CategoryForeign
International horror: J-horror, European extremity, Latin American shocks and the films Hollywood keeps remaking.
901 stories
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
The Dollmaker Official synopsis In a quiet village, a charming young man named Tomás leads a simple life: caring for his mother, working at the video store and town clinic, and collecting dolls. As women start disappearing, newly arrived Inspector Porter investigates. Review Director José María Cicala’s The Dollmaker (Encantador; Argentina, 2025) is an unnerving combination of the weird and the macabre. It’s also a candidate for feel-bad horror film of the year, and a terror tale you are not likely to easily forget. Tomás (Rodrigo Noya) is both socially active and socially awkward, working at a video rental store and helping out with a support group. When a series of disappearances occur in his small Argentinian town, the video store comes under investigation by a new-in-town officer despite the police chief’s lack of concern. The screenplay by Cicala and Griselda Sanchez is full of twists, red herrings, and surprises, keeping even seasoned fright-fare fanatics questioning events and characters until
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? Descendent (U.S., 2025); review by Joseph Perry Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Kani: Sean, a school security guard in a small town on the outskirts of Los Angeles, is struggling with the looming reality of fatherhood. Haunted by childhood trauma and weighed down by the pressures of his job, he feels utterly unprepared to become a parent. One night during a routine shift, he witnesses a mysterious, glowing object in the sky. After that encounter, Sean begins to suffer from disturbing visions — strange images, apparitions of alien
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? I Kill U (South Korea, 2025); review by Chris Weatherspoon Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Kani: Kang Sunwoo, a former promising taekwondo athlete, now lives a life of poverty and exhaustion. One day, while carrying the weight of her painful past, she is suddenly thrust into the spotlight when people notice her uncanny resemblance to a woman named Han Jiyeon. The problem is, Han Jiyeon is the main perpetrator of a ‘drunk driving hit-and-run death case’ and also the heiress of a major conglomerate. As public anger and
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? 100 Liters of Gold (Finland/Italy, 2025); review by Chris Weatherspoon Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Byeonggyu: 100 Liters of Gold is a comedy of drunkenness and a farce of hangovers. Middle-aged sisters Taina and Pirkko, who live in a small village in southern Finland, are brewers of sahti, a traditional Finnish beer. Tasked with preparing 100 litres of sahti for the wedding of their younger sister Paivi, who has returned to their hometown, they accidentally end up drinking all the beer themselves. With only 48 hours left until
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Witte Wieven (Heresy) (Netherlands, 2024) Director Didier Konings tackles patriarchal oppression of women, religious hypocrisy, and the search for self-identity in his beautiful looking folk horror Witte Wieven (Heresy). The story is set in a small rural Dutch village in the Middle Ages, where religion makes the rules that favor men and also where women unable to bear children have little to no use. Devout couple Frieda (Anneke Sluiter) and Hikko (Len Leo Vincent) have been unsuccessful in trying to have a baby, and even religious leader Father Bartolomeus (Reinout Bussemaker) has been unable to help. Village butcher Gelo (Leon Van Waas), who has recently been punished for what the film hints at as sexual assault on one of the village women, is released. His advances toward being able to make Frieda pregnant turn into a rape attempt in the nearby woods, during which Frieda is saved by a supernatural entity. When villagers accuse her of being in league with
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Official synopsis: A twisted new tale from Joseph Sims-Dennett (BFI London Film Festival Selected Observance). Grace returns to the small town she grew up in to find the brother, David, is missing. Deciding that she must reunite her family, she follows a lead which takes her deep into the wilderness. Lost, injured and alone, soon her only hope is another hiker who is communicating with her via her radio. Grace makes her way closer to this mysterious hiker — however, suspicions start to grow about their true identity. As the darkness becomes ever more menacing and a threatening presence begins to consume Grace, who can she really trust? Writer/director Joseph Sims-Dennett builds an engrossing air of mystery in his new Australian feature Baal, which finds Grace (Meg Clarke in an outstanding lead performance) returning after a very long absence to her childhood home to sort out matters after her father dies. She also begins a search for her brother David
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
1978 Codirectors Luciano and Nicolás Onetti craft a marvelously macabre fright-fare outing with 1978 (Argentina, 2024). Set in Argentina in the titular year, and specifically during both a military dictatorship and the World Cup match between that country — which hosted the event in Buenos Aires — and The Netherlands, the film uses the dark history of torture, brutality, and murder by the regime of that time as its setting. Government representatives torture political dissidents for information regarding other members of their groups, but when they accidentally kidnap the wrong group, the hell that they have brought to so many is about to be visited back on them in gruesome, blood-soaked ways. Unflinching in its depictions of political horror and unrelenting in its presentations of supernatural terror and violence, 1978 delivers visceral shocks and grisly set pieces galore. The Onetti brothers deliver a feature that combines strong political and philosophical themes along with hard-hitting horror. Solvent Johannes Grenzfurthner’s Solvent (Austria,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Touched by Eternity Writer/director Mārcis Lācis serves up an intriguing, amusing feature with his Latvian philosophical horror dramedy Touched by Eternity. Fatso (Andris Keišs) longs for immortality, though why he desires that isn’t clearly evident, as he pretty much keeps to himself in his trailer, listening to broadcasts about seeking eternal life. When vampires Egons (Ivars Krasts) and Carlos (Edgars Samītis) come calling, seemingly offering him what he pursues, his simple lifestyle is upended and he is suddenly faced with existential questions about mortality. Lācis blends the thoughtful, the horrific, and the humorous quite nicely, and Keišs leads a solid cast as a simple everyman who dreams of the unattainable until his dream is offered to him as a reality — though quite a different, blood-spattered one than he had originally imagined. Thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining, Touched by Eternity is a unique slice of genre cinema well worth seeking out. Heavier Trip Finnish/German/Norwegian/Lithuanian coproduction Heavier Trip — the sequel to
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ForeignMoviesNetflixNewsStreaming TVTrailers
The highly anticipated sequel, The Platform 2, is out now on Netflix! The sequel to the 2020 hit, The Platform, sees the return of Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia to the director’s chair. The first film revealed a cruel and brutal vertical prison where inmates are sentenced to levels and forced to ration food from a descending platform that moves between floors. The inmates at the top feast like kings, while those at the bottom live off scraps. One man set out to balance the scales so that everyone could survive. This time, in The Platform 2, a mysterious figure has established a new law in the prison. But can justice be enforced in hell? And who will enforce it? Platform 2′s cast includes Natalia Tena, Oscar Jaenada, Hovik Keuchkerian, Milena Smit, and Bastien Ughetto. The script was written by David Desola, Egoitz Moreno, and Pedro Rivero. Released in 2020, the original, filled with social commentary, went viral during Covid. It was watched
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesNewsProduct
Actor Nicholas Vince, best known for his roles as the Chatterer in Clive Barker’s Hellraiser and Kinski (Moon Face) in Nightbreed, is the subject of his own one-man show I Am Monsters!. The film adaptation of this stage show is now available for preorder, with the first 500 Blu-rays copies in a Signed Collectors Numbered Limited Edition that boasts a slipcover designed by celebrated graphic artist Graham Humphreys. Following is the official press announcement. PREORDER NOW! “In this extraordinary confessional, Nick charms and chills us, mingling the witty and the nightmarish”. (Clive Barker) Nicholas Vince’s movie adaptation of his one-man show I AM MONSTERS! gets the Deluxe treatment with a special 500 signed limited-edition Blu Ray, which will be available to pre-order from Oct 1, 2024. The Blu Ray extras will include four postcards, slipcover designed by celebrated graphic artist Graham Humphreys, four short films written / directed by Nick, a four-page booklet. and an exclusive interview, hosted by Emmerdale
Continue reading →
More from Foreign
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
The Dollmaker Official synopsis In a quiet village, a charming young man named Tomás leads a simple life: caring for his mother, working at the video store and town clinic, and collecting dolls. As women start disappearing, newly arrived Inspector Porter investigates. Review Director José María Cicala’s The Dollmaker (Encantador; Argentina, 2025) is an unnerving combination of the weird and the macabre. It’s also a candidate for feel-bad horror film of the year, and a terror tale you are not likely to easily forget. Tomás (Rodrigo Noya) is both socially active and socially awkward, working at a video rental store and helping out with a support group. When a series of disappearances occur in his small Argentinian town, the video store comes under investigation by a new-in-town officer despite the police chief’s lack of concern. The screenplay by Cicala and Griselda Sanchez is full of twists, red herrings, and surprises, keeping even seasoned fright-fare fanatics questioning events and characters until
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? Descendent (U.S., 2025); review by Joseph Perry Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Kani: Sean, a school security guard in a small town on the outskirts of Los Angeles, is struggling with the looming reality of fatherhood. Haunted by childhood trauma and weighed down by the pressures of his job, he feels utterly unprepared to become a parent. One night during a routine shift, he witnesses a mysterious, glowing object in the sky. After that encounter, Sean begins to suffer from disturbing visions — strange images, apparitions of alien
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? I Kill U (South Korea, 2025); review by Chris Weatherspoon Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Kani: Kang Sunwoo, a former promising taekwondo athlete, now lives a life of poverty and exhaustion. One day, while carrying the weight of her painful past, she is suddenly thrust into the spotlight when people notice her uncanny resemblance to a woman named Han Jiyeon. The problem is, Han Jiyeon is the main perpetrator of a ‘drunk driving hit-and-run death case’ and also the heiress of a major conglomerate. As public anger and
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Once again, our coverage of Bucheon International Film Festival (BIFAN) reviews is cowritten by Film Festival Editor Joseph Perry and Guest Contributing Writer Chris Weatherspoon. A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!? 100 Liters of Gold (Finland/Italy, 2025); review by Chris Weatherspoon Official BIFAN synopsis from program notes written by Kim Byeonggyu: 100 Liters of Gold is a comedy of drunkenness and a farce of hangovers. Middle-aged sisters Taina and Pirkko, who live in a small village in southern Finland, are brewers of sahti, a traditional Finnish beer. Tasked with preparing 100 litres of sahti for the wedding of their younger sister Paivi, who has returned to their hometown, they accidentally end up drinking all the beer themselves. With only 48 hours left until
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Witte Wieven (Heresy) (Netherlands, 2024) Director Didier Konings tackles patriarchal oppression of women, religious hypocrisy, and the search for self-identity in his beautiful looking folk horror Witte Wieven (Heresy). The story is set in a small rural Dutch village in the Middle Ages, where religion makes the rules that favor men and also where women unable to bear children have little to no use. Devout couple Frieda (Anneke Sluiter) and Hikko (Len Leo Vincent) have been unsuccessful in trying to have a baby, and even religious leader Father Bartolomeus (Reinout Bussemaker) has been unable to help. Village butcher Gelo (Leon Van Waas), who has recently been punished for what the film hints at as sexual assault on one of the village women, is released. His advances toward being able to make Frieda pregnant turn into a rape attempt in the nearby woods, during which Frieda is saved by a supernatural entity. When villagers accuse her of being in league with
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Official synopsis: A twisted new tale from Joseph Sims-Dennett (BFI London Film Festival Selected Observance). Grace returns to the small town she grew up in to find the brother, David, is missing. Deciding that she must reunite her family, she follows a lead which takes her deep into the wilderness. Lost, injured and alone, soon her only hope is another hiker who is communicating with her via her radio. Grace makes her way closer to this mysterious hiker — however, suspicions start to grow about their true identity. As the darkness becomes ever more menacing and a threatening presence begins to consume Grace, who can she really trust? Writer/director Joseph Sims-Dennett builds an engrossing air of mystery in his new Australian feature Baal, which finds Grace (Meg Clarke in an outstanding lead performance) returning after a very long absence to her childhood home to sort out matters after her father dies. She also begins a search for her brother David
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
1978 Codirectors Luciano and Nicolás Onetti craft a marvelously macabre fright-fare outing with 1978 (Argentina, 2024). Set in Argentina in the titular year, and specifically during both a military dictatorship and the World Cup match between that country — which hosted the event in Buenos Aires — and The Netherlands, the film uses the dark history of torture, brutality, and murder by the regime of that time as its setting. Government representatives torture political dissidents for information regarding other members of their groups, but when they accidentally kidnap the wrong group, the hell that they have brought to so many is about to be visited back on them in gruesome, blood-soaked ways. Unflinching in its depictions of political horror and unrelenting in its presentations of supernatural terror and violence, 1978 delivers visceral shocks and grisly set pieces galore. The Onetti brothers deliver a feature that combines strong political and philosophical themes along with hard-hitting horror. Solvent Johannes Grenzfurthner’s Solvent (Austria,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
Touched by Eternity Writer/director Mārcis Lācis serves up an intriguing, amusing feature with his Latvian philosophical horror dramedy Touched by Eternity. Fatso (Andris Keišs) longs for immortality, though why he desires that isn’t clearly evident, as he pretty much keeps to himself in his trailer, listening to broadcasts about seeking eternal life. When vampires Egons (Ivars Krasts) and Carlos (Edgars Samītis) come calling, seemingly offering him what he pursues, his simple lifestyle is upended and he is suddenly faced with existential questions about mortality. Lācis blends the thoughtful, the horrific, and the humorous quite nicely, and Keišs leads a solid cast as a simple everyman who dreams of the unattainable until his dream is offered to him as a reality — though quite a different, blood-spattered one than he had originally imagined. Thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining, Touched by Eternity is a unique slice of genre cinema well worth seeking out. Heavier Trip Finnish/German/Norwegian/Lithuanian coproduction Heavier Trip — the sequel to
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesNetflixNewsStreaming TVTrailers
The highly anticipated sequel, The Platform 2, is out now on Netflix! The sequel to the 2020 hit, The Platform, sees the return of Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia to the director’s chair. The first film revealed a cruel and brutal vertical prison where inmates are sentenced to levels and forced to ration food from a descending platform that moves between floors. The inmates at the top feast like kings, while those at the bottom live off scraps. One man set out to balance the scales so that everyone could survive. This time, in The Platform 2, a mysterious figure has established a new law in the prison. But can justice be enforced in hell? And who will enforce it? Platform 2′s cast includes Natalia Tena, Oscar Jaenada, Hovik Keuchkerian, Milena Smit, and Bastien Ughetto. The script was written by David Desola, Egoitz Moreno, and Pedro Rivero. Released in 2020, the original, filled with social commentary, went viral during Covid. It was watched
Continue reading →
ForeignMoviesNewsProduct
Actor Nicholas Vince, best known for his roles as the Chatterer in Clive Barker’s Hellraiser and Kinski (Moon Face) in Nightbreed, is the subject of his own one-man show I Am Monsters!. The film adaptation of this stage show is now available for preorder, with the first 500 Blu-rays copies in a Signed Collectors Numbered Limited Edition that boasts a slipcover designed by celebrated graphic artist Graham Humphreys. Following is the official press announcement. PREORDER NOW! “In this extraordinary confessional, Nick charms and chills us, mingling the witty and the nightmarish”. (Clive Barker) Nicholas Vince’s movie adaptation of his one-man show I AM MONSTERS! gets the Deluxe treatment with a special 500 signed limited-edition Blu Ray, which will be available to pre-order from Oct 1, 2024. The Blu Ray extras will include four postcards, slipcover designed by celebrated graphic artist Graham Humphreys, four short films written / directed by Nick, a four-page booklet. and an exclusive interview, hosted by Emmerdale
Continue reading →
