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Joseph Perry

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Spoiler-Free Review: SHED (Screamfest 2025)

Spoiler-Free Review: SHED (Screamfest 2025)

Official Synopsis Mia, a courageous 10-year-old girl who is locked in a shed, must survive inconceivable odds whilst trying to discover what happened to her family. Review Writer/director/editor Steven J. Mihaljevich’s Shed (Australia, 2025) is a taut horror thriller boasting a fantastic performance from young Mani Shanks as Mia, a little girl who is locked in the family shed by her little brother during a game. Unbeknownst to her, something awful befalls her family, and after a few days surviving by herself, a maniacal stranger (Jason Robert Lester) discovers her presence. The film starts off as a survival horror in the confinement of the shed before turning into a cat-and-mouse chiller in a wider area. I don’t want to give away too much more than that, as Shed is rich with surprises. Mia is a resourceful youngster who doesn’t give up easily, and her clever ideas for staying alive are more realistic than precocious “superkid”-style elements. Shanks captured Screamfest’s Best

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 18, 2025
Spoiler-Free Reviews: THE DOLLMAKER, A FISHERMAN’S TALE, and PITFALL (Screamfest 2025)

Spoiler-Free Reviews: THE DOLLMAKER, A FISHERMAN’S TALE, and PITFALL (Screamfest 2025)

The Dollmaker Official synopsis In a quiet village, a charming young man named Tomás leads a simple life: caring for his mother, working at the video store and town clinic, and collecting dolls. As women start disappearing, newly arrived Inspector Porter investigates. Review Director José María Cicala’s The Dollmaker (Encantador; Argentina, 2025) is an unnerving combination of the weird and the macabre. It’s also a candidate for feel-bad horror film of the year, and a terror tale you are not likely to easily forget. Tomás (Rodrigo Noya) is both socially active and socially awkward, working at a video rental store and helping out with a support group. When a series of disappearances occur in his small Argentinian town, the video store comes under investigation by a new-in-town officer despite the police chief’s lack of concern. The screenplay by Cicala and Griselda Sanchez is full of twists, red herrings, and surprises, keeping even seasoned fright-fare fanatics questioning events and characters until

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 18, 2025
Spoiler Free Reviews: Descendent, The Square, and Heavens: the Boy and His Robot (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Spoiler Free Reviews: Descendent, The Square, and Heavens: the Boy and His Robot (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? Descendent (U.S., 2025); review by Joseph Perry Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Kani: Sean, a school security guard in a small town on the outskirts of Los Angeles, is struggling with the looming reality of fatherhood. Haunted by childhood trauma and weighed down by the pressures of his job, he feels utterly unprepared to become a parent. One night during a routine shift, he witnesses a mysterious, glowing object in the sky. After that encounter, Sean begins to suffer from disturbing visions — strange images, apparitions of alien

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jul 24, 2025
Spoiler Free Reviews: I Kill U and I, Kill (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Spoiler Free Reviews: I Kill U and I, Kill (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? I Kill U (South Korea, 2025); review by Chris Weatherspoon Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Kani: Kang Sunwoo, a former promising taekwondo athlete, now lives a life of poverty and exhaustion. One day, while carrying the weight of her painful past, she is suddenly thrust into the spotlight when people notice her uncanny resemblance to a woman named Han Jiyeon. The problem is, Han Jiyeon is the main perpetrator of a ‘drunk driving hit-and-run death case’ and also the heiress of a major conglomerate. As public anger and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jul 22, 2025
Spoiler Free Reviews: 100 Liters of Gold and Reflection in a Dead Diamond (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Spoiler Free Reviews: 100 Liters of Gold and Reflection in a Dead Diamond (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? 100 Liters of Gold (Finland/Italy, 2025); review by Chris Weatherspoon Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Byeonggyu: 100 Liters of Gold is a comedy of drunkenness and a farce of hangovers. Middle-aged sisters Taina and Pirkko, who live in a small village in southern Finland, are brewers of sahti, a traditional Finnish beer. Tasked with preparing 100 litres of sahti for the wedding of their younger sister Paivi, who has returned to their hometown, they accidentally end up drinking all the beer themselves. With only 48 hours left until

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jul 21, 2025
A Terrifying Trio: Three Recommendations for Romford Horror Festival

A Terrifying Trio: Three Recommendations for Romford Horror Festival

Romford Horror Festival is renowned for curating a terrific lineup of fear fare each year that ranges from mind-blowing new independent films to well-respected classics. This year’s edition runs February 27–March 2 at Lumiere Cinema in Romford, U.K. Following are three offerings from the fest for which I have had an early viewing and consider well worth a watch. Descriptions from Romford Horror Festival’s website are in italics, followed by my thoughts on the films. Psychopomp Synopsis: Amidst a super virus that ravages most of the world’s population, a tenacious microbiology student (Brian K. Millard) leads a small team through a rogue planned exposure. But the human trials end tragically, taking his friends’ lives one by one and leaving potential treatments untested. As he becomes more and more isolated, the line between what’s real and what’s not begins to blur. I’m a hard sell on genre films inspired by — and often made during — COVID-19 lockdown, mainly because of

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 26, 2025
Spoiler-Free Reviews: WITTE WIEVEN and STOMACH IT (Screamfest)

Spoiler-Free Reviews: WITTE WIEVEN and STOMACH IT (Screamfest)

Witte Wieven (Heresy) (Netherlands, 2024) Director Didier Konings tackles patriarchal oppression of women, religious hypocrisy, and the search for self-identity in his beautiful looking folk horror Witte Wieven (Heresy). The story is set in a small rural Dutch village in the Middle Ages, where religion makes the rules that favor men and also where women unable to bear children have little to no use. Devout couple Frieda (Anneke Sluiter) and Hikko (Len Leo Vincent) have been unsuccessful in trying to have a baby, and even religious leader Father Bartolomeus (Reinout Bussemaker) has been unable to help. Village butcher Gelo (Leon Van Waas), who has recently been punished for what the film hints at as sexual assault on one of the village women, is released. His advances toward being able to make Frieda pregnant turn into a rape attempt in the nearby woods, during which Frieda is saved by a supernatural entity. When villagers accuse her of being in league with

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 17, 2024
Spoiler-Free Review: BAAL (Beyond Fest)

Spoiler-Free Review: BAAL (Beyond Fest)

Official synopsis: A twisted new tale from Joseph Sims-Dennett (BFI London Film Festival Selected Observance). Grace returns to the small town she grew up in to find the brother, David, is missing. Deciding that she must reunite her family, she follows a lead which takes her deep into the wilderness. Lost, injured and alone, soon her only hope is another hiker who is communicating with her via her radio. Grace makes her way closer to this mysterious hiker — however, suspicions start to grow about their true identity. As the darkness becomes ever more menacing and a threatening presence begins to consume Grace, who can she really trust? Writer/director Joseph Sims-Dennett builds an engrossing air of mystery in his new Australian feature Baal, which finds Grace (Meg Clarke in an outstanding lead performance) returning after a very long absence to her childhood home to sort out matters after her father dies. She also begins a search for her brother David

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 11, 2024
Spoiler-Free Reviews: 1978 and SOLVENT (Dark Nights Film Festival)

Spoiler-Free Reviews: 1978 and SOLVENT (Dark Nights Film Festival)

1978 Codirectors Luciano and Nicolás Onetti craft a marvelously macabre fright-fare outing with 1978 (Argentina, 2024). Set in Argentina in the titular year, and specifically during both a military dictatorship and the World Cup match between that country — which hosted the event in Buenos Aires — and The Netherlands, the film uses the dark history of torture, brutality, and murder by the regime of that time as its setting. Government representatives torture political dissidents for information regarding other members of their groups, but when they accidentally kidnap the wrong group, the hell that they have brought to so many is about to be visited back on them in gruesome, blood-soaked ways. Unflinching in its depictions of political horror and unrelenting in its presentations of supernatural terror and violence, 1978 delivers visceral shocks and grisly set pieces galore. The Onetti brothers deliver a feature that combines strong political and philosophical themes along with hard-hitting horror. Solvent Johannes Grenzfurthner’s Solvent (Austria,

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 8, 2024
Spoiler-Free Reviews: TOUCHED BY ETERNITY and HEAVIER TRIP (Fantastic Fest)

Spoiler-Free Reviews: TOUCHED BY ETERNITY and HEAVIER TRIP (Fantastic Fest)

Touched by Eternity Writer/director Mārcis Lācis serves up an intriguing, amusing feature with his Latvian philosophical horror dramedy Touched by Eternity. Fatso (Andris Keišs) longs for immortality, though why he desires that isn’t clearly evident, as he pretty much keeps to himself in his trailer, listening to broadcasts about seeking eternal life. When vampires Egons (Ivars Krasts) and Carlos (Edgars Samītis) come calling, seemingly offering him what he pursues, his simple lifestyle is upended and he is suddenly faced with existential questions about mortality. Lācis blends the thoughtful, the horrific, and the humorous quite nicely, and Keišs leads a solid cast as a simple everyman who dreams of the unattainable until his dream is offered to him as a reality — though quite a different, blood-spattered one than he had originally imagined. Thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining, Touched by Eternity is a unique slice of genre cinema well worth seeking out. Heavier Trip Finnish/German/Norwegian/Lithuanian coproduction Heavier Trip — the sequel to

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 7, 2024

More from Joseph Perry

Spoiler-Free Review: SHED (Screamfest 2025)

Spoiler-Free Review: SHED (Screamfest 2025)

Official Synopsis Mia, a courageous 10-year-old girl who is locked in a shed, must survive inconceivable odds whilst trying to discover what happened to her family. Review Writer/director/editor Steven J. Mihaljevich’s Shed (Australia, 2025) is a taut horror thriller boasting a fantastic performance from young Mani Shanks as Mia, a little girl who is locked in the family shed by her little brother during a game. Unbeknownst to her, something awful befalls her family, and after a few days surviving by herself, a maniacal stranger (Jason Robert Lester) discovers her presence. The film starts off as a survival horror in the confinement of the shed before turning into a cat-and-mouse chiller in a wider area. I don’t want to give away too much more than that, as Shed is rich with surprises. Mia is a resourceful youngster who doesn’t give up easily, and her clever ideas for staying alive are more realistic than precocious “superkid”-style elements. Shanks captured Screamfest’s Best

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 18, 2025
Spoiler-Free Reviews: THE DOLLMAKER, A FISHERMAN’S TALE, and PITFALL (Screamfest 2025)

Spoiler-Free Reviews: THE DOLLMAKER, A FISHERMAN’S TALE, and PITFALL (Screamfest 2025)

The Dollmaker Official synopsis In a quiet village, a charming young man named Tomás leads a simple life: caring for his mother, working at the video store and town clinic, and collecting dolls. As women start disappearing, newly arrived Inspector Porter investigates. Review Director José María Cicala’s The Dollmaker (Encantador; Argentina, 2025) is an unnerving combination of the weird and the macabre. It’s also a candidate for feel-bad horror film of the year, and a terror tale you are not likely to easily forget. Tomás (Rodrigo Noya) is both socially active and socially awkward, working at a video rental store and helping out with a support group. When a series of disappearances occur in his small Argentinian town, the video store comes under investigation by a new-in-town officer despite the police chief’s lack of concern. The screenplay by Cicala and Griselda Sanchez is full of twists, red herrings, and surprises, keeping even seasoned fright-fare fanatics questioning events and characters until

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 18, 2025
Spoiler Free Reviews: Descendent, The Square, and Heavens: the Boy and His Robot (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Spoiler Free Reviews: Descendent, The Square, and Heavens: the Boy and His Robot (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? Descendent (U.S., 2025); review by Joseph Perry Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Kani: Sean, a school security guard in a small town on the outskirts of Los Angeles, is struggling with the looming reality of fatherhood. Haunted by childhood trauma and weighed down by the pressures of his job, he feels utterly unprepared to become a parent. One night during a routine shift, he witnesses a mysterious, glowing object in the sky. After that encounter, Sean begins to suffer from disturbing visions — strange images, apparitions of alien

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jul 24, 2025
Spoiler Free Reviews: I Kill U and I, Kill (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Spoiler Free Reviews: I Kill U and I, Kill (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? I Kill U (South Korea, 2025); review by Chris Weatherspoon Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Kani: Kang Sunwoo, a former promising taekwondo athlete, now lives a life of poverty and exhaustion. One day, while carrying the weight of her painful past, she is suddenly thrust into the spotlight when people notice her uncanny resemblance to a woman named Han Jiyeon. The problem is, Han Jiyeon is the main perpetrator of a ‘drunk driving hit-and-run death case’ and also the heiress of a major conglomerate. As public anger and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jul 22, 2025
Spoiler Free Reviews: 100 Liters of Gold and Reflection in a Dead Diamond (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Spoiler Free Reviews: 100 Liters of Gold and Reflection in a Dead Diamond (Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2025)

Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? 100 Liters of Gold (Finland/Italy, 2025); review by Chris Weatherspoon Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Byeonggyu: 100 Liters of Gold is a comedy of drunkenness and a farce of hangovers. Middle-aged sisters Taina and Pirkko, who live in a small village in southern Finland, are brewers of sahti, a traditional Finnish beer. Tasked with preparing 100 litres of sahti for the wedding of their younger sister Paivi, who has returned to their hometown, they accidentally end up drinking all the beer themselves. With only 48 hours left until

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jul 21, 2025
A Terrifying Trio: Three Recommendations for Romford Horror Festival

A Terrifying Trio: Three Recommendations for Romford Horror Festival

Romford Horror Festival is renowned for curating a terrific lineup of fear fare each year that ranges from mind-blowing new independent films to well-respected classics. This year’s edition runs February 27–March 2 at Lumiere Cinema in Romford, U.K. Following are three offerings from the fest for which I have had an early viewing and consider well worth a watch. Descriptions from Romford Horror Festival’s website are in italics, followed by my thoughts on the films. Psychopomp Synopsis: Amidst a super virus that ravages most of the world’s population, a tenacious microbiology student (Brian K. Millard) leads a small team through a rogue planned exposure. But the human trials end tragically, taking his friends’ lives one by one and leaving potential treatments untested. As he becomes more and more isolated, the line between what’s real and what’s not begins to blur. I’m a hard sell on genre films inspired by — and often made during — COVID-19 lockdown, mainly because of

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 26, 2025
Spoiler-Free Reviews: WITTE WIEVEN and STOMACH IT (Screamfest)

Spoiler-Free Reviews: WITTE WIEVEN and STOMACH IT (Screamfest)

Witte Wieven (Heresy) (Netherlands, 2024) Director Didier Konings tackles patriarchal oppression of women, religious hypocrisy, and the search for self-identity in his beautiful looking folk horror Witte Wieven (Heresy). The story is set in a small rural Dutch village in the Middle Ages, where religion makes the rules that favor men and also where women unable to bear children have little to no use. Devout couple Frieda (Anneke Sluiter) and Hikko (Len Leo Vincent) have been unsuccessful in trying to have a baby, and even religious leader Father Bartolomeus (Reinout Bussemaker) has been unable to help. Village butcher Gelo (Leon Van Waas), who has recently been punished for what the film hints at as sexual assault on one of the village women, is released. His advances toward being able to make Frieda pregnant turn into a rape attempt in the nearby woods, during which Frieda is saved by a supernatural entity. When villagers accuse her of being in league with

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 17, 2024
Spoiler-Free Review: BAAL (Beyond Fest)

Spoiler-Free Review: BAAL (Beyond Fest)

Official synopsis: A twisted new tale from Joseph Sims-Dennett (BFI London Film Festival Selected Observance). Grace returns to the small town she grew up in to find the brother, David, is missing. Deciding that she must reunite her family, she follows a lead which takes her deep into the wilderness. Lost, injured and alone, soon her only hope is another hiker who is communicating with her via her radio. Grace makes her way closer to this mysterious hiker — however, suspicions start to grow about their true identity. As the darkness becomes ever more menacing and a threatening presence begins to consume Grace, who can she really trust? Writer/director Joseph Sims-Dennett builds an engrossing air of mystery in his new Australian feature Baal, which finds Grace (Meg Clarke in an outstanding lead performance) returning after a very long absence to her childhood home to sort out matters after her father dies. She also begins a search for her brother David

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 11, 2024
Spoiler-Free Reviews: 1978 and SOLVENT (Dark Nights Film Festival)

Spoiler-Free Reviews: 1978 and SOLVENT (Dark Nights Film Festival)

1978 Codirectors Luciano and Nicolás Onetti craft a marvelously macabre fright-fare outing with 1978 (Argentina, 2024). Set in Argentina in the titular year, and specifically during both a military dictatorship and the World Cup match between that country — which hosted the event in Buenos Aires — and The Netherlands, the film uses the dark history of torture, brutality, and murder by the regime of that time as its setting. Government representatives torture political dissidents for information regarding other members of their groups, but when they accidentally kidnap the wrong group, the hell that they have brought to so many is about to be visited back on them in gruesome, blood-soaked ways. Unflinching in its depictions of political horror and unrelenting in its presentations of supernatural terror and violence, 1978 delivers visceral shocks and grisly set pieces galore. The Onetti brothers deliver a feature that combines strong political and philosophical themes along with hard-hitting horror. Solvent Johannes Grenzfurthner’s Solvent (Austria,

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 8, 2024
Spoiler-Free Reviews: TOUCHED BY ETERNITY and HEAVIER TRIP (Fantastic Fest)

Spoiler-Free Reviews: TOUCHED BY ETERNITY and HEAVIER TRIP (Fantastic Fest)

Touched by Eternity Writer/director Mārcis Lācis serves up an intriguing, amusing feature with his Latvian philosophical horror dramedy Touched by Eternity. Fatso (Andris Keišs) longs for immortality, though why he desires that isn’t clearly evident, as he pretty much keeps to himself in his trailer, listening to broadcasts about seeking eternal life. When vampires Egons (Ivars Krasts) and Carlos (Edgars Samītis) come calling, seemingly offering him what he pursues, his simple lifestyle is upended and he is suddenly faced with existential questions about mortality. Lācis blends the thoughtful, the horrific, and the humorous quite nicely, and Keišs leads a solid cast as a simple everyman who dreams of the unattainable until his dream is offered to him as a reality — though quite a different, blood-spattered one than he had originally imagined. Thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining, Touched by Eternity is a unique slice of genre cinema well worth seeking out. Heavier Trip Finnish/German/Norwegian/Lithuanian coproduction Heavier Trip — the sequel to

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Oct 7, 2024
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