Never Let Go ★★★ FRENCH director Alexandre Aja’s Hollywood experience hasn’t been entirely successful, Yes, I’m sure he has made a nice living from films like Piranha 3D and Crawl, but critically he’s been a little disappointing. Aja burst onto the horror scene in 2003 with the great High Tension […]

Never Let Go sees Aja back in some form

The Boondock Saints ★★★½ VIGILANTE thriller The Boondock Saints is all over the place in many ways, but still a very enjoyable watch. Since its initial 1999 release when it flopped at the box office, this American/Canadian film has slowly achieved cult status to the extent that it spawned a […]

Oddball vigilante tale has cult status

Excision ★★★½ FOR some reason it wasn’t until the last year or so that I started noticing the striking cover for a horror film called Excision. Perhaps it coincided with a belated release for this 2012 American film on streaming services. Anyway, Richard Bates Jnr’s debut feature is an entertaining […]

Excision’s bloody brand of comedy

Prey ★★ WHAT kind of a film about lion attacks doesn’t show any lion attacks? Answer: A faith-based one. Prey (2024) is billed as an action thriller but provides little of either. Ryan Phillippe and Mena Suvari play a husband and wife forced to leave their Christian missionary station after […]

Prey a ham-fisted faith thriller

Kid Snow ★★★½ THE Australian film Kid Snow is advertised as a sports drama but it’s more of a romantic one. That doesn’t take anything away from the film, however, which has authentic atmosphere and natural drama and showcases two good young actors in Billy Howle and Phoebe Tonkin. It’s […]

A sporting romance

Butchers ★★½ Butchers Book Two: Raghorn ★★½ NOTES made while watching the 2020 Canadian slashers Butchers and its 2024 sequel . ‘Filmed OK. Looks decent.’ ‘Chapter names? Pretentious.’ ‘’One decent performance – by the guy playing the main villain (Simon Phillips).’ ‘Good ending. At least different with no final girl.’ […]

Canadian slasher makes it to a trilogy

Rebel Ridge ★★★ ACTION thriller Rebel Ridge is a bit of a departure for writer/director Jeremy Saulnier. The best known of his previous four films, 2013’s Blue Ruin and Green Room (2015), are hard-edged in look and execution and feature sudden scenes of strong violence. Rebel Ridge is a slightly […]

Saulnier tones down the violence

AfrAId ★★½ BE prepared for a growing number of horror films using the premise of a threat from Artificial Intelligence. The sequel to M3GAN is on the way and another entry, Subservience, is also out now, along with AfrAId from Blumhouse. Korean actor John Cho continues his interest in horror […]

Not much to be AfrAID of

Joika  ★★★ A KIWI making a Polish film about an American dancer in Russia. Sounds like a possible recipe for disaster but writer/director James Napier Robertson manages to give us a throughly interesting and entertaining film. It helps of course that Joika is based on the actual experience of ballerina Joy […]

Ballet drama mostly en pointe

The Yakuza ★★★ ROBERT Mitchum was one of Hollywood’s original hard men. Two stints in prison adds to that kind of reputation. Despite sometimes looking like he didn’t give a damn about his chosen profession, the laconic Mitchum was a star for 30-odd years. His under-stated but enigmatic acting style […]

Laconic Mitchum one of Hollywood’s hard men

Alien: Romulus ★★★ BEING handed the keys to the Alien franchise is a big deal. You will be working in the shadows of Ridley Scott, James Cameron and David Fincher so you better bring your A Game. Young Uraguayan writer/director Fede Alvarez knew his limitations when he started creating Alien: […]

Fede revels in Alien assignment

A Different Man ★★★½ AARON Schimberg’s A Different Man may not be the best film of 2024, but it is certainly one of the most interesting. Shot over just a few weeks in New York, it’s the sort of experimental film that you might have seen during the rich movie […]

A different type of film