CategoryForeign
International horror: J-horror, European extremity, Latin American shocks and the films Hollywood keeps remaking.
902 stories
ForeignIndieMoviesNewsTrailers
What begins as a fishing trip with the boys in the horror-comedy Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It, quickly spirals out of control when they witness a mob hit in the forest, and that’s just the beginning of this insane, violent, hilarious misadventure from Kazakhstan. Daniar Alshinov, Asel Kaliyeva, and Yerkebulan Daiyrov star in this hilariously dark tale directed by Yernar Nurgaliyev, who co-wrote the film with Zhandos Aibassov, Daniyar Soltanbayev, Il’yas Toleu, Anuar Turizhigitov, and Alisher Utev. It all begins with a couple quarreling about baby names, and it ends in gory revenge and slapstick splatter in a seemingly indestructible, one-eyed psychopath’s cabin in the woods. In between was supposed to be a calming fishing trip for three old friends to unwind in the wilds. If only they hadn’t witnessed a brutal murder by local mobsters. By the end, what is certain is they will all learn about life’s priorities. The Kazakh and Russian film features English subtitles and is
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
While Mortals Sleep In writer/director Alex Fofonoff’s brilliant short While Mortals Sleep, Susan (Carie Kawa) is a cold case novelist who is going through a difficult patch so bad that she is rather reluctantly getting away from it all for a while at the vacation home of some friends. She spies a man named Eddy (Will Brill) ostensibly repairing a problem with black gunk who claims he is taking care of the property along with a woman named Abby (Grace Morrison). Abby asks the hesitant Susan to join her for tea, and things quickly get increasingly peculiar because of a startling sound before going full-on outré. Fofonoff packs his short with one mind-bending surprise after another in a story that blends a few different horror subgenres. The three leads are all superb, and excellent, startling visual effects and sound design combine to create an unsettling atmosphere and an unnerving slice of cinema that lingers long after the closing credits. Huella
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
Something in the Dirt The filmmaking duo of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead consistently turn out compelling, thought-provoking genre films, and their fifth and latest feature, Something in the Dirt, may be their best yet. The duo proved in 2017’s The Endless that they are as solid in front of the camera as behind it, and they bring that multihyphenate magic on both sides once again here in a spellbinding tale of two men who witness what seems to be a supernatural miracle in one of their apartments. The event sends hard-luck case Levi (Benson) and religious neighbor John (Moorhead) down a rabbit hole where one conspiracy theory leads to another and so on. These two men, living on the fringes of society, see this as their big opportunity to get rich quick by way of putting together a documentary about the strange phenomena that they witness. This being a horror movie, things of course don’t turn out the way
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi), her kiddo Marco (Beyond the Door‘s David Colin Jr.), and her new husband Bruno (we don’t talk about Bruno no no… okay, we do, and he’s played by Yor: the Hunter From the Future‘s Overlord himself, John Steiner) make the dumbass decision to move into the old house where Dora lived with her first husband Carlo, a Joe Dirt lookin’ heroin addicted son of a bitch who supposedly died at sea (the dead part is true, the sea is hazy… ). Minus the obvious psychological damage moving back into that space would cause anyone, ol’ Marco (who I’m kinda surprised they didn’t go with a Peter Bark style of situation with… if ya know, then ya know… but if not, watch Andrea Bianchi’s 1981 zombie sleaze-fest Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror… you’ll thank me for it later) seems to getting rather horny for Mommy Dearest… and as the days pass, Dora seems to be coming
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Prolific cinematic maverick Jess Franco directed roughly 7,865 movies in his career, so it seems inevitable he would ply his trade with a lil’ film noir… and he sure as shit did! To that end we turn our putrid peepers towards Severin’s release of Franco Noir, a collection of two noir film’s Franco created between 1962 and 1963. Kicking things off we have 1962’s (or 1964’s… the box says ’62 IMDb says ’64… feel free to let me know) Death Whistles the Blues: Trafficking sumbitch Vogel (Georges Rollin) sells out his accomplices Castro and Smith (Manuel Alexandre) which results in Castro being ventilated by the boys in blue, and Smith coolin’ his joltin’ jets in prison. Well all things come to pass, and our man Smith finally sees the light of day again… and he is hellbent on settlin’ the score against Vogel, with only a blues tune to herald his coming to lay down an ultimate ass-whippin’! All manner
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
Sundance Film Festival is absolutely killing it with its horror selections! Following are capsule reviews of two absolutely bonkers, can’t-miss features. Hatching Finnish/Swedish coproduction Hatching (Ruva, 2022) finds pre-teen gymnast Tinja (Siiri Solalinna in a captivating debut performance) trying to live up to the expectations of her domineering mother (Sophia Heikkilӓ), who vlogs about the wonderful life of their seemingly perfect family. Naturally, the online presence is merely an illusion, as evidenced earlier on when Tinja captures a bird that flew into their house, only to see her mother break its neck. Soon after, Tinja finds a bird’s egg near her home, and promises to take care of what will hatch from it. Big mistake, what with this being a horror film. It would be a shame to go into too many details here about Hanna Bergholm’s astonishing directorial debut Hatching, so suffice it to say that there are some amazing creature and body horror effects on display of both
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Mona (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) heads to a hotel in the remote village of Stainbach after her mother, flight attendant Marlene (Sandra Hüller), falls victim to a severe mental episode while staying at the same location… a location that has been plaguing her chronic nightmares. Once there, Mona finds herself in a seeming fever dream filled with boars, ancient houses in the woods, and visions of suicides past that took place on those putrid premises… not to mention the hotel’s owners acting weird as all fuck… and those “sex” dreams… Will our hero uncover the town’s dark secret and how does it relate to her family? If there’s one thing director Michael Venus’ (who co-wrote the picture with Thomas Friedrich) Sleep is it’s dour… and weird… and a slow burn… alright, it’s a lot of fuckin’ things, including Grade-A fuckin’ excellent! Adding to the positives here is a stellar performance from Kohlhof who travels through this surreal misadventure in a perpetual
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Director Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil (Gæsterne; Denmark/Netherlands, 2022) may be the most uncomfortable horror film in recent memory, as it puts social niceties, including acting “correctly” and politely, under a microscope and plays with the ideas of what horror is before delivering an absolutely harrowing third act. Danish family Bjørn (Morten Burian), Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch), and their young daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg) meet Dutch family Patrick (Fedja van Huêt), Karin (Karina Smulders), and their young son Abel (Marius Damslev) during a trip to Italy. The two families strike up a casual friendship during the trip, and a few months later, Patrick and Karen invite Bjørn, Louise, and Agnes to spend a weekend with them at their home. Things start off a bit uneasily when Patrick insists that vegetarian Louise taste the wild boar he has prepared for their first meal together, and things get increasingly uncomfortable from there. Speak No Evil starts off as pitch-black comedy of manners
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
After a serious case of credits with training montage we get down to the meat n’ potatoes of Disciples of Shaolin; namely the arrival of Shaolin-style kung-fu bumpkin Kuan (Alexander Fu Sheng, who tragically died at age 28 from injuries sustained in a car accident in 1983) who arrives in town in the hopes of obtaining work at the local textile mill via his friend/fellow Shaolin kung-fu disciple Huang (Chi Kuan-Chun). Spoiler: Kuan obtains a job at the textile mill. And, what a job it is; fuckin’ around with looms and blatantly showing off his marital arts prowess exactly as Huang asked him not to do. Good thing too, as it’s just this kind of ass-kickin’ showboating that quickly results in our hero becoming the right hand man to the boss of the factory himself! Now, why would the boss need someone with those skills so damn bad in an industry based on thread count and long-lasting fabric durability? Because
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesNewsTrailers
Director Andrei Bogatyrev is taking us back to WWII for the Russian action-thriller Red Ghost: Nazi Hunter. In the new bloody, action-packed trailer we see soldiers fight to survive the enemy. “Set in Vyazma, USSR. WWII, 1941. A mythical lone-wolf fighter, known as The Red Ghost, roams the Russian forests sniping and killing Nazis one by one. He’s so destructive that a special unit of the Nazis’ Wehrmacht is ordered to search for and kill him. Simultaneously, a band of Soviet soldiers behind enemy lines trudges through the snow, hopeful to find safety, warmth, and vodka. Instead, they find themselves trapped at a farm and surrounded by the Wehrmacht unit against whom they must fight to the death – but not without the help of The Red Ghost.” Written by Andrei Bogatyrev, Vyacheslav Shikhaleev, and Pavel Abramenkov, Red Ghost: Nazi Hunter will be unleashed on Digital (dubbed in English) on February 15, 2022.
Continue reading →
More from Foreign
ForeignIndieMoviesNewsTrailers
What begins as a fishing trip with the boys in the horror-comedy Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It, quickly spirals out of control when they witness a mob hit in the forest, and that’s just the beginning of this insane, violent, hilarious misadventure from Kazakhstan. Daniar Alshinov, Asel Kaliyeva, and Yerkebulan Daiyrov star in this hilariously dark tale directed by Yernar Nurgaliyev, who co-wrote the film with Zhandos Aibassov, Daniyar Soltanbayev, Il’yas Toleu, Anuar Turizhigitov, and Alisher Utev. It all begins with a couple quarreling about baby names, and it ends in gory revenge and slapstick splatter in a seemingly indestructible, one-eyed psychopath’s cabin in the woods. In between was supposed to be a calming fishing trip for three old friends to unwind in the wilds. If only they hadn’t witnessed a brutal murder by local mobsters. By the end, what is certain is they will all learn about life’s priorities. The Kazakh and Russian film features English subtitles and is
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
While Mortals Sleep In writer/director Alex Fofonoff’s brilliant short While Mortals Sleep, Susan (Carie Kawa) is a cold case novelist who is going through a difficult patch so bad that she is rather reluctantly getting away from it all for a while at the vacation home of some friends. She spies a man named Eddy (Will Brill) ostensibly repairing a problem with black gunk who claims he is taking care of the property along with a woman named Abby (Grace Morrison). Abby asks the hesitant Susan to join her for tea, and things quickly get increasingly peculiar because of a startling sound before going full-on outré. Fofonoff packs his short with one mind-bending surprise after another in a story that blends a few different horror subgenres. The three leads are all superb, and excellent, startling visual effects and sound design combine to create an unsettling atmosphere and an unnerving slice of cinema that lingers long after the closing credits. Huella
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
Something in the Dirt The filmmaking duo of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead consistently turn out compelling, thought-provoking genre films, and their fifth and latest feature, Something in the Dirt, may be their best yet. The duo proved in 2017’s The Endless that they are as solid in front of the camera as behind it, and they bring that multihyphenate magic on both sides once again here in a spellbinding tale of two men who witness what seems to be a supernatural miracle in one of their apartments. The event sends hard-luck case Levi (Benson) and religious neighbor John (Moorhead) down a rabbit hole where one conspiracy theory leads to another and so on. These two men, living on the fringes of society, see this as their big opportunity to get rich quick by way of putting together a documentary about the strange phenomena that they witness. This being a horror movie, things of course don’t turn out the way
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi), her kiddo Marco (Beyond the Door‘s David Colin Jr.), and her new husband Bruno (we don’t talk about Bruno no no… okay, we do, and he’s played by Yor: the Hunter From the Future‘s Overlord himself, John Steiner) make the dumbass decision to move into the old house where Dora lived with her first husband Carlo, a Joe Dirt lookin’ heroin addicted son of a bitch who supposedly died at sea (the dead part is true, the sea is hazy… ). Minus the obvious psychological damage moving back into that space would cause anyone, ol’ Marco (who I’m kinda surprised they didn’t go with a Peter Bark style of situation with… if ya know, then ya know… but if not, watch Andrea Bianchi’s 1981 zombie sleaze-fest Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror… you’ll thank me for it later) seems to getting rather horny for Mommy Dearest… and as the days pass, Dora seems to be coming
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Prolific cinematic maverick Jess Franco directed roughly 7,865 movies in his career, so it seems inevitable he would ply his trade with a lil’ film noir… and he sure as shit did! To that end we turn our putrid peepers towards Severin’s release of Franco Noir, a collection of two noir film’s Franco created between 1962 and 1963. Kicking things off we have 1962’s (or 1964’s… the box says ’62 IMDb says ’64… feel free to let me know) Death Whistles the Blues: Trafficking sumbitch Vogel (Georges Rollin) sells out his accomplices Castro and Smith (Manuel Alexandre) which results in Castro being ventilated by the boys in blue, and Smith coolin’ his joltin’ jets in prison. Well all things come to pass, and our man Smith finally sees the light of day again… and he is hellbent on settlin’ the score against Vogel, with only a blues tune to herald his coming to lay down an ultimate ass-whippin’! All manner
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
Sundance Film Festival is absolutely killing it with its horror selections! Following are capsule reviews of two absolutely bonkers, can’t-miss features. Hatching Finnish/Swedish coproduction Hatching (Ruva, 2022) finds pre-teen gymnast Tinja (Siiri Solalinna in a captivating debut performance) trying to live up to the expectations of her domineering mother (Sophia Heikkilӓ), who vlogs about the wonderful life of their seemingly perfect family. Naturally, the online presence is merely an illusion, as evidenced earlier on when Tinja captures a bird that flew into their house, only to see her mother break its neck. Soon after, Tinja finds a bird’s egg near her home, and promises to take care of what will hatch from it. Big mistake, what with this being a horror film. It would be a shame to go into too many details here about Hanna Bergholm’s astonishing directorial debut Hatching, so suffice it to say that there are some amazing creature and body horror effects on display of both
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Mona (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) heads to a hotel in the remote village of Stainbach after her mother, flight attendant Marlene (Sandra Hüller), falls victim to a severe mental episode while staying at the same location… a location that has been plaguing her chronic nightmares. Once there, Mona finds herself in a seeming fever dream filled with boars, ancient houses in the woods, and visions of suicides past that took place on those putrid premises… not to mention the hotel’s owners acting weird as all fuck… and those “sex” dreams… Will our hero uncover the town’s dark secret and how does it relate to her family? If there’s one thing director Michael Venus’ (who co-wrote the picture with Thomas Friedrich) Sleep is it’s dour… and weird… and a slow burn… alright, it’s a lot of fuckin’ things, including Grade-A fuckin’ excellent! Adding to the positives here is a stellar performance from Kohlhof who travels through this surreal misadventure in a perpetual
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Director Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil (Gæsterne; Denmark/Netherlands, 2022) may be the most uncomfortable horror film in recent memory, as it puts social niceties, including acting “correctly” and politely, under a microscope and plays with the ideas of what horror is before delivering an absolutely harrowing third act. Danish family Bjørn (Morten Burian), Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch), and their young daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg) meet Dutch family Patrick (Fedja van Huêt), Karin (Karina Smulders), and their young son Abel (Marius Damslev) during a trip to Italy. The two families strike up a casual friendship during the trip, and a few months later, Patrick and Karen invite Bjørn, Louise, and Agnes to spend a weekend with them at their home. Things start off a bit uneasily when Patrick insists that vegetarian Louise taste the wild boar he has prepared for their first meal together, and things get increasingly uncomfortable from there. Speak No Evil starts off as pitch-black comedy of manners
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
After a serious case of credits with training montage we get down to the meat n’ potatoes of Disciples of Shaolin; namely the arrival of Shaolin-style kung-fu bumpkin Kuan (Alexander Fu Sheng, who tragically died at age 28 from injuries sustained in a car accident in 1983) who arrives in town in the hopes of obtaining work at the local textile mill via his friend/fellow Shaolin kung-fu disciple Huang (Chi Kuan-Chun). Spoiler: Kuan obtains a job at the textile mill. And, what a job it is; fuckin’ around with looms and blatantly showing off his marital arts prowess exactly as Huang asked him not to do. Good thing too, as it’s just this kind of ass-kickin’ showboating that quickly results in our hero becoming the right hand man to the boss of the factory himself! Now, why would the boss need someone with those skills so damn bad in an industry based on thread count and long-lasting fabric durability? Because
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesNewsTrailers
Director Andrei Bogatyrev is taking us back to WWII for the Russian action-thriller Red Ghost: Nazi Hunter. In the new bloody, action-packed trailer we see soldiers fight to survive the enemy. “Set in Vyazma, USSR. WWII, 1941. A mythical lone-wolf fighter, known as The Red Ghost, roams the Russian forests sniping and killing Nazis one by one. He’s so destructive that a special unit of the Nazis’ Wehrmacht is ordered to search for and kill him. Simultaneously, a band of Soviet soldiers behind enemy lines trudges through the snow, hopeful to find safety, warmth, and vodka. Instead, they find themselves trapped at a farm and surrounded by the Wehrmacht unit against whom they must fight to the death – but not without the help of The Red Ghost.” Written by Andrei Bogatyrev, Vyacheslav Shikhaleev, and Pavel Abramenkov, Red Ghost: Nazi Hunter will be unleashed on Digital (dubbed in English) on February 15, 2022.
Continue reading →
