Festivals: Etrange Reviews
L'Étrange 2020 Review: FANNY LYE DELIVER'D Delivers a Tepid Period Drama
It's the 16th century, after the English Civil War, and Fanny Lye (Maxine Peake, Black Mirror) lives a relatively bleak existence, married to a much older man, John, who basically bought her (Charles Dance, Alien III), on a remote farm,...
L'Étrange 2020 Review: ABOUT ENDLESSNESS, Absurdism & Hope in the Time of Apocalypse
The expression "You either you love [insert name here]'s work or you hate it" is a phrase perhaps a bit oversued, but I'm not sure there is a filmmaker to whom it more readily applies than Roy Andersson. His films,...
L'Étrange 2020 Review: THE WITCH OF KING'S CROSS, The Soul of a Great Artist Laid Bare
When you are heavily involved in an art form, or maybe two, other art forms often slip under your radar, or you rely on friends' facebook posts to keep you informed, even with an artist you wish you knew about...
L'Etrange 2019 Review: TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG, an Entertaining Farcical Yarn
Based on the fictional Peter Carey novel of the same name, True History of the Kelly Gang is a far-flung reimagining and mythologising of the legacy of the armoured clad outlaw. Although the film is less affecting as a result...
L'Etrange 2019 Review: KNIVES & SKIN, Femme Neo-Noir that Soothes and Bristles
Knives & Skin, Jennifer Reeder's second feature film, is a 'noir' of many colours: part neo, part femme, part pastel; it will likely draws comparisons with Blue Velvet for it's oddball yet seedy town setting; Brick and a lot of...
L'Etrange 2015 Review: REMAKE REMIX RIP-OFF Is An Enlightening Joyride
I'm sure that many of us, when we were kids, enjoyed acting out scenes to our favourite movies and TV shows; today, spured on by the internet, fan fiction has taken on new heights of importance (some even arguing...
L'Etrange 2014 Review: THE TRIBE, No Sound, But A Whole Lot Of Fury
Not one word of dialogue is spoken in director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's The Tribe, a stark Ukrainian drama that mixes gang thriller with boarding school intrigue, and pushes the maxim 'show don't tell' into brutal new extremes. The film presents a...
Etrange 2013 Review: WORM Is A One-Take Wonder
Worm is having a really bad day. The town baddies are after him. He can't look to his friends for help because they're turning against one by one. He can't even go to the police. They want him for...
Etrange 2013 Review: CONTRACTED Gives Sick Thrills
You've heard the story... happened to a friend of a friend, I swear. Girl had a one-night stand with a mortician and the next day she found maggots down there. Disgusting right? Oh she's a friend of a friend of...
L'étrange 2013 Review: MAN FROM THE FUTURE, Time Travel That's A Little Too Predictable
We all have moments from our past that we would like to change. Whether it was something we did or something someone did to us, there is a moment that we think, if I could only change that one point,...
L'étrange 2013 Review: IT'S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY, Animation That Is Funny, Sad, And Wise
I can't say I'm an expert on animation, though I've seen my fair share of animated films. On viewing, I look for how the animation style matches with the story, and how I am meant to interpret one through the...
L'étrange 2013 Review: A LITTLE BIT ZOMBIE, Outrageously Funny Comedy
It's always refreshing to watch a film that has a new and fun take on the zombie metaphor. In the case of A Little Bit Zombie, directed by Casey Walker, that take is the change that love and marriage bring....
L'Etrange 2012 Review: MANIAC Remake Doesn't Cop Out, for Better or Worse
Those worried that Franck Khalfoun and Alexandre Aja's Maniac remake was going to whitewash and water down their favorite 80s sleaze classic can rest easy. This updated, Los Angeles-set story of a disturbed man cutting off the scalps of women...
L'Etrange 2012 Review: EXCISION is a Messy Combination of Sex and Scalpels
Excision, a gory, coming-of-age horror/comedy, wears its influences on its sleeve; so much so, that you'll have to forgive me, and probably numerous other critics, for describing it as Welcome to the Dollhouse with a healthy dose of Nip/Tuck's sexualized...
L'Etrange 2012 Review: VANISHING WAVES is the Erotic Sci-Fi Drama of the Year!
Vanishing Waves is an exquisite sci-fi head trip in the vein of Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey, one which takes pleasure in ideas and exploration rather than cheap thrills. As a bonus, it's also sexier than either of those...
L'Etrange 2012 Review: THE OUTING Delivers Thrilling Mixture of Hitchcock and Brothers Grimm
Two things become immediately clear in Mathieu Seiler's suspenseful adult fairy tale, The Outing: First, that this isn't going to be your average lost-in-the-woods horror movie. From the colorful opening credits, which pay equal homage to Saul Bass and vintage...
L'Etrange 2012 Review: HENGE is Hilarious, Outrageous, Violent... And Kinda Heartwarming
I doubt that the "in sickness and in health" line of wedding vows was written with demonic, mutant transformations in mind. But, as director Hajime Ohata shows, sometimes them's the breaks. Indeed, Henge establishes its love of body horror right...
LIFF 2011: THE DIVIDE review
Xavier Gens' superb The Divide basically posits that should the bombs drop and the world get blown to radioactive splinters, the scariest thing that could happen wouldn't be finding out you were screwed. It'd be finding out that given the...
Grimm Up North 2011: THE THEATRE BIZARRE review
Horror's pretty dumb, right, when you get down to it? Subjecting ourselves to seedy vicarious thrills when if we took pleasure in the same things in real life we'd be clinically insane. Lots of people level this argument against genre...
Grimm Up North 2011: REVENGE: A LOVE STORY review
Wong Ching-Po's salacious little thriller Revenge: A Love Story is the second film from production company 852 - who previously gave us Edmond Pang's Dream Home, an ultraviolent slasher (emphasis on ultra) where Pang's trademark sly social commentary sat somewhat...
