Smile 2 ★★★ SMILE was a sleeper hit in 2022 thanks to a slightly interesting premise and, more importantly, a clever viral marketing effort. The potentially disturbing nature of a smiling person isn’t new – it’s the premise of every scary clown – and neither is the idea of passing […]

Smile for the sequel

The Monkey ★★★ IF IT wasn’t for The Substance, Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs would likely have been my favourite horror film of 2024. The son of Anthony, returns this year with a more comedic approach in The Monkey, based on a Stephen King short story. Unless you thought Nic Cage’s performance […]

Monkeying around with Osgood

It’s a Wonderful Knife ★★ THE praise for It’s a Wonderful Knife mystifies me. The idea of a modern take on the much-loved 1946 Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life is fine – I’m not precious about that. But in trying to merge horror, comedy and social commentary into […]

It’s not a wonderful film

Captain America: Brave New World ★★★ THE fourth instalment in the Captain America film series is the weakest. Captain America: Brave New World isn’t a bad film by any means; it’s pretty entertaining throughout and has some decent action. It also features a good performance from Harrison Ford whose on-screen […]

Cap bravely enters new world

Boundless ★★★ BOUNDLESS is the sixth film adaptation of the Department Q book series by Danish crime writer Jussi Adler-Olsen. I haven’t seen the last one, 2021’s The Marco Effect, but this latest effort is not as entertaining or suspenseful as the first three films. It has a new director, […]

Department Q loses key staff member

Black Bag ★★★½ IT’S not often that we see two films by the same director released in just over a month. But Steven Soderbergh has always marched to the beat of his own drum and, in these days of constant safe sequels and remakes, we should be thankful for that. […]

Old-school spy thriller from prolific Soderbergh

September 5 ★★★½ DESPITE being Oscar and Golden Globe nominated (for Best Original Screenplay and Best Drama Film respectively) September 5 passed through Australian cinemas with little fanfare. It’s a very well-made, written and acted thriller, fascinating for journalists but perhaps a little too talky for many viewers. Directed by […]

Story behind iconic Munich coverage

Dark Match ★★★ WE’VE seen quite a few wrestlers in horror films but not too many wrestling-based horror films. Usually they are B-grade straight-to-video efforts of dubious quality. Canadian film Dark Match, however, is a notch above and can currently be found on the Shudder streaming service. While it’s still […]

Horror of a match

The Terminator ★★★★ LET’S get the big questions out of the way first. In 2029 John Connor knows that he was born in 1984 to Sarah Connor. John sends his lieutenant Kyle Reese back to 1984 to stop the Terminator which has also been sent back to 1984 by Skynet […]

Terminator bridges the time gap

The Gorge ★★★ AMERICAN director Scott Derrickson has given us four pretty decent horror films to date – The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister, Deliver Us from Evil and Black Phone. With The Gorge (2025) Derrickson shifts his horror focus from the supernatural to science fiction and adds a heap […]

Chemistry across the gorge

Black Site ★★ DURING 2022 the Australian film industry benefitted to a degree from our physical isolation. While countries like the United States were struggling to emerge from the Covid pandemic, Australia had an easier hill to climb. That meant some US films could still be made on our shores. […]

Cast can’t save Black Site

Babygirl ★★★ BOY, some people really don’t like Nicole Kidman. If I had a dollar for everyone who has told me they don’t watch anything with her in it, I would probably have about $30. As well as being polarising, Kidman is a very interesting actress whom you cannot say shies […]

Kidman’s not kidding around