Foreign

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

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A Family Finds Themselves Trapped And Terrified In ‘The Night’ Trailer

From director and co-writer, Kourosh Ahari comes the psychological thriller The Night, from the executive producer of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Ahead of its January release, we’ve got the new trailer that teases a dark, unnerving movie. The psychological thriller follows an Iranian couple, Babak and Neda, and their one-year-old daughter, Shabnam. Returning home from a friend’s gathering, Babak drives drunkenly, too stubborn to let Neda drive with a suspended license. When Babak’s driving threatens the safety of the family, Neda insists they stay the night at a hotel. Once they check-in, Babak and Neda find themselves imprisoned, forced to face the secrets they’ve kept from each other. And though the clock moves forward, “the night” never ends. The film features a diverse cast and crew made up of predominantly Iranian immigrants or US-born Iranian-Americans, including Shahab Hosseini, Niousha Jafarian, Leah Oganyan, and George Maguire. Shot on location in the US, The Night recently received a license for theatrical release

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Kelli Marchman McNeely

Jan 6, 2021

Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews

Movie Review (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival): Victim of Love

A brooding psychosexual character study that oftentimes flirts with the surreal, Danish film Victim of Love offers striking visuals and gripping performances. Writer/director Jesper Isaksen has crafted a fine debut feature with a brooding, hypnotic flair. Danish-American man Charly (Rudi Køhnke) is staying in the same Copenhagen hotel where his girlfriend Amy (Louise Cho) disappeared a few months earlier. He hits alcohol and cocaine hard, spending seemingly more time under their influences than actually looking for Amy, which he tells others is his reason for being there. Hotel bartender Felicija (Siff Andersson) is a goth denizen of the city nightlife, and she takes Charly on a whirlwind night of partying, and the two eventually wind up in bed together. Charly is haunted by visions of both Amy and a masked murderer, some appearances on the simple side and others much trippier. When Felicija begins to play in his visions too, the proceedings get much darker and more sinister. Charly is

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Joseph Perry

Dec 29, 2020

Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviewsThriller

Movie Review (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival): F20

Croation shocker F20 may not deliver many surprises to fans of lover-gone-psycho cinema, but its vibrant style and gripping performances make the ride to the inevitable a stirring one. Director Arsen A. Ostojic’s thriller takes viewers on an unsettling ride with nods to slasher fare in its third act. Part-time university student Martina (Romina Tonković) reluctantly helps her widowed father Mate (Mladen Vulić) out at his pizzeria. She develops a crush on Filip (Filip Mayer), a young man her age who orders pizza delivery daily. Asserting herself into his loner lifestyle of playing first-person shooter games while his parents are on vacation at their forest cabin, she and her friend Irena (Lana Ujevic) coax him into going out for drinks and karaoke, and the pair eventually enter into an intimate relationship. Viewers are tipped off very early — some might argue too soon — that something might be amiss with Filip, but I’ll save the how and why to avoid

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Joseph Perry

Dec 23, 2020

ForeignMovies

Movie Review: The Hex

Reine Swat makes her feature film directorial debut with The Hex (originally titled Heks, and AKA Her Mask), a South African horror tale involving witch doctors and human evil. The film is rich in atmosphere but it also has some confusing elements. After witnessing her mother being killed upon her return to her native South Africa, a British Girl (Coco Lloyd as Dilanne) then travels to that country to spend time at her aunt’s (Mary-Anne Barlow) home while trying to unravel the mystery of her mother’s unsolved murder. The aunt’s occupational therapist (Mari Molefe van Heerden) has been sworn to secrecy about a skeleton in the family closet, but believes that Dilanne should be informed. Plagued by weird visions, Dilanne seeks the help of a witch doctor (also van Heerden), and the intrigue begins to slowly build. The Hex has an eerie look to it, but relies on jump scares and a series of hallucination sequences to jolt. Any atmosphere

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Joseph Perry

Dec 16, 2020

ForeignMoviesThriller

Movie Review: The Glass Man

Writer/director Cristian Solemino’s thriller The Glass Man premiered at London’s FrightFest film festival 11 years ago to great acclaim, but then was tangled up in rights issues. Shot in 2009 during the credit crunch, the film is finally available in the United Kingdom, still timely — if not even more so than when it was made — and delivers a riveting story with some top-notch performances. Andy Nyman (cowriter, codirector, and star of 2017’s Ghost Stories) gives a magnificent turn as Martin Pyrite, a businessman who we soon learn is hiding the fact that he was fired from his job from his wife Julie (Neve Campbell). His credit is shot and his bank account is down to pocket change, yet he still tries to keep up the appearance with her of being successfully employed, pretending to go to work every day. Going to his old job to complain about the bad reference they gave him, he is treated as persona

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Joseph Perry

Dec 9, 2020

ForeignMoviesReviews

Movie Review (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival): The Turn of the Screw

Writer/director Alex Galvin takes a novel approach to his feature The Turn of the Screw, his adaptation of the classic Henry James novella. Setting the New Zealand-made film at a play rehearsal for The Turn of the Screw one night before the play opens at a Wellington theater, the approach puts the last-minute replacement actress Julia (Greer Phillips) in an unfamiliar environment. As she goes through what the director Richard (Ralph Johnson) calls an unofficial dress rehearsal, Julia finds herself becoming increasingly distressed and fearful as the play proceeds. Whereas the governess in the source novella slowly begins to believe that the house in which she is put in charge is haunted, Julia starts to see strange sights and hear odd noises. The theater is empty other than the cast, director, and sound and lights crew members — or is it? Phillips is marvelous as the understudy given a frantically rushed chance to take a lead role in a production

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Joseph Perry

Dec 7, 2020

ForeignIndieMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: Burst City (1982)

The plot, as very, very loose as it is to Gakuryû Ishii’s (aka Sogo Ishii) Burst City goes kinda/sorta as follows: In a dystopian Japan, gangs of punk rockers put on large concerts (conveyed via music video style vignettes), fight each other for stage time, and form their own dominant, completely out-of-control culture. This of course goes over like a fart in church to the local gangsters who plan on making the city, or more properly the land it sits on, their own. Rioting, rock, racing, and hard fucking (it’s not an “R” word, but it’s in there) ensue! Oh, and before I forget there are also a draconian police force (the Battle Police), a work force comprised of violent heavily armored Road Warrior-style bastards (some mutated, all insane), and plenty of piss n’ puke! Unconcerned with traditional narrative structure, Ishii throws as much light, sound, movement and pure adrenaline on screen as humanly possible… and when the film does

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DanXIII

Dec 1, 2020

ForeignMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: The Black Cat (1989)

Being an adaptation of horror maestro Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 short story The Black Cat, this film begins the only way it could; with a baby in the womb super-imposed with images of the cosmos. A visit to a movie set, some hair metal, and a baby having apocalyptic dreams later, and we know well and truly that Luigi Cozzi (Starcrash, Contamination) is following the original story to the absolute letter in such a slavish fashion that would make literary scholars the world over to rise up and shout “Skeet, skeet skeet!” Anyway, there’s also a freaky ass witch, and Caroline Munro involved in these goings-on as well. Not a lot of cats here so far, but I’m sure they’ll chuck one in at some point. (Edit: they do) So what exactly is going on in this picture? The long and the short of it all is; some folks want to make a horror movie about the aforementioned legendary evil

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DanXIII

Nov 30, 2020

ForeignMoviesNewsTrailers

German Movie ‘Live Or Let Die’ Unleashes New Zombie Filled Trailer

Genre specialist sales outfit Black Mandala has acquired the German zombie film Live or Let die and have now released the poster and the trailer. Through an outbreak of a virus, the human race has come near to extinction. The undead walks among the land and hunts the living. The very few that are left, aimlessly searching for a better tomorrow. The survivor and lone wolf Nick (Jan Bohlenschmidt) finds an old diary that contains a map, his last chance for hope to a safer sanctuary. After a bloody encounter with reckless John (Manuel Urbaneck), both get together and wander through the dead and destroyed land. Day after day it`s a hard fight of survival for their own lives until they realize that only one thing is clear: among the dead, the survivors are the biggest threat! Writer-director Manuel Urbaneck`s zombie film stars Jan Bohlenschmidt, Manuel Urbaneck, Steven Mooers, Alona Hertha, Michael Valentin, Heiko Schulz, Markus Hettich, Dirk Jeblick, Kai

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Kelli Marchman McNeely

Nov 19, 2020

ForeignMoviesNewsShudderStreaming TVTrailers

Sink You Teeth Into The ‘Monstrum’ Trailer Ahead Of Its Release

A terrifying monster is on the loose and it’s hungry for human flesh in Monstrum – out this November from director Jong-ho Huh (Countdown, The Advocate: A Missing Body) and co-writer  Heo-dam. The film stars Hyeri Lee (“Hyde, Jekyll, Me”), In-kwon Kim (C’est Si Bon), Myung-Min Kim (Closer to Heaven), and Woo-sik Choi (Parasite). RLJE Films will release MONSTRUM on DVD for an SRP of $27.97 and Blu-ray for an SRP of $28.96. In Monstrum, a plague has taken over and fear runs rampant in the streets. When rumors of a vicious monster roaming Mount Inwangsan begin to spread, fear turns into panic. In order to quell the rising hysteria, the King brings his most trusted general out of retirement. Joined by his daughter, his right-hand man, and a royal court officer, the general sets out to find and defeat the mysterious creature. RLJE Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, along with Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium service for horror, thriller, and the

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Kelli Marchman McNeely

Nov 16, 2020

Foreign

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