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NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Surreal and Disappointing ‘LUCKY’ Bungles Its Message of Female Dread 

Director Natasha Kermani is onto an intriguing germ of an idea with Lucky, a message movie masquerading as a thriller, but the execution is simply not there. The film stars Brea Grant as May, an author of a feminist-forward business series, who is assaulted nightly by a masked man. Her distant husband is bizarrely disinterested in the attacks and the police treat them as almost meaningless happenstance. Kermani obviously wants to explore the notion that women are confronted with a world constantly at odds with female safety, where public and private spaces alike are feeding grounds for male predators, and instances of assault are met with apathy and assigned a normalcy that’s both disturbing and omnipresent. Between unconvincing performances (from Grant down through the supporting cast list) and a repetitive cycling of events with fails to capitalize on the threat of invasion of space in creative and varied ways, Lucky ends up being an idea in search of a movie; the mere shadow of something potentially interesting. (C-) Read More

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NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Bad Dad Exploits Power Dynamics In Discomforting Coming of Age Thriller ’DARKNESS’

The perfect Italian hybrid of Dogtooth and 10 Cloverfield Lane, Darkness (original title, Buio) creates an insular world where fiction rules over fact. Stella (Denise Tantucci) and her two younger sisters Luce (Gaia Bocci) and the mute Aria (Olimpia Tosatto) live under their father’s (Valerio Binasco) tyrannical rule. In their countryside home, he has them convinced that the apocalypse has arrived, the sun scalding people’s eyes out and causing their skin and limbs to burn away. The young girls must remain literally and metaphorically in the dark. Read More

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NIGHTSTREAM 2020: Geriatric Satanists Will Do ‘ANYTHING FOR JACKSON’

There’s little in the world of Hollywood and Holly-would-be more fascinating than a director breaking out of their wheelhouse to make something completely unexpected. Think Mike Nichols’ shift from directing critical darlings like The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf to “slum it” with the campy horror outing Wolf; or Mad Max franchise director George Miller shifting gears to direct the talking pig sequel Babe: Pig in the City; or filmmaker royalty Francis Ford Coppola coming down from Godfather and Apocalypse Now acclaim to direct the family-friendly Robin Williams vehicle Jack.  Read More

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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: 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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‘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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Trauma (and Push-Pins) Are Buried Deep in Cringy ‘SWALLOW’ 

An experience that’s both lurid and cathartic, Swallow is not the movie you think it’s going to be and yet its unpredictable journey is one that’s well worth taking. Focused on sedate young housewife Hunter’s relationship with her family, old and new, and her newfound habit for swallowing non-food objects (a psychological disorder called ‘pica’ that gives people an appetite for normally ”inedible” things like cat hair or pins and needles), Swallow is a delicately-told, well-acted, and often-cringe-inducing tale of identity and reclamation at death-defying costs.  Read More

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Believing Women and The Power of ‘THE INVISIBLE MAN’

The idiom of the wolf in sheep’s clothing is a particularly terrifying one. By virtue of his unassuming appearance, the predator becomes non-threatening. He can hide in plain sight and hunt with all the privilege of inconspicuousness. If looks could kill. The only thing worse than a predator in sheep’s skin is one with no skin at all. Those who lurk not in the shadows, but in the light of the lord. Luring the unsuspecting into their hidden traps. Predators do live among us but thankfully they are visible. With visibility comes consequence, accountability. The hunters have to at least make an effort to conceal their predatory behavior. We can, at the very least, see their fangs. And we can fight back. Read More