Reviewed by Lee Hill Francois Truffaut will never be entirely forgiven by some of the country’s film buffs for saying that British cinema was a contradiction in terms. For every bold visionary like Michael Powell, Nicolas Roeg, Derek Jarman or Lynne Ramsay, there are countless directors whose plodding efficiency and middle brow choice of subject can make one long for the personal signature of a Richard Donner (yes, he did…
Read MoreFilm Review: The Ciambra
Reviewed by Lee Hill Against a timeless backdrop of mountain and foothills, a simply dressed yet elegant looking young man with a mustache tends to a horse and his encampment. This image will be a rare moment of calm and reflection before the chaotic narrative that follows. Where the opening shot of The Ciambra suggests timeless, romantic tradition, the remainder of the film will immerse us in a deracinated sub-culture…
Read MoreReview: Every Day
Reviewed by Linda Marric Michael Sucsy’s film about a teenage girl who falls in love with someone who transforms into someone else every day, is a charming, beautifully crafted and hugely engaging millennial love story with a twist. Based on David Levithan’s novel of the same name and from a screenplay by Jesse Andrews, Every Day offers a heart-warming tale of love, acceptance and teenage angst without ever falling into…
Read MoreTrailer: Hereditary
Check out the new trailer for the upcoming Horror sensation Hereditary. The film is release on June 15th and stars Toni Collette as a mother whose family begins to unravel when cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry are revealed. The more they discover, the more they find themselves trying to outrun the sinister fate they seem to have inherited as it slowly destroys everything around them. Making his…
Read MoreFilm Review: Truth or Dare
Reviewed by Lee Hill Truth or Dare is such a bland, albeit efficient horror genre retread that its only conceivable raison d’etre is to keep risk averse mid-level studio executives employed. Entering a market that has been rejuvenated by the likes of Get Out, It Follows and A Quiet Place, this film deserves to get beaten to death at the box office and exiled to a remote corner of streaming…
Read MoreLFF 2017: Custody (Jusqu’à la Garde)
Reviewed by Lee Hill The bitterness of separation, divorce and the all too common legal battles between former spouses has made for familiar terrain at the movies. Shoot the Moon, Kramer Vs. Kramer, The War of the Roses, Blue Valentine and Boyhood are a few titles that spring to mind and of course, television drama would be crippled without domestic strife as convenient narrative fodder. Given the countless variations on…
Read MoreFilm Review: Ghost Stories
Reviewed by Tom Rowley BBC’s The League of Gentlemen was a hilarious pastiche of comedy stories that, at heart, had an endearing love for the hammer-horror genre. So it’s fitting that one of the show’s creators, Jeremy Dyson, has co-written and co-directed with Andy Nyman, a movie reminiscent of a Vincent Price platform, tying together horror vignettes throughout a mysterious overarching narrative. In his latest project, Ghost Stories, the horror-to-comedy ratio…
Read MoreFilm Review: I Kill Giants
Reviewed by Luke Channell An alluring strangeness fuels this debut feature from director Anders Walter which combines touching coming-of-age drama with eye-catching magical realism. Based on a graphic novel by Joe Kelly (who also adapts the screenplay), I Kill Giants follows the journey of high-schooler Barbara (Madison Wolfe) who envelops herself in a fantasy world to cope with her upsetting reality. While this premise is hardly thematically ground-breaking (comparisons with…
Read MoreLFF 2017: 120 BPM
120 BPM is a film you tend to admire rather than love. Robin Campillo’s film deals with the rise of Act Up in France in the late 80s and early 90s as the activist group tackled the complacency of government, medical and pharmaceutical establishments in dealing with the crisis. If the film veers towards being a polemic at times, it contains many scenes that remind one of the anguish and…
Read MoreGhost Stories: Interview with Andy Nyman & Jeremy Dyson
Ahead of the special screening of Ghost Stories at the Horror Channel Frightfest Glasgow 2018 event, writer / director team Andy Nyman & Jeremy Dyson discuss their special relationship, the film’s journey from stage to screen and no, they don’t believe in ghosts… Ghost Stories receives it’s Scottish Premiere at FrightFest Glasgow 2018. Excited? We are beyond excited! It is honestly a dream come true.
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