CategoryForeign
International horror: J-horror, European extremity, Latin American shocks and the films Hollywood keeps remaking.
902 stories
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsSci-FiThriller
U.K. science fiction thriller Coyote (2023) combines current social issues with lo-fi science fiction elements. The result is a film that boasts solid performances and thought-provoking themes. Partners Ekaterina (Therica Wilson-Read) and Anya (Borislava Stratieva) pay heavily to have one of them instantly transported using cutting-edge tech from Rasskazovo, where a violent crackdown on LGBTQ people is taking place, to a safe house in London for female immigrants. Orla Miller (Ailish Symons), the woman in charge of the safe house, is hospitable at first before she eventually informs Ekaterina that, as an immigrant, she stands to make money more quickly and in greater amounts if she provides sexual services to highly-placed men, which Ekaterina learns that the other women staying there are doing. Coyote is a lower-budget indie effort that wisely relies on minimal special effects, and the teleportation scenes are well done courtesy of Visual Effects Supervisor Howard Gardner. As with many good speculative fiction films, the focus is
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) Director Jaromil Jires’ surreal horror fantasy Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia, 1970) is a wild trip that combines a teenage girl’s (Jaroslava Schallerová as Valerie) sexual awakening beginning on the first day of her first menstrual cycle with a vampire tale — but that is only a bare bones description. There is so much to this film and to spoil a single, fantastical frame of it is to do a disservice to first-time viewers. Those interested in the sociopolitical climate of the time should find plenty to read into with the film, while viewers whose interests lean more toward enjoying the splendidly strange — and often sensual — events unfolding as sheer entertainment will find a great deal at which to marvel. To Fire You Come at Last (2023) Writer/director Sean Hogan’s 43-minute horror short To Fire You Come at Last is a satisfyingly wicked slice of British folk horror. In
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
The Ravens, a hard rock rock outfit are stuck playing small gigs in shitty venues, such as the one they currently played down Falkland Islands way. Tired from rockin’ and rollin’… and drinkin’ and snortin’, The Ravens agree to follow a sexy fan back to her parents pad in the country for a lil’ rest and relaxation… a journey that takes them through a decimated Argentinian city that was completely destroyed by a flood a few decades past. As you may have surmised, the family in question, literally the only living beings in the entire post-apocalyptic area, are complete psychos who are all too ready to welcome their latest victims to their home. What survival skills does a substance-battered rock band possess, and will it be enough for them to make it alive with their skins intact? Coming from director Nicolás Onetti and writer Camilo Zaffora, What the Waters Left Behind: Scars is a strong, terror filled experience who’s production
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
There is nothin’ yours cruelly enjoys more than sittin’ down to some previously unseen, S.O.V. horror… and that is precisely what I have here with Intervision’s release of The Plaga Zombie Trilogy, a series of Argentinian gut-munchers of the zero budget kind! Things kick of with 1997’s Plaga Zombie: Ex-med student Bill (Pablo Parés, who also co-directed the film) trims his bush one night oblivious to the fact that his roommate is abducted (and experimented on) by aliens. Meanwhile, Bill’s old friend, John West (Berta Muñiz, who co-wrote the film along with Parés, and Hernán Sáez… who also co-directed… and let me just say; this dude is comedy dynamite), is longing to revive his cowboy-themed wrestling career, but his manager/tag-team partner has a case of the “feel like shit”s. Thankfully for none of them, (not really a) Doctor Bill is on the case, so soon those two are toast and soon become members of the alien plague-ridden shambling dead that
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
The Philippines are entering one of those pesky virus-induced zombie apocalypses that can always turn a sunny day into a shit maelstrom, and so is the case here… soon… but first… Ex-U.S. Special Forces operative/man-mountain Emon (MMA ass-kicker Brandon Vera) is looking forward to seeing his family as his sterling prison record has resulted in his chance at parole. Unfortunately, some assholes fuck that up for him right proper by picking a fight with our hero… but since the city, including the apartment his family calls home sweet home, is currently chock full of lightning-fast, rabid, plague-bringers I’d say that’s some silver lining shit right there cats n’ creeps… Anyhow, Emon soon finds himself a free man, as all of the prison’s inmates are set free in the chaos, and he immediately begins the journey home as those creepy creatures attempt to hinder his ass at every turn! Will Emon make it home before his family get turned into more
Continue reading →
ForeignReviewsStreaming TV
The first thing you lascivious lot may notice about Severin’s new release of The Complete Comic Strip Presents… Channel 4 Films 3-Disc Collector’s Edition is the number of familiar faces it contains… well familiar if you dig on amazing British comedy that is… or had MTV in the mid to late 80’s… Featured in the copious short films in this collection are none other that The Young Ones’ Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall, and Nigel Planer as well as Absolutely Fabulous’ Jennifer Saunders (along with her frequent comedy partner-in-crime Dawn French) as well as the troupe’s mainstay to this day; Peter Richardson… also keep your eyes’ peeled for Alexei Sayle (who played every member of the zany Balowski Family on the aforementioned The Young Ones before starring in his own self-titled sketch-comedy program) as well as the Harry Potter franchise’s Hagrid himself, Robbie Coltrane! So, what are all of these talented-ass mother fuckers getting up to? Unbridled hilarity (spread out over
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Two strangers, one home in a trailer park, and one dark and stormy night make for one exciting feature destined for my Top 10 Horror Films of 2023 list in the Australian chiller You’ll Never Find Me (2023). Codirectors Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell have crafted a tense film ready to burst at the seams with suspense and dread. Patrick (Brendan Rock) tells whoever is knocking at his door as rain pours down heavily in no uncertain terms what they should do, which involves profanity and being unwelcome. The visitor (Jordan Cowan) is persistent, though, and Patrick reluctantly lets her in. From this simple premise, Allen and Bell — working from a screenplay written by Bell — deliver a slow burn film loaded with anxiety and mystery during which viewers know something is off but cannot figure out the motivations of each character — until a secret is revealed and a dizzying third act follows. You’ll Never Find Me is
Continue reading →
EventsFilm FestivalsForeignMoviesNewsThriller
The 27th edition of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) takes place in Bucheon, South Korea, from June 29–July 9, 2023, and as always, Asia’s largest genre film fest offers well over 250 films from around the globe. With world, international, and Korean premieres of horror, science fiction, thriller, dark comedy, and related features and shorts, the fest is a cinephile’s dream. Here are six of the features that we can’t wait to watch — and with yours truly in attendance, expect BIFAN reviews right here at Horror Fuel. Following are descriptions of the films from the BIFAN website, where more information is available: http://www.bifan.kr/eng/ Nightmare (Norway, 2022) Mona and Robby are a young couple in love. Robby has just landed his dream job, and they’ve scored an amazing deal on a spacious flat. Never mind that it requires a bit of renovation and the neighbors’ constant fighting and screaming baby. Mona is suddenly plagued by night terrors which
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsSci-Fi
The Bystanders The invisible-to-people titular characters in director Gabriel Foster Prior’s U.K. science-fiction comedy The Bystanders aren’t exactly guardian angels, but they do have similar tasks in that they are assigned humans to watch over. If you get a positive-minded Bystander like rookie Peter Weir (Scott Haran), you could be in good shape, but if you’re stuck with a more jaded one such as Frank (Seann Walsh) — well, all bets are off. Peter, an anonymous office worker and a perennial second-place personality still stinging from a childhood chess championship loss, switches his charge Sarah (Georgia Mabel Clarke), a music label employee who is trying to get noticed at her job, with Frank’s ambitionless man-child Luke (Andi Jashy) in an effort to become Bystander of the Year. A budding friendship turns into rivalry, and Prior — who cowrote the screenplay with Jack Hughes — delivers a winning comedy of ill manners. Haran and Walsh have terrific comic chemistry together, and
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviewsSci-Fi
Greenpeace activists Lee (Robert Marius, who is the ultimate ’80s dude with his Long Beach t-shirt, acid-washed denim vest, and frosted tips) and Jane (Marina Giulia Cavalli) head off to a remote tropical island, bulky-as-fuck camcorder in tow, in order to investigate reports that a military-run chemical company is chucking radioactive waste into a nearby active volcano without a singular fuck given. Once they ninja-shit their way into the facility, our heroes find that all of the stories were indeed true… but unfortunately their unwanted presence is brought to the attention of the company’s Badass-In-Charge, Col. Kovacks (Rambo: First Blood Part II‘s Charles Napier, who has a serious hard-on for Houston in this flick) who proceeds to capture Lee while Jane escapes courtesy of some truly action-packed shit! Once lost in the wilds, Jane befriends American expat/professional (or is it for pleasure… ) snake-milker Bob (Daniel Bosch, proving his superiority at looking like a young Jeffrey Combs) who helps her
Continue reading →
More from Foreign
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsSci-FiThriller
U.K. science fiction thriller Coyote (2023) combines current social issues with lo-fi science fiction elements. The result is a film that boasts solid performances and thought-provoking themes. Partners Ekaterina (Therica Wilson-Read) and Anya (Borislava Stratieva) pay heavily to have one of them instantly transported using cutting-edge tech from Rasskazovo, where a violent crackdown on LGBTQ people is taking place, to a safe house in London for female immigrants. Orla Miller (Ailish Symons), the woman in charge of the safe house, is hospitable at first before she eventually informs Ekaterina that, as an immigrant, she stands to make money more quickly and in greater amounts if she provides sexual services to highly-placed men, which Ekaterina learns that the other women staying there are doing. Coyote is a lower-budget indie effort that wisely relies on minimal special effects, and the teleportation scenes are well done courtesy of Visual Effects Supervisor Howard Gardner. As with many good speculative fiction films, the focus is
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) Director Jaromil Jires’ surreal horror fantasy Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia, 1970) is a wild trip that combines a teenage girl’s (Jaroslava Schallerová as Valerie) sexual awakening beginning on the first day of her first menstrual cycle with a vampire tale — but that is only a bare bones description. There is so much to this film and to spoil a single, fantastical frame of it is to do a disservice to first-time viewers. Those interested in the sociopolitical climate of the time should find plenty to read into with the film, while viewers whose interests lean more toward enjoying the splendidly strange — and often sensual — events unfolding as sheer entertainment will find a great deal at which to marvel. To Fire You Come at Last (2023) Writer/director Sean Hogan’s 43-minute horror short To Fire You Come at Last is a satisfyingly wicked slice of British folk horror. In
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
The Ravens, a hard rock rock outfit are stuck playing small gigs in shitty venues, such as the one they currently played down Falkland Islands way. Tired from rockin’ and rollin’… and drinkin’ and snortin’, The Ravens agree to follow a sexy fan back to her parents pad in the country for a lil’ rest and relaxation… a journey that takes them through a decimated Argentinian city that was completely destroyed by a flood a few decades past. As you may have surmised, the family in question, literally the only living beings in the entire post-apocalyptic area, are complete psychos who are all too ready to welcome their latest victims to their home. What survival skills does a substance-battered rock band possess, and will it be enough for them to make it alive with their skins intact? Coming from director Nicolás Onetti and writer Camilo Zaffora, What the Waters Left Behind: Scars is a strong, terror filled experience who’s production
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
There is nothin’ yours cruelly enjoys more than sittin’ down to some previously unseen, S.O.V. horror… and that is precisely what I have here with Intervision’s release of The Plaga Zombie Trilogy, a series of Argentinian gut-munchers of the zero budget kind! Things kick of with 1997’s Plaga Zombie: Ex-med student Bill (Pablo Parés, who also co-directed the film) trims his bush one night oblivious to the fact that his roommate is abducted (and experimented on) by aliens. Meanwhile, Bill’s old friend, John West (Berta Muñiz, who co-wrote the film along with Parés, and Hernán Sáez… who also co-directed… and let me just say; this dude is comedy dynamite), is longing to revive his cowboy-themed wrestling career, but his manager/tag-team partner has a case of the “feel like shit”s. Thankfully for none of them, (not really a) Doctor Bill is on the case, so soon those two are toast and soon become members of the alien plague-ridden shambling dead that
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesReviews
The Philippines are entering one of those pesky virus-induced zombie apocalypses that can always turn a sunny day into a shit maelstrom, and so is the case here… soon… but first… Ex-U.S. Special Forces operative/man-mountain Emon (MMA ass-kicker Brandon Vera) is looking forward to seeing his family as his sterling prison record has resulted in his chance at parole. Unfortunately, some assholes fuck that up for him right proper by picking a fight with our hero… but since the city, including the apartment his family calls home sweet home, is currently chock full of lightning-fast, rabid, plague-bringers I’d say that’s some silver lining shit right there cats n’ creeps… Anyhow, Emon soon finds himself a free man, as all of the prison’s inmates are set free in the chaos, and he immediately begins the journey home as those creepy creatures attempt to hinder his ass at every turn! Will Emon make it home before his family get turned into more
Continue reading →
ForeignReviewsStreaming TV
The first thing you lascivious lot may notice about Severin’s new release of The Complete Comic Strip Presents… Channel 4 Films 3-Disc Collector’s Edition is the number of familiar faces it contains… well familiar if you dig on amazing British comedy that is… or had MTV in the mid to late 80’s… Featured in the copious short films in this collection are none other that The Young Ones’ Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall, and Nigel Planer as well as Absolutely Fabulous’ Jennifer Saunders (along with her frequent comedy partner-in-crime Dawn French) as well as the troupe’s mainstay to this day; Peter Richardson… also keep your eyes’ peeled for Alexei Sayle (who played every member of the zany Balowski Family on the aforementioned The Young Ones before starring in his own self-titled sketch-comedy program) as well as the Harry Potter franchise’s Hagrid himself, Robbie Coltrane! So, what are all of these talented-ass mother fuckers getting up to? Unbridled hilarity (spread out over
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Two strangers, one home in a trailer park, and one dark and stormy night make for one exciting feature destined for my Top 10 Horror Films of 2023 list in the Australian chiller You’ll Never Find Me (2023). Codirectors Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell have crafted a tense film ready to burst at the seams with suspense and dread. Patrick (Brendan Rock) tells whoever is knocking at his door as rain pours down heavily in no uncertain terms what they should do, which involves profanity and being unwelcome. The visitor (Jordan Cowan) is persistent, though, and Patrick reluctantly lets her in. From this simple premise, Allen and Bell — working from a screenplay written by Bell — deliver a slow burn film loaded with anxiety and mystery during which viewers know something is off but cannot figure out the motivations of each character — until a secret is revealed and a dizzying third act follows. You’ll Never Find Me is
Continue reading →
EventsFilm FestivalsForeignMoviesNewsThriller
The 27th edition of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) takes place in Bucheon, South Korea, from June 29–July 9, 2023, and as always, Asia’s largest genre film fest offers well over 250 films from around the globe. With world, international, and Korean premieres of horror, science fiction, thriller, dark comedy, and related features and shorts, the fest is a cinephile’s dream. Here are six of the features that we can’t wait to watch — and with yours truly in attendance, expect BIFAN reviews right here at Horror Fuel. Following are descriptions of the films from the BIFAN website, where more information is available: http://www.bifan.kr/eng/ Nightmare (Norway, 2022) Mona and Robby are a young couple in love. Robby has just landed his dream job, and they’ve scored an amazing deal on a spacious flat. Never mind that it requires a bit of renovation and the neighbors’ constant fighting and screaming baby. Mona is suddenly plagued by night terrors which
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsSci-Fi
The Bystanders The invisible-to-people titular characters in director Gabriel Foster Prior’s U.K. science-fiction comedy The Bystanders aren’t exactly guardian angels, but they do have similar tasks in that they are assigned humans to watch over. If you get a positive-minded Bystander like rookie Peter Weir (Scott Haran), you could be in good shape, but if you’re stuck with a more jaded one such as Frank (Seann Walsh) — well, all bets are off. Peter, an anonymous office worker and a perennial second-place personality still stinging from a childhood chess championship loss, switches his charge Sarah (Georgia Mabel Clarke), a music label employee who is trying to get noticed at her job, with Frank’s ambitionless man-child Luke (Andi Jashy) in an effort to become Bystander of the Year. A budding friendship turns into rivalry, and Prior — who cowrote the screenplay with Jack Hughes — delivers a winning comedy of ill manners. Haran and Walsh have terrific comic chemistry together, and
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviewsSci-Fi
Greenpeace activists Lee (Robert Marius, who is the ultimate ’80s dude with his Long Beach t-shirt, acid-washed denim vest, and frosted tips) and Jane (Marina Giulia Cavalli) head off to a remote tropical island, bulky-as-fuck camcorder in tow, in order to investigate reports that a military-run chemical company is chucking radioactive waste into a nearby active volcano without a singular fuck given. Once they ninja-shit their way into the facility, our heroes find that all of the stories were indeed true… but unfortunately their unwanted presence is brought to the attention of the company’s Badass-In-Charge, Col. Kovacks (Rambo: First Blood Part II‘s Charles Napier, who has a serious hard-on for Houston in this flick) who proceeds to capture Lee while Jane escapes courtesy of some truly action-packed shit! Once lost in the wilds, Jane befriends American expat/professional (or is it for pleasure… ) snake-milker Bob (Daniel Bosch, proving his superiority at looking like a young Jeffrey Combs) who helps her
Continue reading →
