Weird Reviews
DRAG ME TO HELL 4K Review: Mad, Visceral Storytelling
Sam Raimi’s 2009 return to horror after the 1992 Army of Darkness, Drag Me to Hell, is from a more innocent time. Just like ye old E.C. Comics and Tales From the Darkside, Drag Me to Hell is a morality...
DREAM TEAM Review: Analogue Aesthetics and Conspiring Coral
Imagine it's the 90s, in the early days of wide home computer use, with dial-up models, compact discs as the main mode of music listening, and you've fallen asleep in front of your television. You wake up in a dark...
Lausanne 2024 Review: MAKAMISA: PHANTASM OF REVENGE Confronts the Ghosts of Colonial Power through Subversive Silent Cinema
Filipino provocateur Khavn de la Cruz reimagines colonial-era Philippines through a fractured cinematic lens, blending experimental visuals with silent cinema aesthetics to unravel a surreal and haunting exploration of history, violence, and national trauma.
Lausanne 2024 Review: BEEZEL, Hex Marks the Spot in Haunted House Found Footage Horror
American indie filmmaker Aaron Fradkin fuses old-school horror aesthetics with modern found footage techniques to deliver a multi-generational tale of supernatural terror, unfolding within a cursed New England home.
Lausanne 2024 Review: SELF DRIVER Spins Survival Satire in Gig Economy Gone Rogue
In Michael Pierro's darkly satirical debut, a cash-strapped cab driver plunges into a digital enslavement where the promise of easy money reveals a world of moral decay, autonomy lost, and the high stakes of a gig economy spiraling out of control.
ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES 4K Review
Not only is Halloween thankfully upon us, but the next major holiday, Thanksgiving, at least in America, is next. That can only mean one thing: it’s time for a re-watch of Addams Family Values! Our friends at Paramount Home Entertainment...
Brooklyn Horror 2024 Review: PSYCHONAUT, Love Heals All Wounds
A late night altercation on a dark and stormy night leaves Maxime’s girlfriend Dylan with a life threatening head wound. Given the circumstances surrounding how Dylan got injured Max can’t take her to the hospital so she takes her to...
MURDERING THE DEVIL Review: An Absolute Delight
Recently restored, Murdering the Devil is a Czech film from 1970. It's an absolute delight. Art director and costume designer Ester Krumbachová's first and only film was credited with shaping the look of the Czech New Wave. It packs a...
CALIGULA 4K Review: An Unhinged, Violent, Epic Masterpiece
Where to begin on this infamous film? Shot in 1976 and released in 1980, Caligula was directed by arthouse provocateur Tinto Brass. Written by Gore Vidal and funded by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione, Caligula became one of those unfortunate films...
Montreal Nouveau 2024 Review: SCHIRKOA: IN LIES WE TRUST, Anonymous Dystopia to Queer Utopia
Authoritarian dystopian futures, as imagined by writers, artists, and filmmakers, often have familiar tropes, usually about the neutralization of individuality, the importance of conformity, and how it eventually becomes impossible to keep the brightness and individuality of the human spirit...
Montreal Nouveau 2024 Review: ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL
It's hard to imagine what any of us would do, if we were driving along a quite road and came across a dead body, let alone the body of a member of our family. For Shula (Susan Chardy), on her...
Montreal Nouveau 2024 Review: THE HUMAN HIBERNATION, Under a Cow's Eye
Like many Canadians (and others who live in a colder climate), I often dream - at least fleetingly - about hibernating for the winter, like our bear brethren. Sleeping away those colder months, and reawakening with the earth as it...
Hawaii 2024 Review: SISTER MIDNIGHT Has a Punk Rock Flavor
Sister Midnight from Karan Kandhari (Bye Bye Miss Goodnight) is a hard film to review and classify, but I’m going to try after seeing the film at the 44th annual Hawaii International Film Festival. Funded in part by the British...
BeyondFest 2024 Review: SHADOWLAND, Compelling, Infuriating, And Sobering
In 2021 Finnish filmmaker and documentarian Otso Tiainen, together with their co-writer Kalle Kinnunen, set out to Montségur, France, a commune nestled in the French Pyreneese mountains and a homestead for practitioners of the occult. Initially filming started out as...
Montreal Nouveau 2024 Review: THE HYPERBOREANS, The Puppetry of Memory
Human memory is fallable, at least on an individual level; though as some cultures can tell you, a poor memory has also been of great service to larger groups of people who need to forget, or need others to forget,...
Hawaii 2024 Review: DEAD TALENTS SOCIETY Is a Ghostly Good Time
Having played TIFF and Fantastic Fest, Dead Talents Society is the latest from director John Hsu, and I’ve just seen his rad Taiwanese ghost horror comedy at Hawaii International Film Festival. Hsu’s last feature was the great 2019 period horror...
Hawaii 2024 Review: CHAIN REACTIONS Roars with Recollections
What do Karyn Kusama, Stephen King, Patton Oswalt, and Takashi Miike have in common? They all speak of their experiences on a certain film that influenced them in one way or another in Alexandre O. Philippe’s (Lynch/Oz, 78/52, Memory: The...
Hawaii 2024 Review: Out for Blood Shorts Shine
[Still from Olga's Eyes] Having been a shorts filmmaker for most of my filmmaking life, I know exactly how difficult it is to get coverage at festivals for short films. When I’m able, I like to return the favor. While...
HAPPINESS 4K Review: Todd Solondz' Confrontational Black Comedy Gets a Gorgeous Upgrade
The Criterion Collection plays hero once again with their recent 4K UHD release of Todd Solondz’s 1998 sophomore feature, Happiness. The film had long languished on a pitiful non-anamorphic window-boxed DVD from Lionsgate and fans have been clamoring for an...
SLEEP Review: On the Merits of Insomnia
Soo-jin (Jung Yu-mi) and Hyun-su (Lee Sun-kyun) are the sweetest young couple, full of promise and hope. Soo-jin works in business, hoping to make her way to the executive branch. Hyun-su is an actor; while he's only had small roles,...
