Review: ‘Saint Frances’ is an honest look at adulthood

Saint Frances

The myth of the adult having their lives together is a pervasive one. We all create personas for ourselves and project outwardly that we are in control, that we have goals and a life we love, and most importantly: that we’re ok. Of course, many of aren’t ok. Maybe even most of us.

Saint Frances, the story of an aimless thirty-something who takes a summer job as a nanny, is a story about how people don’t have their shit together and might be one of the most honest films I’ve seen in ages.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Saint Frances’ is an honest look at adulthood”

VAFF Review: ‘Secret Zoo’ is a great idea that falls a little flat

Secret Zoo

How do you save a zoo when you have no animals? ‘Secret Zoo”s answer to that central question – let’s dress up as animals and pretend – would be ideal fare for Edgar Wright or Shinichiro Ueda to turn into a heartfelt, zany adventure that builds to a glorious climax. Unfortunately, even though it’s a great concept with moments of brilliant execution, the frequent drops in pace serve just to tantalizingly dangle what might have been.

Continue reading “VAFF Review: ‘Secret Zoo’ is a great idea that falls a little flat”

VAFF Review: ‘Curtain Up!’ is a wonderful reminder of the vital importance of the arts

There’s some important context here: I trained as an actor, then director, then slipped into being a drama teacher for stage and screen. In the UK I taught young adults, but my first teaching job when I moved to Vancouver was at a Korean residential school. Here, I was one of a small team who had to teach performance skills to a throng of nine-year-old Korean kids, then direct them in a final performance (first The Wizard Of Oz, then High School Musical) for all their families. It was a wonderful, exhausting time, and there’s nothing to underline the absolute life-changing power of theatre then to watch young actors discover it in real time.

So go and watch ‘Curtain Up!‘, not just because it’s fantastic, but also because you’ll have a precise peek into that exact part of my life.

Continue reading “VAFF Review: ‘Curtain Up!’ is a wonderful reminder of the vital importance of the arts”

VAFF Review: ‘The Closet’ is a terrifying story of botched parenthood, told through a mix of genres

The Closet

From a very early point, you’re under no illusion as to what is going on in ‘The Closet‘, the first feature by Korean director Kwang-bin Kim. It’s common for other Korean horrors to slowly shuffle towards their true nature, hiding clues in events that could easily be passed off as coincidence. Not here; it’s no spoiler to tell you that the closet in question is an ethereal doorway through which a ghost possesses, then steals, an unhappy little girl. However, ‘The Closet‘ defies expectations by constantly weaving through related genres as it tells its story – horror, thriller, even comedy. It’s not until the final third do all these disparate pieces slot together, and the result is mostly satisfying.

Continue reading “VAFF Review: ‘The Closet’ is a terrifying story of botched parenthood, told through a mix of genres”

Blood in the Snow Review: ‘Come True’ doesn’t stick the landing, but it’s a leap worth taking

Come True

Imagine being so afraid to sleep that you can’t even stay in your own home. This is Sarah at the start of Come True; she wakes up in a sleeping bag on a playground in the films first scene.

Sarah is terrified, and rightly so. Her dreams are long, slow, camera movements through caves and hallways, past mountains and surreal sculptures, and they all inevitably lead to a dark figure with glowing white eyes.

Frustrated and terrified, she eventually joins a sleep study to figure out what is going on. However, this is where things take a slight twist; we soon find out that the scientists conducting the study are not only studying dreams; they have the technology to see them.

Continue reading “Blood in the Snow Review: ‘Come True’ doesn’t stick the landing, but it’s a leap worth taking”

Blood in the Snow Review: ‘Parallel Minds’ looks at our near future through an indigenous lens

Parallel Minds

We all know that artificial intelligence is going to be a large part of our future. What we don’t know is how AI is going to treat us, its creators. Will it be benevolent, or will it turn on us? There’s a compelling case to be made for the latter, given how we treat our world and our tech.

Parallel Minds takes place in the near future, where a pair of scientists have created a revolutionary, AI-powered contact lens that allows people to re-live their memories. Things seem promising right up until the lead scientist is killed under mysterious circumstances. This is when the gruff detective with a checkered past arrives to solve the case and takes on the junior scientist as his partner for the case.

Continue reading “Blood in the Snow Review: ‘Parallel Minds’ looks at our near future through an indigenous lens”

Review: ‘His House’ and the immigrant experience as horror.

His House

“Be one of the good ones.”

It sounds like a nice thing, but what it means is “don’t make trouble. Don’t make work for me.” This is the Britain that Bol and Rial arrive in, and the line they hear from Mark, the man in charge of their asylum status. Having arrived from Sudan, a country ripped apart by tribal civil war, the run-down council house they are given to stay in looks like a mansion. Nevermind the bugs, the rats, the barely functioning electrics, or the smell (“just open the window and let it air out” Mark says).

There’s little that might phase them though, having crossed two contents and a stormy ocean that claimed the life of their daughter. The cold attitude of the social workers charged with helping them is the least intimidating thing they have faced, but it’s also one of the more horrifying things in the film. It’s hard to believe that casting the immigrant experience as a horror film isn’t a well-worn trope at this point because it’s so terrifying, even when you consider the ghosts that have followed them from home.

Continue reading “Review: ‘His House’ and the immigrant experience as horror.”

Home Video, Halloween Edition: 14 films and 5 binge-watches for Your Halloween Weekend and Where to Buy, Rent, or Stream them

Halloween

Halloween Night is upon us dear readers, and on a Saturday night, no less. Any other year that would be cause for celebration, for the biggest party you can find in the most elaborate costume that you can come up with. This year we’re all stuck inside though, and what better way to spend the night with some Halloween movies.

So here are nine movies and three binge-watch suggestions for you to watch this Halloween, and which streaming services to find them on.

Continue reading “Home Video, Halloween Edition: 14 films and 5 binge-watches for Your Halloween Weekend and Where to Buy, Rent, or Stream them”

Blood in the Snow Review: ‘The Return’ puts a sci-fi spin on a supernatural story

The Return

We have events from our past that are difficult to face. A parent with a drinking problem, the death of a loved one, or a ghost living in your house. Roger (Richard Harmon) is one of those unfortunate souls with all three of those things. Returning to his childhood home after his father’s untimely death, Rodger will be confronted by the ghosts of family traumas he never fully understood and memories he repressed, as well as an actual ghost.

Continue reading “Blood in the Snow Review: ‘The Return’ puts a sci-fi spin on a supernatural story”

Blood in the Snow Review: ‘Bloodthirsty’ is a slow burn with a bloody payoff

Bloodthirsty

Most of us claim that we are tired of computer-generated effects. We’re tired of fake blood spurts and CGI animals and all of it. If you’ve found yourself thinking this lately then Bloodthirsty, the new werewolf movie from Amelia Moses might be for you.

Following young pop star Grey (Lauren Beatty) whose hunger for success as she struggles to make her second album comes in parallel with a very different kind of hunger. All her life, she has been hallucinating that she is turning into an animal, that she wants to stalk and eat animals raw and bloody in the woods. These nightmares keep her up at night despite the best efforts of her doctor (Michael Ironside, in a small but fun cameo) to medicate them away.

When she heads to the remote home of reclusive music producer Vaughn (Greg Bryk) with her girlfriend Charlie (Katharine King So), that idea that these impulses are simply the product of a troubled mind is thrown sharply into doubt.

Continue reading “Blood in the Snow Review: ‘Bloodthirsty’ is a slow burn with a bloody payoff”

Blood in the Snow Review: ‘Hall’ is a good idea held back by glacial pacing

Hall

Imagine that you need to escape. Your partner is abusive, and you’ve finally woken up. You take a family trip and stay in a fancy hotel. You are going to use this time to escape. This is the setup of Hall. Set almost entirely on one floor of a hotel, this drama has a woman who desperately wants to leave her husband and save her child but has never had a good opportunity until now. Unfortunately, something else is going on in the hotel.

Continue reading “Blood in the Snow Review: ‘Hall’ is a good idea held back by glacial pacing”

Review: ‘Scare Me’ is more hilarious than scary, but it has a sting too

Scare Me

I can’t do religious or mental horror. For whatever reason, I get no enjoyment at all from jump-scares, or possessions, or demonic interactions. So when I say I love horror movies – and I really, really do – I definitely mean those films that have an extra action or comedy element. For instance, I can’t wait to find time for my The Thing double-bill (2011 then 1982, for that glorious dog crossover), but I also really want to find space for Sam Raimi’s wonderfully entertaining Drag Me To Hell before Halloween is over.

I always have a little bit of trepidation when starting an unseen horror film – will it strike the right balance for me? So when I began Shudder’s Scare Me, I was wondering how far the premise would stretch before the scares came in. As it turns out, I needn’t have worried; if anything, Scare Me is much more placed as a dark comedy, but it is one that is unafraid to show its love for horror when it truly counts. It’s also one of the best films you could choose to watch for Halloween.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Scare Me’ is more hilarious than scary, but it has a sting too”