Foreign

International horror: J-horror, European extremity, Latin American shocks and the films Hollywood keeps remaking.

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EventsFilm FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews

Movie Review: “Alison’s Birthday” (NIGHTSTREAM)

Australian folk horror feature Alison’s Birthday (1981) is receiving its first release with the online NIGHTSTREAM film festival since its original VHS release. It’s a supernatural chiller that offers plenty of intriguing sequences and is worthy of finding a new audience. Writer/director Ian Coughlan’s film opens with 16-year-old Alison (Joanne Samuel of Mad Max) and two friends experimenting with a makeshift Ouija board, which results in Alison’s dead father contacting her by possessing one of the other girls, warning Alison to beware of her 19th birthday, before a bookshelf falls on the girl and kills her. If that’s not enough to hook you, parentless Alison reluctantly goes back to her hometown with her disc jockey boyfriend Peter (Lou Brown) to visit her Aunt Jennifer (Bunney Brooke) and Uncle Dean (John Bluthall) to celebrate said 19th birthday, and discovers a Stonehenge-like structure in the land behind their backyard. You can guess that business picks up from there, and you would be

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Kelli Marchman McNeely

Nov 22, 2021

EventsFilm FestivalsForeignInterviewsMovies

Arrow Video FrightFest Halloween 2021: 10 Questions with Romola Garai, director/writer of AMULET

London’s Arrow Video FrightFest Halloween event, taking place October 29th and 30th, will include an appearance from director/writer Romola Garai at the U.K. premiere screening of her film Amulet. Garai spoke with Arrow Video FrightFest press staff for this syndicated review in anticipation of the event. AMULET will receive its UK premiere at FrightFest’s Halloween event. Excited or what? So excited! It’s a great honour to have our UK premiere at such a brilliantly subversive festival. We are very grateful! You’re most well known as an actress but have you always wanted to write and direct films? I’ve been writing since my teens but it wasn’t until my late 20’s that I realized I wanted to direct as well and I made my short film SCRUBBER. Now what I’d love is to write, direct and act. Never all three together though! What was the writing process like? Were there any major inspirations and motivations that drove you? I was very

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Kelli Marchman McNeely

Nov 22, 2021

ForeignMoviesNetflixNewsStreaming TVTrailers

Based On The Critically Acclaimed Novel, Fever Dream Is Premiering On Netflix

From award-winning co-writer and director, Claudia Llosa comes Fever Dream (aka Distancia de Rescate), based on the internationally critically acclaimed novel by Samanta Schweblin, premiering this October on Netflix. In the film, “a young woman lies dying far from home. A boy sits beside her. She is not his mother. He is not her child. Together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, an invisible threat, and the power and desperation of family.” Fever Dream is produced by Mark Johnson, Tom Williams, and Claudia Llosa, and is co-produced by Juan de Dios Larraín, Pablo Larraín, and Miguel Morales. Starring María Valverde, Dolores Fonzi, Germán Palacios, Guillermo Pfening, Emilio Vodanovich, Guillermina Sorribes, Marcelo Michinaux, and Cristina Banegas, Fever Dream premiers globally on Netflix on October 13, 2021.

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Kelli Marchman McNeely

Nov 22, 2021

EventsFilm FestivalsForeignMoviesNews

Horror Begins at Home with Virtual Portion of Canada’s Blood in the Snow Film Festival

Super Channel and Blood in the Snow Film Festival (BITS) — a top-notch fest featuring an incredible array of Canadian horror and science fiction films — are teaming up again for a hybrid edition of this year’s BITS with a Halloween weekend virtual portion. Following is the official press announcement. Super Channel and Blood in the Snow Film Festival (BITS), a unique and imaginative showcase of contemporary Canadian horror films, are pleased to announce that they have joined forces once again to bring a hybrid edition of the upcoming 2021 BITS to Canadian horror film fans across the nation. This year’s festival is sure to shock and delight horror lovers with the virtual portion running on Super Channel Fuse over Halloween weekend from Friday, Oct 29 – Sunday Oct 31, and the in-person festival returning to the Royal Cinema November 18 to 23. “We are proud to be partnering once again with Kelly and the incredible team at BITS to

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Kelli Marchman McNeely

Nov 21, 2021

EventsFilm FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews

Movie Reviews: Straight to VHS and Extraneous Matter – Complete Edition (SLASH Film Festival)

Straight to VHS In the Uruguayan documentary Straight to VHS (Directamente para video; 2021), director Emilio Silva Torres chronicles his efforts to locate fellow countryman Manuel Lamas, the filmmaker behind the 1989 direct-to-video obscurity Act of Violence in a Young Journalist that became an obsession with some of those who have seen it. Clips of the movie shown in the documentary make apparent Act of Violence . . .’s non-existent budget — as do Lamas acquaintances who remember him borrowing equipment and not returning it — and its sometimes laughable content. Yet still, some Uruguayan cinephiles are engrossed with locating the creator of the film. Lamas is a difficult person to track down, and Torres finds that almost everyone involved with the making of the film wants nothing to do with being interviewed about it. Torres does not give up easily, though, which makes for an engaging quest. One frustrating element about Straight to VHS is that almost none of

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Joseph Perry

Sep 30, 2021

Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews

Movie Review (Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival): The Monsters Without

Writer/director Randal Kamradt’s The Monsters Without (Philippines, 2021) is an interesting creature feature affair. It leans more toward fantasy and adventure than horror, but monster movie fans will want to check this one out for the wide range of supernatural beasts from Philippine folklore on tap, including the rather well-known flying, baby-eating Manananggal. In the English-language The Monsters Without, yablo (monsters) are real, and an ancient entity called Nameless (voice of Nick Medina) has risen to return the other yablo to their home dimension, a move that also threatens humanity. A Philippines-based team of scientists and soldiers called P.H.A.S.E. is the only hope to thwart Nameless’ evil plan. When Nameless kidnaps group leader Setsuko’s (Christina Yr. Lim) newlywed husband Rommel Romero (Jake Macapagal) — second in command at P.H.A.S.E. — matters get personal, and Sesuko and her teammates put themselves in harm’s way to try to rescue Rommel and save the world. Kamradt shows a deft hand at both action

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Joseph Perry

Sep 29, 2021

ForeignIndieMoviesNewsTrailers

This September A Cult Targets Four Friends In The British Horror ‘Sacrilege’

The award-winning British folk horror Sacrilege, from writer-director David Creed, is set to make its American arrival later this month, and demands that you “face your fears”. Tamaryn Payne (Hollyoaks), Emily Wyatt (Rise of the Footsoldier), Sian Abrahams (Complete Strangers), Naomi Willow (A Guide to Second Date Sex), and Ian Champion (Property) star in the film, that follows four lifelong friends who head to a remote lodge for a weekend of fun. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly descends into a fight for their lives when a local Pagan cult offers them up to their Goddess as a sacrifice for the Solstice. Sacrilege was produced and filmed in the South West of England where Producer Mark Kenna and Writer/ Director David Creed reside. Much of the film was shot in the nearby Forest of Dean, as well as Weston-Super-Mare. The film made its UK premiere in March of 2020 then was delayed by the pandemic like many films. It

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Kelli Marchman McNeely

Sep 22, 2021

Film FestivalsForeignReviews

Movie Review (Toronto International Film Festival): Saloum

Director Jean Luc Herbulot’s Senegal/Congo coproduction Saloum is an insane mind-blower. This genre mash-up is as fun as it is suspenseful and poignant. Bangui’s Hyenas is a trio of mercenaries — Chaka (Yann Gael), Rafa (Roger Sallah) and Minuit (Mentor Ba) — on a mission to bring a cartel drug lord to Dakar, Senegal, with a load of gold on hand. When their plane encounters a problem, they are forced to land on the Saloum Delta. The four men seek shelter at a lodging camp run by a man named Omar (Bruno Henry), who Chaka claims to know, though Omar doesn’t recognize him. Minuit senses that Chaka is keeping a dangerous secret from the rest of the trio, and a mute woman guest named Awa (Evelyne Ily Juhen) complicates matters when she threatens to expose the men, who are going under aliases, to local police captain Souleymane (Ndiaga Mbow) unless they let her escape with them. Herbulot, who cowrote the

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Joseph Perry

Sep 17, 2021

Film FestivalsForeignReviews

Movie Reviews (Toronto International Film Festival): You Are Not My Mother and A Banquet

Beginning with one of the most harrowing scenes in recent memory, writer/director Kate Dolan’s Halloween-set Irish horror outing You Are Not My Mother serves up traditional European folklore in a modern urban setting. The result is one of the most thrilling, eerie cinematic experiences of this year. High-school student Char (Hazel Doupe) reluctantly accepts a ride to school from her seemingly depressed mother Angela (Carolyn Bracken), who almost drives the car straight into a horse. Angela disappears later that day but returns in a few days; however, she now seems to be in lighter moods, more active, and more engaged regarding spending time with Char. At first the bullied teen seems cautiously optimistic about her mother’s new behavior, but soon Angela begins displaying increasingly disturbing bearings. Char’s grandmother Rita (Ingrid Craigie), who makes talismans for protection, warns Char about a supernatural presence behind Angela, but Char wants none of that because she has heard schoolmates and neighbors mock her family

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Joseph Perry

Sep 14, 2021

Film FestivalsForeignReviews

Movie Reviews (Toronto International Film Festival): Kicking Blood and Mlungu Wam (Good Madam)

Director Blaine Thurier’s Kicking Blood is a stylish vampire film that, like The Addiction (1995) and other entries in the genre, deals with these undead creatures’ thirst for blood as a chemical dependency. Anna (Alana Bale) is one such bloodsucker, and when she invites alcoholic and suddenly homeless Robbie (Luke Bilyk) to her place and tells him “I’m going to suck your blood and get high . . .”, he invites her to do that but after one last request. He then pours a bottle of booze down the sink and proclaims that he will never drink again as long as he lives. Intrigued by his oath, Anna refrains from biting him, and as she goes on to admire his determination to stick to his promise when giving in to his cravings would be so easy, she begins to rethink her lifestyle. Her vampire partners with whom she hunts, Nina (Ella Jonas Farlinger) and Boris (Benjamin Sutherland), are none too

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Joseph Perry

Sep 13, 2021

Foreign

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