CategoryForeign
International horror: J-horror, European extremity, Latin American shocks and the films Hollywood keeps remaking.
901 stories
Film FestivalsForeignIndieMoviesNewsThrillerTrailers
Today, XYZ Films unleashed the first teaser and poster for the upcoming Mexican occult horror Huesera, the breakout feature debut from Michelle Garza Cervera, which will receive a theatrical release under their new distribution arm following the Tribeca Film Fest where it will make its world premiere as part of Tribeca’s Midnight section. Garza Cervera, a rising young director in the Mexican genre film scene, has been recognized internationally for her celebrated short films that have played in over a hundred film festivals around the world, including Fantastic Fest, and the Fantasia International Film Festival, and Sitges. In Huesera, Valeria’s (Natalia Solián) joy at becoming pregnant with her first child is quickly taken away when she’s cursed by a sinister entity. As danger closes in and relationships with her family become fractured, she’s forced deeper into a chilling world of dark magic that threatens to consume her. A group of witches emerges that could be her only hope for safety
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Dawning Young Min Kim makes his feature film directorial debut — he also wrote the screenplay — with Dawning, a psychological horror outing heavy on family drama. Haejin Park (Kim Ellis) may have physically left her home after her father’s suicide (shown in the film’s opening scenes) for a new life in New York, but the trauma of that memory still weighs heavily on her. She goes back to the California farm where she grew up to console her younger sister Soojin (Veronica Kim), who has just split up with her abusive boyfriend. There, dark secrets are uncovered and supernatural overtones are introduced. Writer/director Kim shows a deft hand at the helm, serving up some twists and turns that raise the suspense while addressing the scars that PTSD and trauma can cause. Although the dialogue is a bit stiff at times, Dawning looks great, boasts fine performances from its two leads, and leaves viewers with much to think about. Kageboshi
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
One and Four Chinese feature One and Four (2021) is a nailbiter about Sanggye (Jinpa), a ranger who works alone at an isolated post in the Tibetan forest, whose solitude is interrupted when he finds a crashed car with a dead policeman on board. Returning to his cabin, he finds a wounded cop (Wang Zheng), but Sanggye suspects he might actually be a poacher. Kunbo (Kunde), a village acquaintance of Sanggye’s, returns to the cabin after a visit the night before, and eventually another wounded cop (Darggye Tenzin) stumbles onto the scene. As Sanggye becomes increasingly suspicious about each of the men, they do their part in creating further confusion and uncertainties. Naturally, weapons come into play, and as anger and confusion mount, danger threatens with every passing second. Writer/director Jigme Trinley’s debut feature looks terrific, with the snow-covered setting serving both a beautiful and bleak backdrop. He ratchets up the suspense masterfully, even if there’s not a whole lot
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Subject Subject, cowinner of this year’s Fantaspoa Best Film in the Brazilian Feature Film Competition category, tackles a familiar set-up: writer Max (Gustavo Falcão) has moved into a house in a rural area to work on his next book, but odd things occur inside the house. What director Leo Falcão does with this set-up is quite unlike what viewers might expect, though, as he takes a rather light-hearted, magical realism approach and sends Max on a weird journey involving suddenly-appearing texts, oddball locals, and the mystery of what happened to the writer who lived in the house before him. From characters who say strangely out-of-place words and instantly correct themselves to daily fistfights among friends, these locals are an enigmatic lot, and the actors who portray them do a marvelous job. Max finds himself grappling with existential puzzles, and Gustavo Falcão inhabits the character with a bemused, fish-out-of-water verve. Though not strictly a horror film, Subject definitely has scare-fare elements
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesNewsShudderStreaming TVTrailers
The controversial, super brutal horror film The Sadness, which nearly caused a riot by disturbed viewers at its festival screening, is now streaming on Shudder. Written and directed by Rob Jabbaz, the story “follows a young couple, played by Regina Lei (76 Horror Bookstore) and Berant Zhu (We Are Champions, How to Train Our Dragon), trying to reunite amid a city ravaged by a plague that turns its victims into deranged, bloodthirsty sadists. Tzu Chiang Wang (It’s Drizzling) and In Ru Chen also star. The film is produced by David Barker and executive produced by Li-Cheng Huang, while Eunice Cheng’s associate produced for Machi Xcelsior Studios. The Sadness, which features English subtitles, was shot in Taipei, Taiwan. While The Sadness, which Craig Engler general manager of Shudder describes as “a brutal, boundary-pushing shocker, one of the boldest and bloodiest we’ve ever acquired,” may not be for everyone, but if you’re into extreme horror it will be right up your alley.
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Alex (David Hess, who coincidentally also starred in Wes Craven’s 1972 masterpiece The Last House on the Left… a title I’m sure I won’t be mentioning again in this review) is a true renaissance man with many passions; disco dancing, acting smarmy, and being a sexually violent serial killer. One night, Alex and his pal Ricky (Italian horror regular Giovanni Lombardo Radice in an amazing t-shirt) are invited to a swank house in New Jersey for a disco party full of discoing. Once there, the rich pricks that are throwing the shindig immediately begin taking advantage of the rather dim Ricky, and our “hero” turns on the apish charm, only to get blue balled. These things goes over like a fart in a submarine for Alex and before long he’s pulled out his straight razor and the night immediately devolves into card-playing, swimming, face slashing (there it is), sexual assault (and again… ), and of course, tchotchke smashing (“Oh, the
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Do your best not to learn much at all about writer/director Eskil Vogt’s Norwegian film The Innocents (De uskyldige; 2021) — my review will be free of spoilers — and you will be rewarded with one of the most gripping slices of fear-fare involving children in recent memory. This eerie feature has solidified one of the top spots on my list of favorite horror films of this year. Nine-year-old Ida (Rakel Lenora Flottum) is fed up with the extra attention that her parents (Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Flottum’s real-life mother, and Morten Svartveit) bestow on her older autistic sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad), signaled at the beginning of the film with Ida hurting her sister, who doesn’t outwardly express pain. The family moves into an apartment in a tower block at the edge of a wooded area, where Ida meets loners Ben (Sam Ashraf) and Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim). Ida is fascinated with what seem to be supernatural powers displayed
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Dark Glasses Italian/French coproduction Dark Glasses (AKA Black Glasses; Occhiali Neri, 2022) is the latest from Dario Argento, and while it isn’t quite a return to form for the legendary director, it is arguably one of his better later-career offerings. High-end call girl Diana (Ilenia Pastorelli) loses her sight when she is pursued in a car chase by a serial killer who targets sex workers, and her vehicle crashes into another, blidning her and killing the parents of young boy Chin (Andrea Zhang). She visits him at the nunnery for orphans where he stays until placed with a foster family, and he escapes to live with her illegally. Naturally, the murderer is still pursuing Diana, which puts both her and the boy in peril. There are no surprises in Dark Glasses other than an eerie opening sequence involving a solar eclipse. After that, it’s pretty standard giallo/slasher fare, and not as stylish as viewers might hope for Argento’s first film
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
After surviving a freak plane crash as a child, Katerina (Svetlana Ivanova) has conquered her fears and is set to once again take flight with her young daughter in tow. Sometimes fear can be a life saver… Before the plane even leaves the tarmac, things start getting tense as shit as the weird/stressed passengers (what there are of them) and strange noises begin to take a hold on our heroine, bringing back the trauma… but, she refuses to give in and ditches her meds. I’m sure that’ll only help. Once in the air, a storm starts brewing, and our heroine begins reliving her past as things turn decidedly more nightmarish, not that the unblinking, unmoving flight attendants notice… but an in-flight heart attack seems to snap everybody to, and then all hell breaks loose… but is what is happening merely coincidence and a mental health speed bump, or is something more preternatural afoot? Director Alexander Babaev’s Row 19 is a
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Cannibal Holocaust’s maestro of mayhem Ruggero Deodato is back baby! Well, he was in 2016, and after a decades long hiatus from fright flicks and sleaze he just went right the fuck ahead and dove into the deep end of the putrid pool… and let me assure you, the old chap hasn’t lost a single beastly beat! Based (loosely) on the true life 2007 murder case of Amanda Knox/Meredith Kercher, Ballad in Blood begins with a sex fueled Halloween night party/drug-fueled orgy with bonus naked crucifixion hybrid (ain’t they always cats n’ creeps) and slips greasily into the aftermath of said event, where pals Duke (Edward Williams), a drug dealer by trade, and Jacopo (Gabriele Rossi) wake up in the apartment of Jacopo’s girlfriend Lenka (Carlotta Morelli) to find their friend Elizabeth (Noemi Smorra) decidedly not full of life… probably due to the rather large wound on her neck. Anyway, ol’ Elizabeth was recording a whole light of the previous
Continue reading →
More from Foreign
Film FestivalsForeignIndieMoviesNewsThrillerTrailers
Today, XYZ Films unleashed the first teaser and poster for the upcoming Mexican occult horror Huesera, the breakout feature debut from Michelle Garza Cervera, which will receive a theatrical release under their new distribution arm following the Tribeca Film Fest where it will make its world premiere as part of Tribeca’s Midnight section. Garza Cervera, a rising young director in the Mexican genre film scene, has been recognized internationally for her celebrated short films that have played in over a hundred film festivals around the world, including Fantastic Fest, and the Fantasia International Film Festival, and Sitges. In Huesera, Valeria’s (Natalia Solián) joy at becoming pregnant with her first child is quickly taken away when she’s cursed by a sinister entity. As danger closes in and relationships with her family become fractured, she’s forced deeper into a chilling world of dark magic that threatens to consume her. A group of witches emerges that could be her only hope for safety
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Dawning Young Min Kim makes his feature film directorial debut — he also wrote the screenplay — with Dawning, a psychological horror outing heavy on family drama. Haejin Park (Kim Ellis) may have physically left her home after her father’s suicide (shown in the film’s opening scenes) for a new life in New York, but the trauma of that memory still weighs heavily on her. She goes back to the California farm where she grew up to console her younger sister Soojin (Veronica Kim), who has just split up with her abusive boyfriend. There, dark secrets are uncovered and supernatural overtones are introduced. Writer/director Kim shows a deft hand at the helm, serving up some twists and turns that raise the suspense while addressing the scars that PTSD and trauma can cause. Although the dialogue is a bit stiff at times, Dawning looks great, boasts fine performances from its two leads, and leaves viewers with much to think about. Kageboshi
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThriller
One and Four Chinese feature One and Four (2021) is a nailbiter about Sanggye (Jinpa), a ranger who works alone at an isolated post in the Tibetan forest, whose solitude is interrupted when he finds a crashed car with a dead policeman on board. Returning to his cabin, he finds a wounded cop (Wang Zheng), but Sanggye suspects he might actually be a poacher. Kunbo (Kunde), a village acquaintance of Sanggye’s, returns to the cabin after a visit the night before, and eventually another wounded cop (Darggye Tenzin) stumbles onto the scene. As Sanggye becomes increasingly suspicious about each of the men, they do their part in creating further confusion and uncertainties. Naturally, weapons come into play, and as anger and confusion mount, danger threatens with every passing second. Writer/director Jigme Trinley’s debut feature looks terrific, with the snow-covered setting serving both a beautiful and bleak backdrop. He ratchets up the suspense masterfully, even if there’s not a whole lot
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Subject Subject, cowinner of this year’s Fantaspoa Best Film in the Brazilian Feature Film Competition category, tackles a familiar set-up: writer Max (Gustavo Falcão) has moved into a house in a rural area to work on his next book, but odd things occur inside the house. What director Leo Falcão does with this set-up is quite unlike what viewers might expect, though, as he takes a rather light-hearted, magical realism approach and sends Max on a weird journey involving suddenly-appearing texts, oddball locals, and the mystery of what happened to the writer who lived in the house before him. From characters who say strangely out-of-place words and instantly correct themselves to daily fistfights among friends, these locals are an enigmatic lot, and the actors who portray them do a marvelous job. Max finds himself grappling with existential puzzles, and Gustavo Falcão inhabits the character with a bemused, fish-out-of-water verve. Though not strictly a horror film, Subject definitely has scare-fare elements
Continue reading →
ForeignIndieMoviesNewsShudderStreaming TVTrailers
The controversial, super brutal horror film The Sadness, which nearly caused a riot by disturbed viewers at its festival screening, is now streaming on Shudder. Written and directed by Rob Jabbaz, the story “follows a young couple, played by Regina Lei (76 Horror Bookstore) and Berant Zhu (We Are Champions, How to Train Our Dragon), trying to reunite amid a city ravaged by a plague that turns its victims into deranged, bloodthirsty sadists. Tzu Chiang Wang (It’s Drizzling) and In Ru Chen also star. The film is produced by David Barker and executive produced by Li-Cheng Huang, while Eunice Cheng’s associate produced for Machi Xcelsior Studios. The Sadness, which features English subtitles, was shot in Taipei, Taiwan. While The Sadness, which Craig Engler general manager of Shudder describes as “a brutal, boundary-pushing shocker, one of the boldest and bloodiest we’ve ever acquired,” may not be for everyone, but if you’re into extreme horror it will be right up your alley.
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Alex (David Hess, who coincidentally also starred in Wes Craven’s 1972 masterpiece The Last House on the Left… a title I’m sure I won’t be mentioning again in this review) is a true renaissance man with many passions; disco dancing, acting smarmy, and being a sexually violent serial killer. One night, Alex and his pal Ricky (Italian horror regular Giovanni Lombardo Radice in an amazing t-shirt) are invited to a swank house in New Jersey for a disco party full of discoing. Once there, the rich pricks that are throwing the shindig immediately begin taking advantage of the rather dim Ricky, and our “hero” turns on the apish charm, only to get blue balled. These things goes over like a fart in a submarine for Alex and before long he’s pulled out his straight razor and the night immediately devolves into card-playing, swimming, face slashing (there it is), sexual assault (and again… ), and of course, tchotchke smashing (“Oh, the
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Do your best not to learn much at all about writer/director Eskil Vogt’s Norwegian film The Innocents (De uskyldige; 2021) — my review will be free of spoilers — and you will be rewarded with one of the most gripping slices of fear-fare involving children in recent memory. This eerie feature has solidified one of the top spots on my list of favorite horror films of this year. Nine-year-old Ida (Rakel Lenora Flottum) is fed up with the extra attention that her parents (Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Flottum’s real-life mother, and Morten Svartveit) bestow on her older autistic sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad), signaled at the beginning of the film with Ida hurting her sister, who doesn’t outwardly express pain. The family moves into an apartment in a tower block at the edge of a wooded area, where Ida meets loners Ben (Sam Ashraf) and Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim). Ida is fascinated with what seem to be supernatural powers displayed
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Dark Glasses Italian/French coproduction Dark Glasses (AKA Black Glasses; Occhiali Neri, 2022) is the latest from Dario Argento, and while it isn’t quite a return to form for the legendary director, it is arguably one of his better later-career offerings. High-end call girl Diana (Ilenia Pastorelli) loses her sight when she is pursued in a car chase by a serial killer who targets sex workers, and her vehicle crashes into another, blidning her and killing the parents of young boy Chin (Andrea Zhang). She visits him at the nunnery for orphans where he stays until placed with a foster family, and he escapes to live with her illegally. Naturally, the murderer is still pursuing Diana, which puts both her and the boy in peril. There are no surprises in Dark Glasses other than an eerie opening sequence involving a solar eclipse. After that, it’s pretty standard giallo/slasher fare, and not as stylish as viewers might hope for Argento’s first film
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
After surviving a freak plane crash as a child, Katerina (Svetlana Ivanova) has conquered her fears and is set to once again take flight with her young daughter in tow. Sometimes fear can be a life saver… Before the plane even leaves the tarmac, things start getting tense as shit as the weird/stressed passengers (what there are of them) and strange noises begin to take a hold on our heroine, bringing back the trauma… but, she refuses to give in and ditches her meds. I’m sure that’ll only help. Once in the air, a storm starts brewing, and our heroine begins reliving her past as things turn decidedly more nightmarish, not that the unblinking, unmoving flight attendants notice… but an in-flight heart attack seems to snap everybody to, and then all hell breaks loose… but is what is happening merely coincidence and a mental health speed bump, or is something more preternatural afoot? Director Alexander Babaev’s Row 19 is a
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesReviews
Cannibal Holocaust’s maestro of mayhem Ruggero Deodato is back baby! Well, he was in 2016, and after a decades long hiatus from fright flicks and sleaze he just went right the fuck ahead and dove into the deep end of the putrid pool… and let me assure you, the old chap hasn’t lost a single beastly beat! Based (loosely) on the true life 2007 murder case of Amanda Knox/Meredith Kercher, Ballad in Blood begins with a sex fueled Halloween night party/drug-fueled orgy with bonus naked crucifixion hybrid (ain’t they always cats n’ creeps) and slips greasily into the aftermath of said event, where pals Duke (Edward Williams), a drug dealer by trade, and Jacopo (Gabriele Rossi) wake up in the apartment of Jacopo’s girlfriend Lenka (Carlotta Morelli) to find their friend Elizabeth (Noemi Smorra) decidedly not full of life… probably due to the rather large wound on her neck. Anyway, ol’ Elizabeth was recording a whole light of the previous
Continue reading →
