I’m going to start this review by saying that I thought I was going to love it. A punk-rock horror film set in Australia in the 80s? I’m completely up for that. But as I watched Penny Lane Is Dead, I began to wonder, why make an Ozploitation film in the 2020s when horror has evolved over the past four or so decades? If you’re going to revive the style, I reckon you have to bring something new to the genre.
It’s a nightmare scenario. Expectant mother Lena (Dakota Gorman) wakes to find herself locked in the back of a moving mobile home. Disorientated and unable to summon help, she is met instead by a disembodied voice insisting that her captor is a good man and that she has been infected. In his feature-length directorial debut, Brock Bodell explores a modern take on the Little Red Riding Hood story in Hellcat (2025). There is just one problem.
Who is the Big Bad Wolf in this scenario?
As Lena fights to survive and protect her unborn child, one thing becomes certain: she has no idea what's going on. She realises that she cannot trust herself or her memories, and her already fragile grip on reality is further threatened by a shocking discovery. What the hell happened, and how did she land up in this predicament?
Throughout all of this, Hellcat wrings an impressive amount from such a limited setting, as Lena's plight becomes increasingly desperate and oppressive. Dakota Gorman shoulders almost the entire film. I never once doubted her performance as Lena, even when the narrative began to lose its footing. Todd Terry and Liz Atwater are also worth a mention, but I'll leave you to discover exactly why for yourself.
I wouldn't call this a horror exactly and so, by extension, it isn't really scary. It sits much more comfortably in thriller territory. Without venturing into spoiler territory, the central reveal ultimately fell rather flat for me. While Bodell clearly wants to wrong-foot the audience, I suspect some viewers may come away feeling that the film shifts genres without quite earning the transition.
What Hellcat is, though, is intensely claustrophobic and uncomfortable viewing. For much of the film, Lena is stuck in the back of a moving, grimy, old-fashioned mobile home and the viewer is stuck there with her through the constant rattling and tinkling of cups, pots and every other loose object inside.
Given the tiny space he was working with, cinematographer Andrew Duensing has done a great job with rich, saturated colours, giving Hellcat a genuinely cinematic look without losing sight of the grime and decay surrounding Lena. It elevates what could easily have become a visually repetitive setting.
There was plenty to like about Hellcat, but the direction the story ultimately took didn't quite work for me. I enjoyed the claustrophobic setting, the atmosphere and Dakota Gorman's performance, but the eventual reveal left me underwhelmed. It's a shame, because there is a lot to admire here and, with a different approach to the story, I could easily have been looking at a four or even five-star review.
Even so, Hellcat was a great way to spend 91 minutes and there's more than enough here to recommend it. I'm giving it an enthusiastic three out of five stars.
★★★☆☆
Scares ★★★★☆| Love ★★★☆☆ | Design ★★★★☆ | Acting ★★★★☆ | Plot ★★☆☆☆
A Shudder Original Film, Hellcat Premieres Exclusively on Shudder and AMC+ Friday 14 August
If you’re going to tackle a zombie horror these days, you need something fresh. Look at what Black Summer did in a market already overflowing with zombie lore: urgency, terror, impossible choices to survive. This Is Not a Test, set in the opening days of a zombie apocalypse, promised a sharp, emotional story about an abused teen and the slow awakening of a survival instinct after years of wishing she was dead.
Olivia Holt stars as Sloane, a traumatised teenager trapped in an abusive home when a violent zombie outbreak brings chaos to her town. She escapes her father and falls in with a group of classmates, eventually taking refuge inside their high school. It’s messy, brutal and chaotic, but This Is Not a Test seems to be trying to position itself as a cut above.
It’s a powerful concept based on the novel by Courtney Summers, a major YA author whose work should have translated into something far more impactful on screen. But it never does. I didn’t see it and, more importantly, I didn’t feel it. The best zombie films and series get under your skin. They create a mood, a lingering sense of dread that sticks with you long after the credits roll. I first fell for the genre with Open Grave, and that whole film was pure mood.
This Is Not a Test had no mood.
A lot of the problem comes down to telling rather than showing. We’re told Sloane is suicidal, that her father is abusive, that her sister left home. We see some of the abuse. Logically, it makes sense why a teen would feel hopeless. But that’s not work my brain should be doing. The film should have done that work for me.
The same applies when Sloane meets the other survivors and they move to the high school. We know some of these teens aren’t in the best headspace, but none of it really lands. This is the opening day of a zombie apocalypse after all. They’ve all already lost someone.
I expected more from these rising teen stars, but the film never gives them enough depth or direction. Froy Gutierrez (Rhys), Corteon Moore (Cary), Chloe Avakian (Grace) and Carson MacCormac (Trace) all feel like they’re trying to do what they can with thin material, especially when the film never even bothers to properly explain what caused the apocalypse.
I rarely dislike a zombie film, especially one leaning into gritty, emotional territory rather than comedy. But I felt nothing here, much like Sloane did at the start.
This is the second Olivia Holt film I’ve rated one star, the first being Heart Eyes. At this point, I’m starting to think she’s just not my cup of tea.
If you’ve made it this far reading because you too were disappointed, I’m sorry. But I can wholeheartedly recommend anything in the Walking Dead universe, or Z Nation and Black Summer.
★☆☆☆☆
A Shudder Exclusive Film, This Is Not a Test Premieres Exclusively on Shudder and AMC+ Friday 22 May 2026
Have you ever wondered what happens to letters that can't be delivered? Probably not, snail mail is a relic of the 80s along with other horrifying concepts such as fax machines, shoulder pads and permanent waves. The producers of Shudder's Late Night With the Devil deliver Dead Mail, a chilling study of obsession, possession, and captivity. What begins as a desperate letter dropped into a USPS mailbox soon spirals into a nightmare, with the Dead Letters team battling to locate a kidnap victim.
In a deliciously atmospheric nod to Dario Argento, director Elric Kane’s Shudder Original, The Dead Thing, plunges us into the bleak world of internet dating, with a twist of horror that’s equal parts stylish and sinister.
Night after night, Alex drifts through a parade of fleeting internet dates, each encounter as transient and hollow as the last. These ephemeral moments of contact are the only sparks in a relentless routine: a slow, almost ritualistic waltz from dimly lit bars to the antiseptic hum of her nightshift as an office document scanner, before she retreats into the cold glow of her SAD lamp and finally, into sleep.
But everything shifts when Kyle enters the scene - a spark that cuts through the monotony and ignites a connection on a profoundly unexpected level. Almost instinctively, they find themselves tangled in a web of raw emotion, baring their souls before the night even draws to a close.
And then the inevitable happens. Kyle ghosts her.
The insidious thing about ghosting is this: you might not even particularly like somebody, but the moment they ghost you, the power shifts, control slips through your fingers, and obsession takes the wheel, accelerating into overdrive.
As Alex’s obsession tightens its grip, she starts crossing lines that should never be crossed. Then she makes a terrible discovery. Can she find her way back to Kyle? And more importantly, should she? For Kyle is harbouring a dark secret and will stop at nothing to reclaim his life.
The Dead Thing is a beautiful film. Elric Kane has captured Argento's visual aesthetic with lurid colours and deep shadows that accentuate a film set mostly at night. The signature violence takes its time to appear, but when it finally erupts, it’s as jarring as it is disorienting.
This isn’t your typical gore-fest or jump scare parade. Instead, it’s a slow-burning exploration of rejection, the loss of control when you let someone in, and the obsessive aftermath when it all unravels. The plot may appear deceptively simple at first, but a cleverly placed twist midway transforms the narrative into something both haunting and unexpectedly captivating.
Blu Hunt (The Originals) delivers a standout performance as Alex, perfectly matched by Ben Smith-Petersen’s enigmatic Kyle. The pair share undeniable chemistry, though in this film, they seem to spark with everyone they encounter.
I give The Dead Thing an excellent four out of five stars and recommend it for fans of lurid and slow-burning horror. I'll be interested to see what Elric Kane delivers next and whether he continues his dedication to Argento.
★★★★☆
A Shudder Original, The Dead Thing premieres 14 February 2025.
Welcome back to October 31, 1977. Night Owls with Jack Delroy (a show desperate to poach Johnny Carson's viewers) is floundering. After the loss of his wife, Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian, Oppenheimer) returns with a Halloween show that will become the most notorious night in television history. Written and directed by the Cairnes brothers, Late Night With the Devil starts as a mockumentary before screening the full episode plus behind-the-scenes footage of that fateful night.
We’re transported back to 1970s late night television in all its beige, brown and maroon glory
The show starts off normally enough. We meet probable-charlatan-mystic Christou (Fayssal Bazzi) and magician-turned-skeptic Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss). The two lock horns immediately but something is not quite right and it’s about to be broadcast into every living room in the nation.
Dr June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon, Reckoning) and the very peculiar Lilly (Ingrid Torelli) are up next. Apart from an alleged demonic possession, Lilly is just a normal teenager, speaking in weird, veiled threats and occasionally using deeper voices.
What could possibly go wrong?
For a short while, the viewer will be forgiven for thinking that the most scary thing about Late Night with the Devil is the crimplene, corduroy and thick white tights.
Hold on to your seats, it’s about to get much more terrifying
Late Night with the Devil is about as perfect as a horror film can get. It is scary, with a great plot, and is wildly original. It’s also a lot of fun.
The set design, clothing, hair and makeup all perfectly encapsulate the dark era of late 70s fashion, when common sense flew out the window and the rainbow in orange and brown took its place. (Yes, I have trauma relating to the matching brown, crimplene pantsuits my mother made for me and my ragdoll in 1976, what of it?).
The cast are brilliant - awkward, cringey and overly posturing – for just a moment, it feels like you really have been transported back to 1977. Special mention has to go to Ingrid Torelli in her chilling performance as Lilly; I feel like I want to see a lot more of her in future.
I give Late Night With the Devil an excellent five out of five stars. Highly recommended if you teeter on the edge of true belief and are a fan of the late night horror genre. I think this film will especially appeal to fans of the cult classic Phantom of the Paradise. Most importantly, it's 93 minutes of fun and I'm intrigued enough to keep an eye on directors Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes in future.
★★★★★
A Shudder Exclusive, Late Night With the Devil premieres Friday 19 April 2024.
On a dark, stormy night, loner Patrick sits at the table in his trailer, contemplating the end. The rain is beating on his trailer’s rickety roof and windows when there is an insistent banging at his door. Against his better judgement, he lets the visitor in and deeply uncomfortable viewing ensues. The visitor finds it increasingly difficult to leave and for his part, Patrick finds it increasingly difficult to tell fiction from reality.
He is not the only one
In their feature-length directorial debut, Australian filmmakers Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell deliver a tense, claustrophobic horror that will keep the audience guessing to the very end. You'll Never Find Me dives deep into gender dynamics and the quagmire of unchartered territory between the generations. Is Patrick as lonely, paranoid and cynical as he seems, or is the visitor the strange one?
Personally, it left me feeling a bit dull as I battled to work out who exactly the antagonist was in that trailer on that very strange, stormy night. Lost for words as the credits rolled, I’d very helpfully scribbled down, ‘I’m left with the distinct impression that I no longer have a grasp of what is real and what is not’. It was only in the quiet hours that followed that I was able to unpick and piece back together the clues and circular timeline, to arrive at some level of enlightenment.
You'll Never Find Me is a very clever film
Brendan Rock (Carnifex) is excellent as the deeply troubled Patrick. The victim of self-imposed exile in a trailer park in a very remote location, Patrick is paying the price for the mistake that lost him his job. The only problem is that he quite liked making that mistake.
Jordan Cowan (Krystal Klairvoyant) shines as the young visitor. Perfectly embodying the deep distrust anyone under 25 has for those born in the last century, she sails her way through the night with the carefully curated blank facial expressions that are the hallmark of her generation. She is giving away nothing, least of all clues as to what she might be up to.
The rain itself is a character in You'll Never Find Me. Brief flashbacks of a girl knocking on a car window provide a welcome chance for the viewer to catch their breath before being plunged back into the stagnant air of the trailer once again. It is a different thing altogether inside that trailer, where the rain becomes primary prisoner and tormentor, sentencing Patrick and the visitor to a very awkward and confusing situation.
For so much of You'll Never Find Me, I thought this was going to be a film of more suffocation and discomfort than scares but wait, the horror does come. In those final moments where the plot unpacks itself, you realise that the worst nightmare imaginable is playing out, one that repeatedly wakes me up at night. This film is not going to help that. At all.
I give You'll Never Find Me an excellent four out of five stars. Recommended for fans of claustrophobic horror and Australian frankness. I'll be interested to see what Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell deliver next because this did not feel like a debut feature.
★★★★☆
A Shudder Original, You'll Never Find Me premieres on Friday 22 March 2024.
After 125 years of horror films, you'd think people would know the basics: never, ever ignore local knowledge of dangerous places and never follow someone else into certain death, no matter how much you love them. Andres Beltran's Quicksand had me shaking my head from the very beginning, first because of the arrogance of our unlikeable protagonists and then because it defied logic.
Sofia (Carolina Gaitán, Encanto) and Josh (Allan Hawco, The Breach) travel to Colombia to attend a conference. They are in the throes of a divorce yet decide to take a hike together to find the La Chorrera waterfall. When a storm moves in and they try to return to their car, they have a violent encounter with an armed man. On the run and desperate, they escape into Las Arenas, the very part of the forest that locals are too afraid to go into.
They might have escaped their pursuer but the couple land up in quicksand and need to use every survival skill they have to save themselves.
Fear will drag you deeper
I'm always conscious that there are human beings behind every project and horror, especially, needs our indulgence and willing suspension of disbelief, but Quicksand was not my cup of tea. I’m also conscious that there is a subset of horror fans who watch films because they get bad reviews and also horror fans who read reviews because they want to vent about a film.With that said..
Spoiler alert: I need to talk about this film and I'm going to dive straight into some key plot points and outcomes below. Turn away now if you haven't watched Quicksand.
If you've ever sat at a table while a couple bickered and aired their dirty laundry in public, then you'll be familiar with the primary dynamic of Quicksand. Sofia and Josh argue in every scene but the audience is never given insight into who they are as people or what caused the breakdown of their relationship. I enjoyed Allan Hawco in The Breach but neither Hawco nor Gaitán had much to work with here.
This was partly due to the bare bones of a plot. In short: married couple are getting a divorce, they inexplicably go for a hike in the woods. They encounter a violent attacker, escape into the one place they've been warned against, and the wife lands in quicksand. The husband decides to jump in after her and then they are both doomed. They very conveniently find a dead man in the hole and are able to raid his entire MacGyver kit. Pity he didn't think of that.
They are initially unable to move their arms above the very heavy mud but luckily, Josh is able to reach into his pants and retrieve a bottle of vodka when Sofia gets attacked by fire ants.
She is likewise very fortunate to be able to conduct neck surgery on Josh to remove a blood clot after he is bitten by a snake. Thank goodness for that MacGyver knife.
In a feat of astonishing agility against the very heavy mud, Sofia is then able to use her upper body strength to lob a lasso (made of a 15kg dead boa constrictor and other bits and pieces) over a rock and pull herself out of the pit. For some reason, none of the very heavy mud is actually on her and she just looks wet.
Miraculously, Josh also survives because he had 6 hours to live after the snake bite and he only had to wait 5 hours and 59 minutes for the antidote.
I wish that I could say more about the cinematography and camera work, but I found it to be quite dull and uninspired despite the forest setting. A lot of the angles and shots were weird and disorienting too, although I could see what they were trying to achieve.
Overall, I'd recommend Andres Beltran's Quicksand be viewed on a night in when you're looking for a good drinking game. Have a shot every time something improbable or impossible happens on screen. It says a lot for a horror fan to choose to believe the paranormal and supernatural over a simple forest survival plot but there you have it. I give it a disappointing two out of five stars; as stupid as they were, the parts where Sofia fell in the quicksand and Josh went jumping in after her were actually quite thrilling. .
★★☆☆☆
A Shudder Original, Quicksand premieres on Friday 14 July 2023. Streaming Exclusively on Shudder and AMC+
Redcaps are perhaps the most horrible of the unseelie creatures, so-called because they like to soak their caps in the blood of their many unfortunate victims. Of all the dark fae, they are my favourite: petty to the hilt and single-minded in their pursuit of mayhem, chaos and destruction. I've always wondered why so few filmmakers focus on the dark fae and was thrilled to see redcaps given the feature treatment in Jon Wright's folk horror Unwelcome.
Steeped in violence from the very first scene, Unwelcome opens with a brutal attack on Jamie (Douglas Booth) and his pregnant wife Maya (Hannah John-Kamen, Killjoys) in their London flat. Escaping the gangs and their urban trauma, the couple move to rural Ireland when Jamie inherits a house from his aunt Maeve. Maeve’s only request? That they leave a blood offering every evening, before sunset, for the fear dearg (or redcaps) living at the bottom of the garden. The consequences, if forgotten, would be disastrous for the couple and their unborn baby.
Desperate to be rid of their kindly neighbour Niamh (Niamh Cusack) and explore their new home together, Jamie and Maya mask their scepticism and agree to the bizarre request.
The first law of folk horror: don't make promises you have no intention of keeping
Knowing that they’ve inherited a fixer-upper, the couple dive right into a home improvement project with the help of Colm Whelan (Colm Meaney, Gangs of London) and his very strange offspring. Things get off to a bad start and rapidly go downhill from there.
The second law of folk horror: don’t piss off the locals
What is there left for a slightly naïve inner-city couple to do? Probably best for one to keep secrets, the other to gaslight them, and one to make a rather ill-advised deal with the fear dearg.
The third law of folk horror: never, ever make a bargain with the fae
With themes of trauma, delusions and promises that can’t be kept, Unwelcome explores taking back control in the face of adversity versus diving into the darkness and embracing the chaos. Sometimes hysterical laughter is the only reasonable option after all.
Unwelcome is a visual feast. From the old house to Maya’s yellow dress to the woods at the bottom of the garden, each scene is beautifully composed and brimming with colour. The redcaps were so well done. Director Jon Wright confirmed that they used actors Paul Warren, Rick Warden and stunt performers to play the redcaps and then filmed on double-sized sets to complete their appearance as little people. I genuinely would not want to run into one of them in a darkened forest.
The film features some legends of Irish film, including Colm Meaney and Niamh Cusack, but the whole cast is really good. Hannah John-Kamen shone as Maya and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell was utterly convincing as the brutish Aisling Whelan. I began to despise Jamie more with every passing scene, so kudos to Douglas Booth too for delivering an entirely flawed character.
Beware of the locals. All of them
There is a lot going on in Unwelcome. I liked that I could never quite tell who the real villains were and I also appreciated the parallel telling of the paranormal and human threats. I enjoyed the film a lot, right up until the very strange ending, and for the most part it was a thrilling ride.
I’m a little torn on how to rate Unwelcome. I would have liked to see far more on the mythology of the redcaps but ultimately appreciated that there wasn't a massive amount of exposition to weigh down a fast-paced film. I’m definitely on the fence about that weird ending though, even though I knew it was coming, but recommend to fans of folk horror and lovers of European folklore. I'm definitely interested enough to check out the work of director Jon Wright and screenwriter Mark Stay.
★★★★☆
A Shudder Exclusive, Unwelcome premieres on Friday 23 June 2023. Streaming Exclusively on Shudder and AMC+
I love films that surprise me, where the journey is completely unexpected and not entirely spoiled by the trailer. You might think you know what Kurtis David Harder's Shudder Original Influencer is about but it's so much more fun than you expect.
Californian influencer Madison (Emily Tennant) is on a solo trip to Thailand. It wasn't meant to be a solo trip but her boyfriend Ryan (Rory J. Saper) dropped out the last minute. It doesn't take long for local expats and hotel guests to notice that Madison is alone, and she soon finds herself the target of unwanted attention. Enter CW (Cassandra Naud, Snowpiercer): enigmatic and care-free, CW shows Madison how to really let go of her insecurities and enjoy the beautiful country around her.
When Madison's room is broken into and her passport stolen, Madison realises she will need to spend weeks more time in the country before her passport can be reissued. CW offers Madison a place to stay with her and Madison begrudgingly accepts, not wanting to be a burden. What can possibly go wrong?
Be careful who you follow
In the tense and chilling scenes that follow, we learn that you can't always trust what you see online and that there will always be people who want a piece of the influencer bubble.
Besides, when you have millions of followers, people will definitely notice when you're gone, right?
Influencer is a very clever film and offers multiple twists and turns, with new characters popping up and muddying the waters for our cunning antagonist. There is an appearance from mega-influencer Jessica (Sara Canning), who surely isn't as naive as Madison, and a surprise arrival that threatens to derail the entire plan.
I love a well-written baddie and Influencer definitely delivers. CW is creepy and cunning, with a long game that is as terrifying as she is evil. As a frequent traveller myself, Influencer was the epitome of horror: unwanted attention, over-friendly travellers, imposing people, my room being broken into. That's all nothing compared to what CW dreams up for her victims.
Of course, my wanderlust was definitely piqued by Influencer which features some exquisite locations and luxury villas. Surprisingly, for a film set in Thailand, you see criminally little of Thailand itself and that shows the shallow lens of the influencer, how little they actual enjoy of the world around them.
I enjoyed every minute of Influencer and enjoyed falling victim to the twists. Cassandra Naud was superb as CW and she's definitely on my list of young actors to watch. Emily Tennant, Rory J. Saper and Sara Canning also deliver excellent performances and you'll be wondering to the end who the real star of this film is.
I give Influencer an excellent five out of five stars and recommend to horror and Shudder fans, especially of the rising influencer genre. After his success with Shudder original Spiral and now this, I'm definitely keen on seeing what Kurtis David Harder does next.★★★★★
A Shudder Original, Influencer premieres on Friday 26 May. Streaming Exclusively on Shudder and AMC+
Unscrupulous landlords are nothing new. I mean, how difficult is it to admit that the water in a house has two settings - arctic and third-ring-of-hell? Or to say, you know, Sorry About the Demon that you've made an unholy deal with?
Will (Jon Michael Simpson, Scare Package) is having a bad time. He's a talented baker, awesome at his job as a customer service agent for a toothpaste brand, but not so good at turning up for his girlfriend when she receives a major promotion at work. Frustrated with his tendency to be a feckless shut-in with many ambitions and few successes, Amy (Paige Evans, (Paranormal Nightshift) dumps Will and kicks him out of their shared apartment.
Lucky for Will, he manages to snag a massive house for an extremely low rent where he can bake and answer customer calls to his heart's delight. Unlucky for Will, the slightly creepy family that leased him the house forgot to tell him about the super aggressive house demon that happens to be looking for a new host.
Can our feckless man-child save his relationship with Amy and save the world from a dangerous demon? Well, maybe. He should really just leave the house but he technically has nowhere to go. Armed with toothpaste, cakes and a sceptical best friend, Will decides that he can definitely try.
Written and directed by Emily Hagins, Sorry About the Demon is laugh-out-loud funny which is why it was surprising that it is also scream-out-loud scary. Featuring the most middle-class seance ever seen on screen and an unholy puddle of blood and goo, this film is fun from the very first minute and I liked it a lot. There are also loads of very creepy moments in the film and the makeup / effects on the possessed humans was done really well.
Visually, Sorry About the Demon is a feast for the eyes with a really great setting in a kooky, quirky house. Many scenes were oozing colour, practically eye candy, with a focus on interior design and increasingly garish cakes.
What made this film most enjoyable is that it has great performances all round. Simpson and Evans are great as Will and Amy, a couple on the edge of relational collapse. Jeff McQuitty is brilliant as Will's increasingly-sceptical-yet-surprisingly-supportive best friend Patrick and Olivia Ducayen is very good as the eccentric-yet-somehow-completely-serious Aimee. Special mention has to go young Presley Allard in her role as Grace Sellers, the demon's intended victim. I haven't seen that scary of a performance of a possessed child since The Exorcist.
I give Sorry About the Demon an excellent five out of five stars. Comedy horror is not always my favourite type of horror but I had a lot of fun with this one and will be tracking down other works by Emily Hagins.★★★★★
A Shudder Exclusive, Sorry About the Demon, premiers Thursday, January 19, 2023
I have an awkward confession to make: I'd never seen any of Dario Argento's work before viewing Dark Glasses. I'd heard great things about the use of colour, music and gore in his films and was keen to see something from the master of giallo.
Dark Glasses (Italian, original title Occhiali Neri) begins on the day of a solar eclipse in Rome. As the skies darken, we meet young escort, Diana (Ilenia Pastorelli), who stares up into the sun. As the eclipse burns itself onto her retinas and Diana is temporarily stunned, we get a foreboding sense of what is to come.
Elsewhere across Rome, a serial killer is targeting prostitutes, leaving only a handful of clues for the police to follow. Their murders are particularly cruel and gruesome with seemingly little motive.
When Diana finds herself targeted by the predator, she flees in her car only to get into a terrible accident. She wakes up in hospital and learns that she has lost her eyesight. Not only that but she has to come to terms with the tragic consequences of the accident.
As Diana fights to put the pieces of her life back together, she meets a young boy, Chin (Andrea Zhang), who also survived the accident. It doesn't take long for Diana to realise that the serial killer is still at large and he still has her within his sights. The only problem is that she can no longer see him coming and both her and Chin are in danger. With only her caseworker Rita (Asia Argento) to help her, will Diana and Chin survive the ordeal?
I liked Dark Glasses a lot. I loved cinematographer Matteo Cocco's use of colour and loved how the night scenes were drenched in shades of blue, red and yellow. He uses vanishing points and leading lines to draw the viewer in and to suffocate with claustrophobic terror. Watching this film was a visual feast.
Were it not for the gore, I'd class this as more than a thriller than a horror but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Arnaud Rebotini's haunting synthesiser score perfectly added to the tension and kept me right at the edge of my seat. I love it when films blend emotive music into the story, specially when it's done so effectively.
It's always a nice surprise when horror films have good actors. Ilenia Pastorelli did a great job as Diana, capturing the frustration, anger and grief that comes with losing something as important as eyesight. Her sarcasm and self-deprecation provided some welcome levity at times and her symbiotic relationship with Chin helped the plot along.
Likewise, it's always a good sign when horror films have a decent plot and Dark Glasses was okay. There were some Swiss cheese moments - for example when the killer changes his van colour but keeps it the same colour for the rest of the film - but overall, I liked the premise and the sneaky reveal at the end. Human nature is always going to be the best motive.
I give Dark Glasses an excellent four out of five stars. Fans of Dario Argento and giallo horror should like this one a lot.
★★★★☆
A Shudder Exclusive, Dark Glasses, premiers Thursday, October 13, 2022
I know, I know. It's not technically permitted to admit this in the horror community but I wasn't a fan of The Blair Witch Project. Somewhere between the extreme hype and lack of resolution, I was left feeling lukewarm. As a result, I tend to avoid found- or live-footage horror but Deadstream caught my eye and I decided to give it a chance.
The directorial debut of Joseph and Vanessa Winter, Deadstream is the story of reprehensible video stunt-blogger Shawn Ruddy (Joseph Winter) (possibly the illegitimate lovechild of PewDiePie and Logan Paul), who comes out of forced retirement to go it alone in one of America's most haunted houses. Not the most haunted, you understand, because that would take actual money, but close enough.
Armed with just a head-cam, selfie-cam and his enormous ego, Ruddy acts with increasing stupidity, throwing his spark plugs into the trees and padlocking himself inside the house before throwing the key down a drain.
What could possibly go wrong?
I desperately want to say that the most scary thing about Deadstream is Ruddy's stupidity but I'd absolutely be lying. Let's just agree that deciding to watch the film - in the dark - at 5am on a Sunday morning (thanks insomnia) wasn't my finest 87 minutes. When it wasn't making me jump out of my skin and sending my very grumpy cat scarpering out the room, Deadstream made me cringe and gag in utter revulsion. The special effects might have been cheap but the effects were extremely grim.
For a live-footage horror film, Deadstream is extremely well made. The visuals were great for supposedly taking place in a dark, abandoned house and the plot device of the live video stream was very well done. The comments on the live stream were brilliant and made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion (sorry, cat), especially the one about how Ruddy looked like he'd been in a boxing match with Logan Paul.
Joseph Winter portrays Ruddy to perfection. He's despicable and irredeemable, unlikeable to the max. His 'fans' clearly want Ruddy to die and he's here for that. It helps that Ruddy has such a large catalog of controversies behind him because that helps move the plot along nicely. Special mention also goes to Melanie Stone in her role as Chrissy. No spoilers but there's a point in the film when Chrissy's disposition changes and it was chilling.
I enjoyed Deadstream a lot, much more than I expected to. It was scary and grim enough with a healthy side-helping of humour.
I give Deadstream an excellent four out of five stars. It's the first work I've seen from either Joseph Winter or Vanessa Winter but I'll be interested to see what they do in future. Recommended to fans of found footage, supernatural and comedy
horror.
★★★★☆
A Shudder Exclusive, Deadstream, premiers Thursday, October 6, 2022
Ryan Kwanten and J.K. Simmons starting in a horror film together? Oh how Glorious, I'm definitely up for that! In all seriousness, though there's nothing serious about this film, Glorious is one to watch.
Wes (Ryan Kwanten) is in a Bad Place. Wracked with guilt and self-loathing, he's clearly made a mess of things and would do anything to get his girl back. Instead, he drives across the state before stopping at a rest stop, drinking his way to the bottom of a bottle and waking up feeling very worse for the wear. And that's when his trouble really begins and Wes learns how not to trust weird men in dingy bathrooms when they tempt you to stick body parts in holes with the whole known universe at stake.
Ghat (J.K. Simmons) is a being of impossible malevolence and destructive potential. He's also stuck in a toilet cubicle in the armpit of America and can't bear to be looked at but that's an other story entirely. All he needs in order to unleash his creator's every whim is to destroy the life of a completely innocent and undeserving man.
Because Wes is completely undeserving, right? And surely he's broken enough already after suffering an unbearable breakup, never mind his terrible upbringing?
Claustrophobic and grimy as they come, Glorious is very funny and a very enjoyable ride. You might never quite see Ghat in all his glory but J.K. Simmons commands the whole, shitty, disgusting space with just his voice. Well, you wouldn't expect any less from him, would you?
"Glorious speaks to my adoration of Lovecraft, gore, absurdist humor, philosophy, and the type of transgressive movies that leave you thinking I can’t believe I just saw that. It is a wild mix of horror, humor, and heady moralistic concepts about our own existential realizations of who we really are, forcing each of us to stare into our personal abyss. And sometimes, the abyss stares back… and maybe has a favor to ask." - director Rebekah McKendry
With belly laughs rather than jump scares and a generous side helping of toilet humour, Glorious is an excellent way to pass 1 hour, 19 minutes. Don't be fooled though, this is definitely horror and I look forward to what director Rebekah McKendry (All the Creatures Were Stirring) delivers next. Four stars from me.
★★★★☆
A Shudder Original Film, Glorious, premiers Thursday, August 18, 2022
I love films that are more than just the sum of their parts. Give me synergy, emotion, gravity and I'm sold. Randall Okita's See For Me is a whole mood. Visually stunning and anchored on a flawed protagonist, it tracks one night in the life of a blind former skier when the luxury home she's sitting is invaded by a team of thieves.
Sophie (Skyler Davenport) is independent and savvy, a former athlete whose career was cut short by a degenerative retinal condition. Nowadays she pet-sits for a living, selectively lifting more valuable items to supplement her modest earnings.
The gig at the mansion of a recent divorcee should be simple. One cat, a secure yet secluded location and her best friend Cam on the other end of a video call.
Simple, that is, until she has a fight with Cam over her klepto tendencies and manages to lock herself out of the most secure house on earth.
Enter Kelly (Jessica Parker Kennedy, The Flash). A lifeline at the end of the See For Me app, she guides Sophie back into safety. It should all end there but what's the fun in that?
Sophie awakes in the middle of the night to noise and signs of company, definitely not the invited kind. As she navigates in the dark with only Kelly to assist her, can she make it through the night alive?
See For Me is a tense thriller, made all the more claustrophobic for its use of darkness; an excellent technique for the viewer senses Sophie's visual impairment. Simultaneously, director Okita washes each frame with colour, a lurid, visual feast for the eyes.
As visually appealing as See For Me is, it's the performances that make it shine. Skyler Davenport is excellent as Sophie, thoroughly unlikeable and morally unsuited for the task of housesitting-while-blind. The casting was spot-on and I'm pleased that they chose Davenport, a partially sighted actor, for the role. Likewise, Jessica Parker Kennedy shines as Kelly, as moral and likeable as Sophie is not and the true hero of the film.
I have two complaints about the film - one unfounded and one founded - and I'm going to put up a spoiler warning. I'll try to be vague but don't read on if you've not seen the film.
Both complaints can come under the header of plot holes. I managed to debunk my first complaint. There seemed to be a heck of a lot of rounds fired from a certain gun so I researched it. The standard police-issue service weapon in Canada is a Glock 17 and there were exactly seventeen rounds fired before the gun clicks on an empty chamber.
My second complaint wasn't as easily debunked. The See For Me app depends of the operator speaking to Sophie and we don't see Sophie putting in earphones. There's a lot of background noise with drilling and conversation, but I'm not entirely sure the thieves wouldn't have heard Kelly on the other end of those calls, especially when she's screaming.
I give See For Me an excellent four out of five stars. I'll be honest, I should have docked a star for that plot hole but I enjoyed the acting, plot and visual feast enough to keep it at four. Technically, See For Me is more thriller than horror but getting locked out of the most secure house on earth in sub-zero temperatures while blind is a horrific concept, so I'll let it slide. ★★★★☆
A Shudder Exclusive Film, See For Me, Premiers Thursday, April 7, 2022
Today we welcome a brand new contributor to the Addicted to Media team, Mirza Hota. Mirza's first challenge is Night's End, directed by Jennifer Reeder (Knives and Skin)
Night's End starts off really well. An unemployed divorcee shut-in with a history of alcohol abuse (played convincingly by Geno Walker) moving to a new town, away from his ex and their kids to an apartment that turns out to be haunted.
Walker spends most of his days carefully sealing himself off from the world outside of his apartment and making YouTube videos until viewers of one of his clips notice something strange going on and alert Walker to it.
I don't want to give too much away in this review. I have to admit I really enjoyed large portions of the film. It's atmospheric, dark and in parts very claustrophobic which adds greatly to the tension and highlights the main character's loneliness and frustration. The feeling that he is trapped in a prison of his own making.
The lead is very effective and Michael Shannon (who unfortunately does not get the chance to shine here) is always a welcome addition to any film.
Sadly Night's End loses it's edge, and much of the atmosphere towards the end and becomes a bit silly. Again I don't want to reveal too much but the ending didn't work for me. There was plenty there to work with. The main character's isolation, his frustration and anxiety are not properly explored. I don't know if the filmmakers felt they didn't know how to wrap it up or simply felt they had to end things spectacularly but I think they missed an opportunity here.
I give Night's End two-and-a-half out of five stars, rounded down to two stars for that ending. This is Jennifer Reeder's first foray into horror.★★☆☆☆
A Shudder original, Night's End will premiere on 31 March 2022
Minnesota, 1983. The 80s are in full steam: neon lights, wire-rimmed glasses, gel-soaked side-partings and man-perms. No wonder people are getting a little bit stabby. Enter Joel (Evan Marsh), critic for Vicious Funatics magazine, horror film expert and seriously cool guy (if he does say so himself, of course). Steeped in envy over his roommate's boyfriend, Joel follows him to a bar straight out of a new-wave music video and proceeds to consume his body weight in liquor.
Waking up decidedly worse for the wear in a storage closet, Joel stumbles into a support group and assumes the identity of Phil. Only problem? It's more of a networking seminar for serial killers and Joel will need to draw on every last horror trope at his fingertips to outwit his bloody-thirsty colleagues and avoid becoming their next victim.
Featuring an eyeball on a skewer that I will never unsee, Vicious Fun is exact what it says on the tin - bloody, gory and a hell of a lot of fun. It's directed by Cody Calahan (The Oak Room) who I'm beginning to love for his trademark combination of lurid colours and off-beat storylines and written by Calahan and James Villeneuve. The Oak Room star Ari Millen is a real treat as the unhinged Bob but as a fan of psychopaths and monsters, it was great meeting Fritz (Julian Richings), Mike (Robert Maillet), Hideo (Sean Baek), Zachary (David Koechner) and the impeccably cast Carrie (Amber Goldfarb) too.
With far more style and sleeker women's hairstyles than we ever saw in the 80s, Vicious Fun takes us through a night of mayhem and delivers a very satisfying ending. I give Vicious Fun an excellent four out of five stars and recommend for fans of horror with equal parts comedy and gore. I'm absolutely looking forward to whatever neon-baked trip Cody Calahan takes us on next.★★★★☆
A Shudder Original, Vicious Fun will be released on 28 June 2021.
I was trying to recall when last I saw an Australian horror film but how could I forget The Babadook, the film that started my whole obsession with horror? Relic is the debut feature by director Natalie Erika James and similar to The Babadook, the metaphor is the monster.
Kay (Emily Mortimer) gets a call from the local constable in her mother's town. Her mother Edna is missing and hasn't been seen by neighbours for several days. Kay drives to her mother's house with her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) and they find no sign of Edna. The house is in disarray, with fruit rotting, beds unmade and a creeping dark substance on the walls. The days stretch out as Kay and Sam rattle about the house, unable to do anything but simply wait.
Suddenly, Edna (Robyn Nevin) returns home, seemingly lucid but unwilling to shed light on where she's been. And that's when the walls of the house begin to close in.
Relic is the kind of film that gets under your skin and is deeply unsettling. While normally I steer well clear of spoilers, I don't think I'd be able to do justice to this film and my thoughts on it without spoilers, so stop here if you haven't seen the film yet. My one-line review? It's a solid horror but with extremely dark cinematography, so recommend viewing on a big screen rather than a home cinema.
Relic is a film about the horror of dementia and it is portrayed visually and spatially through Edna's house. We see walls closing in, hoarding, decay, getting trapped in endless loops within the house, and rooms closed off, inaccessible and too scary to explore. It is a dark, claustrophobic horror dealing with the cloying feeling of dementia taking hold; the creeping rot as day by day, another part of the person, of their mind, is lost to the condition.
It's also equally a film about a haunted house and an extremely good one because there is nothing supernatural about it, no one running around for rushed, hackneyed explanations involving medieval Christian torture to explain the haunting (I'm looking at you The Banishing). It's an old woman, alone with her failing mind and her feeling of a palpable presence that has come to torment her.
The acting in Relic is superb, with Nevin, Mortimer and Heathcote giving credence to the women they portray. Throughout the film there is a strong script and a subplot about the estranged relationships between mothers and daughters, the breeding resentments and the failure to communicate or understand one another.
The setting is great too, from the clutter of the house to the claustrophobic closets and those long, narrow passageways.
I wish I could have rated this film higher but the cinematography was incredibly dark, making it very difficult to see many of the scenes. With it being a slow-burn horror, I found my attention straying and I wish I could have better seen the impressive set design and special effects.
Relic is an excellent allegory for dementia with great performances and a devastating finale. I'm utterly conflicted because director Natalie Erika James has delivered a creepy and disturbing horror but the lighting means that I can only give three out of five stars. ★★★☆☆
A Shudder Exclusive, Relic will be released on 11 May 2021.