CategoryForeign
International horror: J-horror, European extremity, Latin American shocks and the films Hollywood keeps remaking.
901 stories
ForeignIndieMoviesThrillerTrailers
Stefao Lodovichi‘s Italian psychological thriller The Guest Room (La Stanza), the follow-up to his directorial debut Deep in the Wood, is coming to a TV near you on VOD. In the film, “The morning Stella decides to take her own life, a stranger knocks at her door claiming the guest room he booked for the night. Surprised but charmed by this man who seems to know her very well, Stella decides to let him in. But when Sandro, the man who broke Stella’s heart, joins them at home, this odd situation turns immediately into chaos: Giulio, the stranger, starts unveiling all the secrets of the couple and the house. Who is Giulio? And what are Stella and Sandro hiding?” The Guest Room stars Guido Caprino (“Il commissario Manara”, “That Dirty Black Bag”), Camilla Filippi (“The Trial”, The Big Step), and Edoardo Pesce (Dogman, Non sono un assassino) as an unlikely trio on the precipice of chaos in an isolated house.
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Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
The Revelation There are several horror films set during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but writer/director Chris W. Mitchell’s Dutch feature The Revelation (De Openbaring, 2022) is the first one to fully capture my attention and hold it throughout. One of the main reasons for that is the terrific performance by star Victor Löw as Jacob, a middle-aged man who becomes obsessed with the dangers of COVID-19 in its early stages, as lockdowns begin and people are deciding how to react to the rapidly spreading virus. Jacob falls into a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories that drive him to paranoia, as he quits his job to move in with his elderly mother (Leny Breederveld) and shield her from the outside world. His sister Magda (Monic Hendrickx) tries to talk sense into him, but is far too late as visions of his recently deceased father (Peter Bolhuis), who was a highly skilled animal skinner, and the ravings of a dubious
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Prolific fear-fare director Charlie Steeds’ latest effort Freeze (U.K., 2022) is a Lovecraftian creature feature that punches above the weight of its budgetary limitations, resulting in a solid-looking, highly entertaining period piece. The crew of the HMS Innsmouth is on a mission to rescue the HMS Eibon, which was lost during its expedition to the North Pole. HMS Innsmouth’s Captain Mortimer’s (Rory Wilson) good friend Captain Streiner (Tim Cartwright) commanded the lost ship, so he is determined to learn the fate of his friend. Meanwhile, Crewman Redgrave (Jake Watkins) helps hide a woman stowaway named Carmen (Beatrice Barillá), whose brother was an officer on the Eibon. Tension heightens when crewman Spriggs (Ricardo Freitas) (who you just can’t wait to see get his) learns of this. Mortimer’s first mate McCullough (Johnny Vivash) warns the captain that sailing any further ahead in the ice will result in disaster, but Lieutenant Roth (David Lenik), whose father owns HMS Innsmouth, persuades Streiner to forge
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsSci-FiThriller
The following three shorts were part of SLASH Film Festival’s Fantastic Futures competition, which consisted of nine shorts from student filmmakers or first-time filmmakers. Starfuckers Writer/director/star Antonio Marziale delivers a gripping revenge thriller of a decidedly different kind with his short film Starfuckers (2022). The short begins with genre elements such as plastic sheets covering a floor and an atmosphere thick with tension as a young man (Cole Doman) meets a middle-aged man (Jonathan Slavin) with power dynamics obviously skewed toward the older man, who happens to be a film director. The director seems to make a habit of promising male escorts roles in his films that never come about, and a second young man (Marziale) shows up unexpectedly to make his feelings known in an unforgettable way. Marziale gives a jaw-dropping, star-making drag performance that lingers long after the short ends, and is reason enough to seek out this powerful take on Hollywood corruption, though there are plenty of
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
U.K. mystery thriller Zebra Girl (2021) is rich with slowly unfolding shocks and surprises, and is the kind of film that is difficult to discuss much in a review for concern of giving too much away for future viewers. Director Stephanie Zari’s chilling film is ultimately a character study of a highly troubled woman dealing with the emotional and psychological aftermath of having gone through horrifying events when she was younger, and how it affects her as an adult. Catherine (Sarah Roy) and English professor Dan (Tom Cullen) meet online and then in-person for a first date, during which she makes a startling confession and then asks Dan to do the same. Hers is far darker than his, but she later finds out that he was hiding a secret from her worse than the one he had originally told her. After they marry and she becomes pregnant, Dan’s secret threatens to drive Catherine to drastic measures. She calls her estranged
Continue reading →
ClipsForeignIndieMoviesNewsTrailers
Carl Sundström’s Swedish horror Reportage November, starring Signe Elvin-Nowak, Jonas Lundström, and Isabel Camacho is coming to digital and VOD this week from Terror Films. Today, we have an exclusive clip titled Revelations. Check it out below. In the found footage/ documentary style film, penned by Nathaniel P Erlandsson, “A mysterious death of a mother and the disappearance of her child leads a group of freelance journalists to the outback of Sweden. The group of four, led by the famous journalist Linn Söderqvist, will make a reportage about the happening and search for leads missed by the police. Equipped with cameras and supplies to survive in the forest for days, they wander out in the woods to find the truth.” Reportage November is made for found footage lovers and while writing it we had all aspects and rules of what makes this genre great in mind. A film that focuses on suspense and mystery to bring the viewer to the
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
About as cautionary a fable as you can have for both meeting strangers through online dating apps and not following first impressions, writer/director Viljar Bøe’s Norwegian chiller Good Boy (2022) is a dark journey, indeed. Part-time university student Sigrid (Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen) and non-working millionaire Christian (Gard Løkke) meet on tinder, and their first date goes well enough that they wind up in bed at his house. Things take a turn for the unexpected when Frank’s dog walks into the bedroom. Frank, as viewers see in the opening minutes of the film, is actually a man (Nicolai Narvesen Lied) in a canine costume participating in “puppy play” role playing. Naturally, this freaks Sigrid out, but once her roommate tips her off about who Christian is and about his wealth, Sigrid begins to second-guess the red flags she originally felt about the situation. She meets Christian at his home again and sparks fly even as she questions the relationship between
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Mother Superior (2022) Writer/director Marie Alice Wolfszahn’s Austrian horror thriller Mother Superior, set in 1975, finds anesthesiste-in-training Sigrun (Isabella Hӓndler) hired on as a nurse for elderly Baroness Heidenreich (Inge Maux). The baroness has been going through a series of nurses rather quickly, but Sigrun hopes to stay on longer than her predecessors. This has less to do with job security than it does with the fact that she hopes to find some clue about her own past. This being a horror film with mystery elements, the main setting is naturally an isolated rural mansion. Wolfszahn and cinematographer Gabriel Krajanek use this setting to full effect as Sigrun wanders through dark areas, including ones that she has been forbidden to enter. The beautifully sunlit grounds provide a sharp contrast to the dimly lit house. I don’t want to spoil the several shades of mystery at play in Mother Superior, so suffice it to say that the main characters — including
Continue reading →
EventsFilm FestivalsForeignMoviesNews
Sweden’s Lund Fantastic Film Festival celebrates its 28th edition from October 27–November 5, 2022 with another mind-boggling array of horror, science fiction, fantasy, and related genre films. The fest has announced its first wave of titles, which includes offerings that have been receiving recognition and rave reviews from previous international festivals at which they have screened. More titles will be revealed soon! Following is the festival’s official first wave announcement. The Lund Fantastic Film Festival is back and about to celebrate the broad spectrum of genre cinema once more. From October 27 until November 5, the 28th edition of Lund Fantastic is set to return to Kino and TriArtPlay for a selection of physical and virtual screenings that bring the most distinct or diverse fantastic films to the local Swedish audience. Opening on October 27, Carlota Pereda’s Sundance sensation Piggy reveals a blood-soaked debut that presents a relevant, honest story packed with talent and emotion in equal measure. The festival
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesParanormalReviews
The Elderly Codirectors Raúl Cerezo and Fernando Gonzáles Gómez wowed festival audiences earlier this year with their shocker The Passenger, and now the duo is back with another fine slice of fright-fare cinema, The Elderly (Spain, 2022). Manuel (Zorion Eguileor) finds his life deteriorating after his wife of 50 years falls to her death from their apartment window. Manuel’s son Mario (Gustavo Salmerón) wants his father to move in with them rather than wind up in a nursing home, much to the consternation of his new and pregnant wife Lena (Irene Anula), for whom Mario’s teenage daughter Naia (Paula Gallego) shows little affection. Add to this family drama the fact that Manuel’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre and even threatening — and the same goes for all of the older people with whom the family members come into contact — and you have the set-up for a film that offers a good share of mystery, shudders, and bizarre imagery. The performances
Continue reading →
More from Foreign
ForeignIndieMoviesThrillerTrailers
Stefao Lodovichi‘s Italian psychological thriller The Guest Room (La Stanza), the follow-up to his directorial debut Deep in the Wood, is coming to a TV near you on VOD. In the film, “The morning Stella decides to take her own life, a stranger knocks at her door claiming the guest room he booked for the night. Surprised but charmed by this man who seems to know her very well, Stella decides to let him in. But when Sandro, the man who broke Stella’s heart, joins them at home, this odd situation turns immediately into chaos: Giulio, the stranger, starts unveiling all the secrets of the couple and the house. Who is Giulio? And what are Stella and Sandro hiding?” The Guest Room stars Guido Caprino (“Il commissario Manara”, “That Dirty Black Bag”), Camilla Filippi (“The Trial”, The Big Step), and Edoardo Pesce (Dogman, Non sono un assassino) as an unlikely trio on the precipice of chaos in an isolated house.
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
The Revelation There are several horror films set during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but writer/director Chris W. Mitchell’s Dutch feature The Revelation (De Openbaring, 2022) is the first one to fully capture my attention and hold it throughout. One of the main reasons for that is the terrific performance by star Victor Löw as Jacob, a middle-aged man who becomes obsessed with the dangers of COVID-19 in its early stages, as lockdowns begin and people are deciding how to react to the rapidly spreading virus. Jacob falls into a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories that drive him to paranoia, as he quits his job to move in with his elderly mother (Leny Breederveld) and shield her from the outside world. His sister Magda (Monic Hendrickx) tries to talk sense into him, but is far too late as visions of his recently deceased father (Peter Bolhuis), who was a highly skilled animal skinner, and the ravings of a dubious
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Prolific fear-fare director Charlie Steeds’ latest effort Freeze (U.K., 2022) is a Lovecraftian creature feature that punches above the weight of its budgetary limitations, resulting in a solid-looking, highly entertaining period piece. The crew of the HMS Innsmouth is on a mission to rescue the HMS Eibon, which was lost during its expedition to the North Pole. HMS Innsmouth’s Captain Mortimer’s (Rory Wilson) good friend Captain Streiner (Tim Cartwright) commanded the lost ship, so he is determined to learn the fate of his friend. Meanwhile, Crewman Redgrave (Jake Watkins) helps hide a woman stowaway named Carmen (Beatrice Barillá), whose brother was an officer on the Eibon. Tension heightens when crewman Spriggs (Ricardo Freitas) (who you just can’t wait to see get his) learns of this. Mortimer’s first mate McCullough (Johnny Vivash) warns the captain that sailing any further ahead in the ice will result in disaster, but Lieutenant Roth (David Lenik), whose father owns HMS Innsmouth, persuades Streiner to forge
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsSci-FiThriller
The following three shorts were part of SLASH Film Festival’s Fantastic Futures competition, which consisted of nine shorts from student filmmakers or first-time filmmakers. Starfuckers Writer/director/star Antonio Marziale delivers a gripping revenge thriller of a decidedly different kind with his short film Starfuckers (2022). The short begins with genre elements such as plastic sheets covering a floor and an atmosphere thick with tension as a young man (Cole Doman) meets a middle-aged man (Jonathan Slavin) with power dynamics obviously skewed toward the older man, who happens to be a film director. The director seems to make a habit of promising male escorts roles in his films that never come about, and a second young man (Marziale) shows up unexpectedly to make his feelings known in an unforgettable way. Marziale gives a jaw-dropping, star-making drag performance that lingers long after the short ends, and is reason enough to seek out this powerful take on Hollywood corruption, though there are plenty of
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
U.K. mystery thriller Zebra Girl (2021) is rich with slowly unfolding shocks and surprises, and is the kind of film that is difficult to discuss much in a review for concern of giving too much away for future viewers. Director Stephanie Zari’s chilling film is ultimately a character study of a highly troubled woman dealing with the emotional and psychological aftermath of having gone through horrifying events when she was younger, and how it affects her as an adult. Catherine (Sarah Roy) and English professor Dan (Tom Cullen) meet online and then in-person for a first date, during which she makes a startling confession and then asks Dan to do the same. Hers is far darker than his, but she later finds out that he was hiding a secret from her worse than the one he had originally told her. After they marry and she becomes pregnant, Dan’s secret threatens to drive Catherine to drastic measures. She calls her estranged
Continue reading →
ClipsForeignIndieMoviesNewsTrailers
Carl Sundström’s Swedish horror Reportage November, starring Signe Elvin-Nowak, Jonas Lundström, and Isabel Camacho is coming to digital and VOD this week from Terror Films. Today, we have an exclusive clip titled Revelations. Check it out below. In the found footage/ documentary style film, penned by Nathaniel P Erlandsson, “A mysterious death of a mother and the disappearance of her child leads a group of freelance journalists to the outback of Sweden. The group of four, led by the famous journalist Linn Söderqvist, will make a reportage about the happening and search for leads missed by the police. Equipped with cameras and supplies to survive in the forest for days, they wander out in the woods to find the truth.” Reportage November is made for found footage lovers and while writing it we had all aspects and rules of what makes this genre great in mind. A film that focuses on suspense and mystery to bring the viewer to the
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
About as cautionary a fable as you can have for both meeting strangers through online dating apps and not following first impressions, writer/director Viljar Bøe’s Norwegian chiller Good Boy (2022) is a dark journey, indeed. Part-time university student Sigrid (Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen) and non-working millionaire Christian (Gard Løkke) meet on tinder, and their first date goes well enough that they wind up in bed at his house. Things take a turn for the unexpected when Frank’s dog walks into the bedroom. Frank, as viewers see in the opening minutes of the film, is actually a man (Nicolai Narvesen Lied) in a canine costume participating in “puppy play” role playing. Naturally, this freaks Sigrid out, but once her roommate tips her off about who Christian is and about his wealth, Sigrid begins to second-guess the red flags she originally felt about the situation. She meets Christian at his home again and sparks fly even as she questions the relationship between
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Mother Superior (2022) Writer/director Marie Alice Wolfszahn’s Austrian horror thriller Mother Superior, set in 1975, finds anesthesiste-in-training Sigrun (Isabella Hӓndler) hired on as a nurse for elderly Baroness Heidenreich (Inge Maux). The baroness has been going through a series of nurses rather quickly, but Sigrun hopes to stay on longer than her predecessors. This has less to do with job security than it does with the fact that she hopes to find some clue about her own past. This being a horror film with mystery elements, the main setting is naturally an isolated rural mansion. Wolfszahn and cinematographer Gabriel Krajanek use this setting to full effect as Sigrun wanders through dark areas, including ones that she has been forbidden to enter. The beautifully sunlit grounds provide a sharp contrast to the dimly lit house. I don’t want to spoil the several shades of mystery at play in Mother Superior, so suffice it to say that the main characters — including
Continue reading →
EventsFilm FestivalsForeignMoviesNews
Sweden’s Lund Fantastic Film Festival celebrates its 28th edition from October 27–November 5, 2022 with another mind-boggling array of horror, science fiction, fantasy, and related genre films. The fest has announced its first wave of titles, which includes offerings that have been receiving recognition and rave reviews from previous international festivals at which they have screened. More titles will be revealed soon! Following is the festival’s official first wave announcement. The Lund Fantastic Film Festival is back and about to celebrate the broad spectrum of genre cinema once more. From October 27 until November 5, the 28th edition of Lund Fantastic is set to return to Kino and TriArtPlay for a selection of physical and virtual screenings that bring the most distinct or diverse fantastic films to the local Swedish audience. Opening on October 27, Carlota Pereda’s Sundance sensation Piggy reveals a blood-soaked debut that presents a relevant, honest story packed with talent and emotion in equal measure. The festival
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesParanormalReviews
The Elderly Codirectors Raúl Cerezo and Fernando Gonzáles Gómez wowed festival audiences earlier this year with their shocker The Passenger, and now the duo is back with another fine slice of fright-fare cinema, The Elderly (Spain, 2022). Manuel (Zorion Eguileor) finds his life deteriorating after his wife of 50 years falls to her death from their apartment window. Manuel’s son Mario (Gustavo Salmerón) wants his father to move in with them rather than wind up in a nursing home, much to the consternation of his new and pregnant wife Lena (Irene Anula), for whom Mario’s teenage daughter Naia (Paula Gallego) shows little affection. Add to this family drama the fact that Manuel’s behavior becomes increasingly bizarre and even threatening — and the same goes for all of the older people with whom the family members come into contact — and you have the set-up for a film that offers a good share of mystery, shudders, and bizarre imagery. The performances
Continue reading →
