Reviews in a nutshell
The promise of a thriller with a sexy, all-star cast of Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert De Niro is enough to whet the appetite for a trip to the cinema. Debut writer-director Gary McKendry’s adaptation of Ranulph Fiennes’ novel, The Feather Men, should be the action man’s version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy this …
Tomas Alfredson came to attention in 2008 after his atmospheric thriller, the acclaimed Let The Right One In, about a young boy who befriends a vampire. The Swedish director now takes his chills-making expertise and coolly applies it to a John le Carré spy thriller adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and adds a spectacular …
There’s nothing more appealing than a horror steeped with folklore that manages to question our sanity. This is precisely what foreign-based fantasies like Norwegian writer-director André Øvredal’s Troll Hunter achieve for the non-Nordic audience out there, desperate for mysteries such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster to have a touch of authenticity about them. …
The Gilbeys are no stranger to a bit of in-your-face grit after their 2007 gangster flick, Rise Of The Footsoldier, based on a true story. All they’ve done with their last offering, A Lonely Place To Die, starring horror Aussie darling Melissa George, is injected the horror into what is effectively a cat-and-mouse crime thriller …
Craig Gillespie’s last and probably only memorable film to date was the touchingly quirky Lars and the Real Girl in 2007, starring Ryan Gosling as a delusional guy who has a relationship with a life-like doll. This showed the makings of a great director of twisted unconventionality in the heart of suburbia – kind of …
The thought of another dance with Death – and in 3D – fills anyone tiring of the accident-obsessed franchise with dread. But Steven Quale’s addition to the grizzly iconic series, Final Destination 5 (3D), should not be dismissed so easily, and begins with a glass-smashing, gore-dripping, pole-flying 3D title extravaganza that makes you sit up …
As everyone knows from nature programmes alone, ‘Hell hath no fury like a Mummy scorned’. After creeping out audiences back in 1992 in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, then-maternal Rebecca De Mornay proves she’s still got the superior chill factor to scare the living daylights out of you in Saw director Darren Lynn Bousman’s …
Writer/director director Guillem Morales has a great talent for horror that fantasy-horror maestro and co-producer of this film, Guillermo del Toro has recognised. Morales is certainly welcomed into the del Toro fold, here, as he comes on board to direct del Toro’s The Orphanage leading lady, the mesmerising Belén Rueda, in this richly layered, beautifully-shot, …
Ah, the gritty underbelly of South-East London, where every copper is as mean as Jason Statham, every traditional pub has a man with a dog (or two), and every corner has a loony lurking in its shadows. Nathan Parker’s (Moon) adaptation of Ken Bruen’s novel, Blitz, couldn’t get more clichéd if it was a Guy …
