THE KILLER (full article at The Guardian Australia)

The 1989 Hong Kong thriller established Woo as one of the greats, with its explosive gun fights, high-speed car chases and an incorruptible hero

All of your favourite action movies from the last 30 years would look very different without the impact of John Woo. They’d be far more dull for a start.

The film-maker’s style of explosive, highly choreographed gunfights in films such as The Killer and his 1992 film Hard Boiled coined the term “gun fu” and, combined with his ethically incorruptible protagonists, set the template for the heroic bloodshed subgenre, influencing everything from John Wick to The Matrix to Kill Bill.

In the 1989 film The Killer, Chow Yun-fat plays Ah Jong (or Jeffrey, if you prefer the English dub), a contract killer with a conscience who accidentally blinds a young singer, Jennie (Sally Yeh), while on assignment. Stricken with remorse, Ah Jong decides to retire after one last job, pledging to use the proceeds to help her.

Read the full article at The Guardian Australia:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jul/29/the-killer-john-woo-gun-fu-classic

IMDB: The Killer

DANIEL ISN'T REAL (full review at Screen Realm)

Daniel Isn’t Real is another unassuming horror movie from Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah’s production house, SpectreVision, the company that brought us Mandy, The Greasy Strangler and most recently, The Color Out of Space. It is the second feature from director Adam Egypt Mortimer and is based on the novel In This Way I Was Saved by co-writer Brian DeLeeuw.

After a traumatic experience in his early childhood and the separation of his parents, lonely kid Luke invents an imaginary friend, Daniel. All is well at first, it seems. Luke has a playmate and blame taker, until Daniel coerces Luke into harming his mother. After which, Daniel is banished.

Some years later, Luke is just starting college and living out of home for the first time. His mother is struggling with her mental health and a troubling incident serves as the catalyst for
Luke (Miles Robbins) to recall Daniel (Patrick Schwarzenegger) to his life. As before, everything is well initially, as Daniel gives Luke some much needed confidence and positive affirmation, helping him in his fledgling relationship with artist Cassie (Sasha Lane). However it will come as no surprise to tell you that, before long, Daniel reveals his intentions are far more sinister.


Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/daniel-isnt-real-movie-review/

IMDB: Daniel Isn't Real

BLOOD QUANTUM (full review at Screen Realm)

Blood Quantum is an Indigenous Canadian horror movie and the second feature from Mi’gmaq director Jeff Barnaby, following up his 2013 debut Rhymes For Young Ghouls. It screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (T.I.F.F.) in 2019 and is currently streaming on Shudder in the U.S.

Blood Quantum is set on the Red Crow Reservation in 1981 and opens with local police chief Traylor (Michael Greyeyes), doing his rounds, as weird things start to happen. When Traylor is called back to the police station to bail out his son, Joseph (Forrest Goodluck), and his friend Lysol / Alan (Kiowa Gordon) it becomes increasingly apparent that the zombie apocalypse is unfolding around them. In an interesting twist to the established zombie rules, it transpires the Indigenous population are immune to zombie infection. So as the zombie threat starts to take hold, the First Nations people establish Red Crow Reservation as a safe haven and start to take in survivors from the general populace, who are not immune. Of course, it’s not all plain sailing for the Indigenous population, as they are still as vulnerable as anybody else to being torn apart by a zombie horde. But it does give them an advantage.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/blood-quantum-horror-movie-review/

IMDB: Blood Quantum

EXTRACTION (full review at Screen Realm)

Extraction is the debut movie from stunt coordinator-turned-director Sam Hargrave and was written by Joe Russo, one half of the Russo Brothers, best known for their work on Marvel’s Avengers and Captain America movies. Extraction is based on the graphic novel Ciudad which was also written by the Russo Brothers and Ande Parks, with art by Fernando León González.

Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is an Australian mercenary, hired to rescue and return Ovi Mahajan (Rudhraksh Jaiswal), the son of a Bangladeshi drug lord who has been kidnapped by a rival. Tyler is haunted by tragedy and is courting a death wish. With the city of Dhaka on lockdown, Tyler faces off against corrupt cops, rival drug gang members and shady special forces operative Saju (Randeep Hooda), who is also after Ovi. Tyler must locate Ovi and then escape to their extraction point.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/extraction-movie-review-chris-hemsworth-netflix/

IMDB: Extraction

VIVARIUM (full review at Screen Realm)

Vivarium is a science fiction / horror mystery and is the second feature from director / co-writer Lorcan Finnegan. It’s being released to VOD from 16 April 2020.

Young couple, Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) and Gemma (Imogen Poots), are desperate to get into the housing market, so they go to meet with the agent handling the sales of the Yonder housing estate. Martin (Jonathan Aris), the agent, is a strange individual and their encounter is bizarre. However, in the interests of compromise and with a nothing-ventured-nothing-gained philosophy, Tom and Gemma agree to view a house.

They arrive at the uniformly designed estate and it becomes readily apparent that Yonder is not what Tom and Gemma are looking for. Martin’s strange behaviour culminates in him abandoning the viewing, so Tom and Gemma set off for home, only to find they are unable to make their way out of the estate.  After driving around for hours, they discover themselves back where they started, in front of the house they were viewing. With no other choice available they must spend the night in Yonder. From this point on Vivarium descends into surreal nightmare, as the days become circular and logic defying.


Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/vivarium-movie-review-jesse-eisenberg-imogen-poots/

IMDB: Vivarium

THE PLATFORM (EL HOYO) (full review at Screen Realm)

‘There are three types of person: Those at the top, those at the bottom and those who fall.’ So begins The Platform (El Hoyo), a Spanish science fiction horror movie and the debut feature from director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia. Proving to be a fan favourite at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, The Platform is now streaming globally on Netflix.

Goreng (Ivan Massagué) wakes up in a cell. Opposite, his cell mate Trimagasi (Zorion Eguileor), an older man who seems to have been there for a while, explains the situation. The facility is known as The Hole and its grey, brutalist architecture is divided up into an unknown, but massive number of levels. They can be observed via an opening in the centre of the cell through which a platform travels daily. The platform contains the inmates’ food allowance. The catch? There is only one serving for the entire facility. So the inmates’ only source of food is what those above leave for them.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/the-platform-movie-review-netflix/

IMDB: The Platform

JUDY AND PUNCH (full review at Screen Realm)

Judy And Punch is a stylish looking folk tale from director Mirrah Foulkes, outlining a fictional origin tale for the famous British sea side puppet show.

Judy (Mia Wasikowska) and Punch (Damon Herriman) ply their trade as puppeteers in the ramshackle and landlocked town of Seaside (three day’s mule ride from the ocean). Their popular marionette performances are always packed out, yet never quite produce the income they hope for. Convinced of the show’s quality, and of his personal talents, Punch is hopeful that sooner or later talent scouts will see the performance and sign them up for a big city run. Judy wishes for success also, but her view is more realistic, concentrating most of her non-puppetry efforts on taking care of their newborn baby and keeping Punch away from the bottle. Of course, it’s not too long before Punch’s proclivity for alcohol, combined with an ugly temper, cause events to take a dark turn.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/judy-and-punch-movie-review/

IMDB: Judy And Punch

COLOR OUT OF SPACE (full review at Screen Realm)

Color Out Of Space is the new film from Elijah Wood, Daniel Noah and Josh C Waller’s production house, Spectra Vision, which has previously brought us the likes of A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, The Greasy Strangler and last year’s feral rage monster, Mandy. Adapted from a short story of the same name, the apparent personal favourite of legendary horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Color Out Of Space sees the eccentric cult director Richard Stanley team up with a resurgent Nicolas Cage to deliver their take on H.P.’s famous tale of cosmic horror.

Nathan (Nicolas Cage) and Theresa Gardner (Joely Richardson) are living the dream. Having escaped the pressures of city life, they have retreated to their new country pile to enjoy the simple things in life. Together with their children, Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur) and Benny (Brendan Meyer), and hippie squatter Ezra (Tommy Chong) who lives at the bottom of their garden, their lifestyle is more-or-less idyllic. Nathan farms alpacas, Theresa conducts her financial business from her office and the kids want to live somewhere less boring.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/color-out-of-space-movie-review-nicolas-cage/

IMDB: Color Out Of Space

MIDSOMMAR (full review at Screen Realm)

Midsommar is the second film from director Ari Aster and the follow up to his highly regarded debut Hereditary. 

After experiencing a tragedy, Dani (Florence Pugh) is invited on a trip to Sweden by her insensitive and toxic boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor). Christian and his friends Josh (Wiliam Jackson Harper) and Mark (Will Poulter) are anthropology students, invited by fellow student Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) to visit the commune in Hälsingland, where he grew up, and to witness a once-every-ninety-years summer festival.

It doesn’t take long for the visitors to warm up to the Hårga and their idyllic, welcoming, psychotropic drug friendly commune. But gradually, slowly, almost imperceptibly, things start to feel off. As the festival continues and events become stranger, the relationships between the visitors become more fraught and before long the situation goes awry.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/midsommar-movie-review/

IMDB: Midsommar

COME TO DADDY (full review at Screen Realm)

Come to Daddy is the debut feature from Ant Timpson, best known for founding New Zealand’s 48Hours film competition and producing Turbo Kid, The ABCs Of Death, and celebrated cinematic irritant The Greasy Strangler. It screened as part of the 2019 Melbourne International Film Festival.

Come to Daddy begins as a classic estranged father story. We meet Norval Greenwood (Elijah Wood) as he arrives on the doorstep of his father’s remote (and architecturally bold) clifftop pad. Norval is responding to a letter received from his father, suggesting a reconciliation, and pays a visit to the man he has not seen since he was three years old… to say they don’t hit it off is something of an understatement.

His father (Stephen McHattie) is annoyed, belligerent and frequently drunk. Norval is understandably uncomfortable and matters are compounded when he is caught in a lie, trying to impress his Dad. It doesn’t take long for events to come to a head

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/come-to-daddy-movie-review-elijah-wood/
IMDB: Come To Daddy

HARD BOILED: WHY JOHN WOO'S MASTERPIECE IS STILL THE GREATEST ACTION MOVIE OF ALL TIME (full article at Diabolique Magazine)

While the 1980s might generally be considered the heyday of the action movie, or at least the decade with the biggest wealth of nostalgia attached to it, the 1990s was an equal, arguably better decade for high octane, high concept celluloid. Action classics were hitting us left, right and centre and these films were made all the better for their unspoken but collectively loose regard for believability...

...John Woo’s prolificacy from the mid-80s onwards made his name synonymous with slow motion action, double gun wielding protagonists and a lot of agitated, flappy birds. He delivered several outright classics in the form of A Better Tomorrow (1986), Bullet In The Head (1990) and The Killer (1989) before his undoubted masterpiece, and the subject of this particular love letter, Hard Boiled (1992).

Hard Boiled a.k.a God of Guns a.k.a. Ruthless Super-Cop, sees tough, play-by-his-own-rules cop, Inspector ‘Tequila’ Yuen (Chow Yun Fat) on the trail of underworld gun runners led by the evil Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong). Unbeknownst to Tequila, one of Johnny Wong’s lieutenants, Alan (Tony Chiu-Wai Leung), is an undercover cop who has infiltrated the gang to such a degree that he behaves exactly as a genuine gang member. Justifying homicide in the service of a greater good. Not only that, but Alan’s undercover operation is being run in total secrecy by Tequila’s own boss, Superintendent Pang (played by real life ex-policeman Philp Chan).

Read the full article at Diabolique Magazine:
https://diaboliquemagazine.com/hard-boiled-why-john-woos-masterpiece-is-still-the-greatest-action-movie-of-all-time/

IMDB: Hard Boiled

POINT BLANK (full review at Screen Realm)

Point Blank is a Netflix produced crime thriller from director Joe Lynch and a remake of the French thriller A Bout Portent, by Fred Cavayé.

The story sees emergency room nurse, Paul (Anthony Mackie) tending to unnamed man brought in to the hospital with injuries sustained from a car accident. It transpires that the man is Abe Guevara (Frank Grillo), who is wanted by police in connection to the assassination of a district attorney. While Abe is under police guard, Paul’s pregnant wife, Taryn (Teyonah Parris), is abducted by Abe’s brother, Mateo (Christian Cooke), who gives Paul an ultimatum. Free Abe from the hospital or his wife will be killed.

With no choice but to do as he is asked, Paul takes Abe on the run, with two seasoned cops, Lewis (Marcia Gay Harden - The Mist, Miller’s Crossing) and Masterson (Boris McGiver – House Of Cards) in their tail. The story leads us down a winding path of corruption and duplicity.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/point-blank-movie-review-frank-grillo-anthony-mackie-netflix/

IMDB: Point Blank

BUBBA HO-TEP (Issue #55 of Scream Horror Magazine)

Okay so here’s some cool news. I’ve written a piece on one of my all time favourite movies, Don Coscarelli's BUBBA HO-TEP,  for Scream Magazine. It’s also the first time my writing has appeared in print so that’s pretty exciting. The magazine is July / August issue #55, and is available in the UK in places like WH Smiths. For the Rest of the World you can get it on the internets or try your trusty comic shop.

CLIMAX (full review at Screen Realm)

Climax is the latest controversial feature from Gaspar Noé (Irreversible, Enter the Void, Love), purportedly based on true events, and setting the festival circuit aflutter with its seedy depiction of very a bad drug experience and stunning dance choreography.

The film takes place during the nineties and we’re introduced to various members of a French dance company via videotaped job interviews that preface the movie. We then meet the company as they let loose for a pre-tour party. The party progresses as you would expect, until they discover the sangria has been spiked, and with nearly the entire company having indulged, everyone begins to have a considerably bad time. And just in case it needs saying, things go downhill rather quickly.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/climax-movie-review-gaspar-noe/

IMDB: Climax

NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (full article at Diabolique Magazine)

In 1986 Fred Dekker, made his directorial debut with that trickiest of all genre blends – the horror comedy. He was twenty six years old, and wrote the movie in two weeks, incorporating all of his favourite elements of horror, science fiction and classic 50s B-movies into Night Of The Creeps. Although it failed to set the box office alight on release, Night Of The Creeps found its audience in the years to follow, developing into a popular cult favourite. As it enters its 32nd year, what better time to take a look at why Night Of The Creeps is still so much fun.

Read the full article at Diabolique:
https://diaboliquemagazine.com/revisiting-night-of-the-creeps-1986/

IMDB: Night Of The Creeps

THE NIGHT COMES FOR US (full review at Screen Realm)

The Night Comes For Us is director Timo Tjhjanto’s follow up to his 2016 action movie Headshot and is premiering on Netflix. It’s a kinetic, bloody action movie utilising Indonesian Pencak Silat martial arts, cinematically popularised in The Raid movies.

Ito (Joe Taslim) is an enforcer for a Triad operating out of the infamous Golden Triangle. He is a member of a group of high level operatives who go to extreme measures in service of the Triad. These merciless enforcers are known as The Six Seas.

Under orders to exterminate a fishing village for skimming profits, Ito refuses to kill a young girl, Reina (Asha Kenyeri Bermudez), and turns instead on his own men. He heads home to the Jakarta underground hoping to get himself and Reina fake identities and passage out of the country.  However, the Triad has recruited Ito’s old friend Arian (Iko Uwais) to pursue him, promising Arian a lucrative territory and Ito’s place in The Six Seas in return. In addition, the Triad sends its local thugs in pursuit of Ito, and a mysterious, deadly assassin known as The Operative (Julie Estelle) is circling the whole affair with an unknown motive. 

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/the-night-comes-for-us-movie-review-netflix/

IMDB: The Night Comes For Us

BEAUTIFUL BOY (full review at Screen Realm)

Beautiful Boy is the true story of David Scheff and his son Nic’s battles with drug addiction and the impact it has on their family. Directed by Felix Van Groeningen, it is adapted as an amalgam of David’s book Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction and Nic’s memoir Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines.

The story unfolds from David’s (Steve Carell) point of view and follows his family’s journey though the turmoil of Nic’s (Timothée Chalamet) drug addiction, recovery and relapse, recovery and relapse. We see the impact it has on David, his other children and his wife, Karen (Maura Tierney). We see the impact on Nic’s mother Vicki (Amy Ryan), and we witness Nic’s life unfold and compose and unfold again.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/beautiful-boy-movie-review-2018/

IMDB: Beautiful Boy

FUTURE MAN (full review at Screen Realm)

Future Man is a sci-fi comedy written by Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir, (Sausage Party), and produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, this review is for the first three episode of the debut series. 

Underachieving janitor Josh Futturman (Josh Hutcherson) lives at home with his parents (Ed Begley Jr and Glenne Headly) and works shifts at a local science lab run by Dr Kronish (Keith David). In his spare time he plays videogames and battles the feeling he was destined for greater things. One day, Josh completes a seemingly unbeatable game, Biotic Wars, which turns out to be used as a recruiting tool by time travellers, exactly like the plot of The Last Starfighter, as the show is keen to point out. Two soldiers from the future, Tiger (Eliza Coupe) and Wolf (Derek Wilson) travel to the present day to enlist josh and prevent the downfall of humanity.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/future-man-review-season-one-episodes-1-2-3/

IMDB: Future Man

MANHUNT (full review at Screen Realm)

In the late 80s and early 90s, if there was one name synonymous with genre defining action cinema, then it was John Woo. Exploding out of Hong Kong with a laundry list of classics – The Killer, A Better Tomorrow, Bullet in The Head, Hard Boiled – and a dynamite partnership with regular leading man, Chow Yun-Fat, he took action movies to another level.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/manhunt-movie-review-john-woo/

IMDB: Manhunt

TEN MUST-SEE SCI-FI MOVIES ON NETFLIX ANZ (full article at Screen Realm)

The age old ‘What-do-I-watch-on-Netflix?’ question is almost as old as time itself isn’t it? But fear not, we have you covered. Here’s our rundown of ten must-see sci-fi movies, ranging from classics to underrated gems, currently available on Netflix ANZ.


Pacific Rim
There’s not really a lot more you need to know about that time Guillermo Del Toro brought a giant robot to a Kaiju party. Pacific Rim is as self-explanatory as it is deliriously enjoyable. For all its simple maths, Pacific Rim grabs you by the hand and leads you straight down into an intricate universe laden with heroic mech pilots, colossal interdimensional beasts from the depths of the sea and eye popping black markets in monster guts...

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
https://screenrealm.com/ten-best-science-fiction-movies-netflix-australia-new-zealand/