating children in cinematic history. Buttons. Were. Pushed. Bloody Hell, the brainchild of writer Robert Benjamin and director Alister Grierson, follows proudly in the grand tradition of Australian horror, remarking upon the genre in irreverent fashion while adding a more-than-worthwhile entry to its growing legion. Read More

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NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Haunting ’32 MALASAÑA STREET’ Delivers Effective Spanish Frights

It’s 1976 and the Olmedo family has decided to uproot their lives, moving from the countryside to the hustle and bustle of Madrid. Little do they know that their new flat comes furnished not only with sofas and dusty photographs but a malevolent spirit set on making their transition harder than they could have ever imagined. This slick and spooky Spanish-language supernatural-thriller takes interest in the human element and horror alike, calling to mind movies like The Conjuring and Haunting of Hill House and delivering scares with an international appeal.  Read More

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NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Atmospheric Horror Game Adaptation ’DETENTION’ Left Me Cold

John Hsu’s Detention gives a horror movie makeover to Taiwan’s darkest moment in history. Taking place during the country’s period known as the “White Terror”, a 38-year period of martial law where 140,000 alleged “political dissidents” were jailed and countless others executed by the state, Detention attempts to mix dark fantastical elements in with real-world political histories much like Guillermo del Toro did with the Spanish Civil War in Pan’s Labyrinth. The end result here is much, much less effective.  Read More

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NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Rancid ‘HUNTED’ A Sadistic Episode of Pointless Cruelty and Unchecked Misogyny

French writer-director Vincent Paronnaud’s (Persepolis) fetid attempt to pair art house with meat grinder results in one of the worst films of the year: Hunted. An impotent rape-revenge fairy tale, which borders on snuff with its malignant streak of cruelty and misogyny, Hunted takes form as a woman (Lucie Debay) is chased through the woods by two psychopathic men.  Issuing threats to “f*ck her to death”, the sexually violent antagonist (played with deranged glee by Christian Bronchart) spends the feature screaming at our heroine that she’s a “f*cking whore” or “f*cking slut”. Charming.

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Trailer for Sundance Immigrant Horror ‘HIS HOUSE’ Fears Racism, Ghosts

One of the most anticipated debuts of Sundance 2020, first-time UK filmmaker Remi Weekes’ His House centers around a Sudanese couple seeking asylum in a small English town. The film was met with critical adoration at the fest, earning an unblemished 100% Rotten Tomato score with many critics pointing out the thematic similarities to Jordan Peele’s cultural conversation pieces Get Out and Us. This first trailer looks to explore the intersectionality between the immigrant experience and traditional horror settings, using a mandated “stay at home” order to cement the long standing issue from horror audiences questioning why “X character doesn’t just leave.” Read More

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Brilliantly Offbeat ‘KAJILLIONAIRE’ A Singular Work of Weirdo Wonder 

Everyone wants to be a kajillionaire but not Robert (Richard Jenkins), Theresa (Debra Winger) and Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Woods). They just want to skim enough off the top to make ends meet. And skim they do. From mail theft to check forgery, stealing bottles of Voss from the First Class section to hawking free massage coupons, this nuclear trio of grifters is always on the scent of their next scam. But with the clock ticking on a $1,500 debt, the criminal parents turn to a new recruit, taking an outsider under their wing to one-up their grifts, much to the chagrin of the socially awkward Old Dolio.  Read More

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‘ANTEBELLUM’ Connects the Dots Between Black Past and Present

It was all a dream. A nightmare rather. But co-writer and director Gerard Bush ran with the nightmare nonetheless, developing his vision of a slave named Eden with co-writer and director Christopher Renz into the provocative, pointed and somewhat problematic dystopian thriller that is Antebellum. Antebellum, which refers to the period right before a civil war (especially the American Civil War), is a movie with a lot on its mind.  Read More

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A Family Plagued by Ambition Suffers Silently In Brooding Drama ’THE NEST’

It wasn’t until about halfway through The Nest that I started to question what the latest film from Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene) was really about. Best described as an uncomfortable familial drama, Durkin’s feature is set in the high-stakes world of status chasing. Perched in the periphery of a patriarch’s quest for large sums of money from his Trans-Contential business dealings, The Nest’s emotional center is a family suffering the ambitions of a father and his vacuous pursuit of wealth and status.  Read More

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X-Men Franchise Dies A Final Death With Disposable Super-Teen Flick ‘THE NEW MUTANTS’

Fox’s often venerated (and occasionally lampooned) X-Men quasi-continuity goes out with a whimper with the young-adult-led nonstarter that is The New Mutants. The 20-year old franchise has seen watermarks high and low, witness to its share of failed entires (The Last Stand, Origins: Wolverine and Apocalypse to name a few offenders) balanced out by a handful of genre-defining classics (X2, First Class, Logan). At the end of the era comes not a new low so much as a defeated shrug, as there has never been an entry that felt more identity-drained and inert than Josh Boone’s final death knell. But that’s not necessarily the sole fault of the writer-director.  Read More

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Blockbusting Bore ‘TENET’ Revels In Nolan’s Worst Instincts

Christopher Nolan’s fascination with time as a storytelling variable is well-documented throughout his filmography. In his breakout indie hit Memento, the story of John G and his murdered wife ran backwards with consecutive scenes taking place before what we have just watched; with Inception, dreams within dreams meant that different levels of the film’s universe occurred at different speeds creating a kind of temporal layer cake; and most recently, Dunkirk saw a major military event unfold over land, sea, and air in a matter of a week, a day and an hour, respectively, the various timelines intersecting and blending into one another. And the less said about Interstellar, wherein Nolan got all mushy over time and love, the better. This obsession with time as a resource and narrative centerpiece has finally gotten the best of Nolan in Tenet, an overblown blockbuster absolutely suffocated by tricks, bloated by exposition and wholly lacking in a human touch.  Read More