horror
Joseph Walsh
The debate about whether violent films cause violent acts has been around for decades. From Mary Whitehouse’s puritanical crusade against films such as The Exorcist, to recent movies like Joker, pundits, columnists and even psychiatrists have wrangled over whether what we watch adversely influences our behaviour. And it’s often the horror genre that takes the brunt of the debate. Now actor-turned-director/screenwriter, Jay Baruchel wades in with his highly stylised slasher that seeks to unpick this complex problem. You might not expect the man who voiced Hiccup in the How Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
The timing couldn’t be more perfect for a series like Lovecraft Country (Sky Atlantic) in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. Here we have a spectacular show in which fantasy, horror and America’s racist legacy collide with remarkable results.Adapted from the 2016 novel by Matt Ruff, it depicts the journey of a black family in Jim Crow-era America. Across 10 episodes, they must not only survive encounters with supernatural monsters straight from the work of the father of Cosmic Horror, HP Lovecraft, but also contend with real monsters, like racist cops in sundown towns, Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Stylish, eerie and unexpectedly moving by the time of its apocalyptic finish, the strangely titled Good Manners makes for a genuine celluloid surprise. Written and directed by Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, this genre-defying Brazilian film suggests a peculiar amalgam of Angela Carter and Jean Genet, with dollops here and there of The Exorcist and even a brief nod towards Alien.The pregnant Ana (a sad-eyed Marjorie Estiano) finds herself falling for her baby’s serene-seeming nanny, Clara (a transfixing Isabél Zuaa). That the newborn turns out to be a werewolf sends Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Was witchhood a vocation in the Middle Ages or, as seems more likely, a charge levelled at sick or troublesome women by superstitious neighbours anxious to be rid of them? One of the merits of the gravely beautiful folk horror film Hagazussa is the way it shows a young Alpine woman of the 15th century committing unspeakable acts not because occult practices run in her family, as the locals believe, but because she is psychotic.The Austrian writer-director Lukas Feigelfeld’s full-length debut begins with the pre-pubescent Albrun (Celina Peter) observing the agonising decline of her middle-aged Read more ...
Nick Hasted
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 threadbare horror with consistent, curious ideas about its own B-movie realm.British director Julian Richards’ debut was the similarly meta and mediocre serial killer flick The Last Horror Movie. Here, as grown-up, corpse-grey, lightning-powered Tess discovers mum is a B-movie actress, Lena O’Neal (Barbara Crampton, pictured below), who’s shakily Read more ...
Nick Hasted
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 suffers violent complications. The ensuing sustained, gruesome slapstick recalls early Sam Raimi, as the antagonists swing a hammer, TV and power drill, sustaining cartoon damage. But Russian director Kirill Sokolov’s wittily grisly debut is about more than mayhem.His claustrophobic premise is skilfully expanded with character-building flashbacks Read more ...
Owen Richards
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, a brutal, blunt and effective sledgehammer.The concept is straight from a high school philosophy allegory. A vertical prison, with two cellmates per level. At the very top, a lavish feast is prepared on a platform every day. It passes through every level, inmates desperately eating their fill before it lowers down. The further down you are, the Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
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 venture into genre. Bacurau is equal parts spaghetti western, ultra-violent horror and political conspiracy, with a dash of sci-fi for good measure. While paying homage to John Carpenter, Sergio Leone and Eastwood, among others, it also evokes a rich period of Brazil’s own film lore and, as ever with Filho, offers commentary on Read more ...
Nick Hasted
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-style real estate nightmare, it constructs a creepy alternative suburbia which tests their relationship to destruction.Director Lorcan Finnegan’s first image is the unsettling alien maw of a cuckoo, as it tosses rival birds from their nest. “It’s only horrible sometimes,” keen primary school teacher Gemma says of nature to a watching child, before Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
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, a film from another time with a story sprung from ghost stories or nightmares.The American writer/director Robert Eggers really knows how to create mystery and a particular sense of unease. He follows his outstanding debut, the pre-Salem horror film The Witch, with another deeply atmospheric concoction, which doesn’t really feel like horror Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
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 is of the view that if something is scary once, keep repeating it ad nauseam.It’s the story of number 44 Reyburn Drive in Cross River, Pennsylvania, a house cursed with a spirit of murderous rage. This passes on to anyone who enters, having made its way to the USA from Tokyo by attaching itself to Fiona Landers (Tara Westwood), who, rather Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
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 as one of the best TV incarnations. If the first two episodes established an atmosphere of pervasive horror and dread, this third one began to lure the realistically-drawn world of Cherokee City, Georgia further into King’s familiar supernatural territory.It’s a town metaphorically shot in black and white, where nothing cheerful ever looks likely Read more ...