Tag: Private

Alex Breaux’s wrathful stare as Case, one of four friends out on a trip with his childhood friends, is terrifying. It is a character we are all familiar with: the male character swinging between passive-aggressive joking and outright, brutal violence, the latter coming just as easily as the former.  Campfire Alpha, also written and directed… Continue reading Campfire Alpha: A Lesson On Toxic Masculinity

Based on an urban legend, Danny Gibbons and Alex Scott’s Last Dance relies heavily on its audience’s experience with horror films and the expectations that spring from that. Subverting expectations, although it lives in a certain infamy now, works for Last Dance because of its intelligent writing and intuitive grasp on what evokes fear for… Continue reading Last Dance: The Horror Of Suspense

Adam York’s Department 666 is a black comedy that gives traditional ideas of horror a whole new spin, employing ideas that have been around for some time, but managing to be surprisingly fresh. Hell is a soul-sucking, nay, soulless, desk job. Of course. Why are we even surprised? Perhaps the surprise is that the film… Continue reading Department 666: Hell Has Been Updated

In a jacked up way, the protagonist of Canceled embodies the sentimentalities of every heartbroken series fan ever. On the other hand, writer-director Jimmy Caputo makes no effort to make its protagonist at all likeable. Instead, we see the unhealthiness through the melodrama of it all.  Not that the film has any intentions of taking… Continue reading Canceled: A Melodramatic Comedy Most Of Us Can Relate To

The clues that writer-director Holt Boggs plants in his nail-biting mob-drama-but-actually-a-comedy are placed so casually, you do not notice them at all until all the pieces have fallen into place. There is little that is spared from being turned upside down, the end result looking nothing like what you think it would be.  Perhaps the… Continue reading Crazy: The Use Of Nonchalant Deception For Comedy

Pranav Kothary’s Coming Home is a 14:57-minute-long discovery of relationships, love and vulnerability. Through the eyes of a teenage girl, we learn about what introspection means to the young, how damaging a broken marriage can be for a child, and why love isn’t always as heady as promised to be.  Liz is due to leave… Continue reading Coming Home: A Cinematic Epiphany On The Definition Of Love

Based on Peter Pan’s epilogue, Elise Robertson’s Darling, Darling Wendy, written by Katherine Sainte Marie, sets itself fifteen years after the events of Neverland, Wendy now a grown woman with a daughter of her own, unhappy and ailing for a permanent return to Neverland.  The film regards Wendy (played by Sainte Marie) with sympathy, even… Continue reading Darling, Darling Wendy: Embracing The Complexity Of Peter Pan

Made with a skeletal crew and budget, Jan Sørup’s sci-fi VECT0R plays like an homage to the sci-fi greats. You’ll spot inspirations from The Matrix, Blade Runner 2049 and even a glimpse of the blazingly beautiful Mad Max: Fury Road. Also Sørup’s debut film, VECT0R is heavy on the special effects, containing a world that… Continue reading VECT0R: Tribute To The Matrix & Co.

Kaine Levy’s period drama Farewell Waltz honours a historical man: Walter Tull, the first black officer in the British Army during the First World War, at a time when it was illegal for black people to hold positions above white people. Levy has adapted the story so that the protagonist in the film, Charles, is… Continue reading Farewell Waltz: Romance As A Tribute To A Historical Figure In Black History

From its opening line of Once Upon A Time… to illustrator Ben Judd’s colourful universe, or the vastness of the Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley in California where this Mexican-based, Spanish language movie is filmed, everything about The Devil’s Son leaves one feeling overwhelmed with its richness in storytelling. A Mexican fable that dabbles… Continue reading The Devil’s Son: Mind-Boggling, Rich Magical Fable