Calgary Underground 2024: Curtain Raiser
The Calgary Underground Film Festival (CUFF) opens its 21st edition today, and runs until April 28th. Western Canada's largest showcase of genre film, offbeat documentaries, and industry events is housed in the two-screen (stacked on top of one another) Globe Cinema in the...
GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE Review: Big Dumb Monster Fun Is The Anti-GODZILLA MINUS ONE
Picking up where its incredibly fun predecessor left off, Adam Wingard’s Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire finds the two former foes fighting together against a new foe in an existential battle for the earth and its most vulnerable inhabitants,...
SXSW 2024: What We Watched, Liked and Loved
From March 8-16, 2024, the center of our genre-film loving world moved to Austin, Texas, US, where the SXSW Film & TV Festival unveiled a broad and diverse selection of films and television shows. Our own J. Hurtado attended the...
RIDDLE OF FIRE Review: Life Beyond the Screen Requires a Brave Quest
Weston Razooli's feature debut stars Lio Tipton, Charles Halford, Charlie Stover, Skyler Peters, Phoebe Ferro, and Lorelei Olivia Mote.
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL Review: Walking a Tightrope Between Simple Dread and Outrageous, Visceral Horror
It’s 1977 and TV talk show host Jack Delroy’s (David Dastmalchian) career is on the skids. Once a titan of late-night TV, the tragic death of his wife has left him a shell of his former self, and his ratings...
SXSW 2024 Review: SMUGGLERS, Korea's King of Action Ryoo Seung-Wan Delivers A '70s Set Crowd-Pleaser
Two women’s lives transform when their diving careers move from harvesting shellfish to high stakes smuggling in Ryoo Seung-n’s ‘70s set comedic action thriller, Smugglers. After a healthy theatrical run in South Korea and a North American premiere at TIFF,...
SXSW 2024 Review: HOOD WITCH, Golshifteh Farahani Runs For Her Life In This Literal Witch Hunt
A trafficker of rare animals finds herself in the crosshairs of a literal witch hunt when a young boy plummets to his death following a visit in Saïd Belktibia’s Hood Witch, celebrating its international premiere at this year’s SXSW Film...
SXSW 2024 Review: CIVIL WAR, Is Not What You Think It Is. It's So Much More.
Civil War follows a quartet of war correspondents in the last days of the American republic as the Western Forces of the secessionist states of Texas and California advances on Washington, D.C. with harrowing results. Leading this motley crew are Lee...
SXSW 2024 Review: FAMILY, Ruth Wilson Gives The Performance Of A Lifetime In This Heart-breaking Horror
A little girl with a dying father reaches out to the heavens for a spirit to protect her family, but what reaches back has other ideas in Benjamin Finkel’s SXSW Midnighters selection, Family. Having just moved across the country in...
SXSW 2024 Review: THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT, Timey-Wimey Two Handed Thriller Delights And Befuddles
A pair of siblings on the run after a robbery take refuge in a house with mysterious time-warping qualities, only to find that the law isn’t the only thing they have to fear. Things Will Be Different, the latest from...
SXSW 2024 Review: ARCADIAN, Rich Relationships And Terrifying Monsters Make This A Winner
The old world is dead and the new one wants to kill us in Benjamin Brewer’s solo feature directing debut, Arcadian. A post-apocalyptic survival horror with strong character work and some incredible monsters, Arcadian packs an emotional punch rarely seen...
SXSW 2024 Review: DESERT ROAD, A Woman Navigates Her Way Through Despair In This Sci-Fi Gem
An intentionally convoluted science-fiction fantasy film about despair and recovery, first time feature filmmaker Shannon Triplett’s Desert Road is just the kind of small film with big ideas that really resonates with the festival crowd. Powered by an impressive lead...
SXSW 2024 Review: IMMACULATE, Sydney Sweeney Does Nunsploitation
These last few years have been a dream run for it-girl Sydney Sweeney. From her breakout role TV roles in Euphoria and The White Lotus, to box office success in this year’s Anyone But You, she seems to have the...
SXSW 2024 Review: BIRDEATER, This Vivisection Of A Toxic Relationship Will Make You Squirm
An Australian stag party goes off the rails when the details of the happy couple's relationship get spilled during a night of heavy drinking and drugs in Jack Clark & Jim Weir's Birdeater, making its international debut at this year's...
SXSW 2024 Review: SEW TORN, An Enchantingly Whimsical Rube Goldberg Action Thriller
A struggling seamstress plays a dangerous real life choose-your-own-adventure game in Freddy Macdonald’s debut feature, the whimsical comedic thriller Sew Torn. Barbara Duggen’s (Eve Connolly) sewing shop in an idyllic hamlet in the picturesque Swiss Alps is on the rocks....
SXSW 2024 Review: MONKEY MAN, Dev Patel Is Your New Action Obsession. Get Excited
After sitting in the can for nearly four years, Dev Patel’s directorial debut, Monkey Man, was presented to a rapturous audience at SXSW last night. The film declaring loudly what the man himself was too humble to acknowledge; Dev Patel...
BLACKOUT Review: More Than a Monster Movie
Larry Fessenden's indie horror picture stars Alex Hurt, Addison Timlin, and Motell Gyn Foster.
SXSW 2024 Review: THE MOOGAI, An Examination Of Indigenous Trauma Let Down By Flaccid Script
An Aboriginal demon steps in for the real-life enduring trauma of Australia’s “Stolen Generations” in Jon Bell’s debut feature, The Moogai. Government sponsored assimilation programs ripped tens of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families to be placed with white...
SXSW 2024 Review: HUNTING DAZE, This Party Ends In Blood
One of several films at this year’s SXSW that explore the effects of women’s presence in traditionally male spaces, Annick Blanc’s Hunting Daze is among the bloodiest of the lot. When exotic dancer Nina (Nahéma Ricci) gets in a fight...
SXSW 2024 Review: AZRAEL, Samara Weaving Leads Dialogue-Free Ripper
In a future some time beyond the Rapture, a sect of penitents renounces the gift of speech in the hopes of secondary salvation. However, their survival depends on more than piety, and when a sacrifice goes awry, one former believer...
