The original Alien from 1979 was a masterpiece of production design that infused Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett’s ‘haunted house in space’ concept with Ridley Scott’s remarkable aesthetic sense. James Cameron’s 1986 sequel, Aliens, while lacking the original’s eloquent artistry, inventively expanded some its ideas and reworked the concept into a brutally efficient, white knuckle action film. After two reasonably
Read moreLike David Lynch in the 1990s and 2000s, Yorgos Lanthimos has brought dark humour and surreal artistry at least a little closer to mainstream cinema. He’s skewered relationships and social conformity in The Lobster, elitist power structures in The Favourite and the suburban family in The Killing Of a Sacred Deer. Now, he turns his darkly comic gaze to sexism
Read moreAustralian supernatural horror film, Talk To Me is a surprisingly effective variation on the old teens messing with the Ouija board concept. Here, Instead of a Ouija board, it’s a mysterious ceramic hand that, when held, causes people to have strange and disturbing visions, including seeing partly-decomposed dead people. Unwisely fiddling with this apparent magic is the troubled teen Mia
Read moreDracula: The Last Voyage of The Demeter is an adaptation of a section entitled Captain’s Log from Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel Dracula. While director André Øvredal (Trollhunter, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) has conjured a tense and visceral horror story from this sliver of the novel, the source material’s limitations do show. The film sees the crew
Read moreAustralian supernatural horror film, Talk To Me is a surprisingly effective variation on the old teens messing with the Ouija board concept. Here, Instead of a Ouija board, it’s a mysterious ceramic hand that, when held, causes people to have strange disturbing visions, including seeing partly decomposed dead people. Unwisely fiddling with this apparent magic is the troubled teen Mia
Read moreThrough his often crazed screen presence, Nic Cage has become a strange pop cultural icon and his films have almost become a subgenre unto themselves. His kooky charisma is given full licence to go into hyperdrive as he plays none other than Count Dracula in the slightly bonkers action/ horror comedy Renfield. Despite the imposing presence of Mr Cage, the
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