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Film Review
Psychedelic Slasher A Wounded Fawn Feels Refreshingly Modern
Having escaped an abusive relationship, Meridith (Sarah Lind) is eager to move on and start fresh. This leads to a blossoming relationship with the charming Bruce (Josh Ruben). Unfortunately for Meredith, we’ve just watched Bruce brutally…
Bones and All | Gory Romance Bites Off More Than it can Chew
The collective eighties nostalgia fest that the world is currently binging on is showing no signs of yielding. Each week brings news of a new project set in the 1980s, a sequel to a film popular in the 1980s, or opinions that belong in the…
IFI French Film Festival | Political Intrigue Turns Hypnotic In Pacification
Pacification has the markers of a taut political thriller. There is an exotic setting, a colonial possession, and a white linen suit. One can image a well-intentioned Yves Montand playing the martyr for Costas-Gavras. Albert Serra,…
Wide Awake After This Irish Horror | The Sleep Experiment Review
In lieu of their prison sentences, five men agree to be participants in top-secret experiment in which they will be prevented from sleeping for thirty days. Two detectives are tasked with interviewing the researchers involved in the…
Revisiting a Whole New World | Aladdin at 30
Aladdin showed us a world, that was shining, shimmering, splendid. It was a film with great, memorable characters: although it fell dangerously close to cultural appropriation in its depictions, created a film that will be remembered as a…
Terror Takes Root in Irish Folk Horror Mandrake
Mandrake, Director Lynne Davison’s 85-minute feature film debut, opens with a scene at night in a foreboding, moss-covered forest (“the moss”). The camera looks down from above as a man who is chained around the neck digs desperately in…
IFI Horrorthon | Eating Miss Campbell is a Terrifically Trashy Throwback
Content Warning: references to self–harm from the very beginning
"Nostalgia is Cancer"
Eating Miss Campbell, the sophomore feature from Sheffield-based filmmaker Liam Regan, is a quasi-sequel to his 2014 debut My Bloody Banjo. It…
Satan’s Slaves 2: Communion is a Devilish Delight
In 1955, bodies are dug up from a graveyard, brought to a nearby observatory and positioned like dolls, lying prostrate in front of a woman draped in white. Almost 30 years later, an apartment building stands on the site of that old…
IFI Horrorthon | Something in the Dirt is A Rabbit Hole Worth Going Down
There is instability in Something in the Dirt. Smoke billows from the Los Angeles desertscape, the foundation of which quakes intermittently. The central relationship, between John and Levi (Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, both of whom…
The Latest Hellraiser Brings More Pleasure Than Pain
All the way back in 2007, discussions of a new Hellraiser reboot/requel/whatever were publicized for all to see among the horror community. With a plethora of attached personalities and failed achievements, Hellraiser lingered in…