MONSTER ISLAND (ORANG IKAN) (full review at Screen Realm)

During WWII a Japanese prisoner transport is torpedoed at sea. Two convicts, one Japanese (Dean Fujioka), the other British (Callum Woodhouse), are washed ashore on a deserted island. As the two adversaries are suddenly equalised by circumstance and nature, they immediately embrace conflict and, eventually, mutual understanding, in a manner not too dissimilar to the start of Kong Skull Island, or countless episodes of Star Trek.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://screenrealm.com/monster-island-movie-review-shudder-horror-film-orang-ikan/

IMDB: Monster Island (Orang Ikan)

BRING HER BACK (full review at Screen Realm)

Bring Her Back is the second film from Talk to Me directors Danny and Michael Philippou and is another original and visceral excursion into supernatural horror. Bring Her Back is a slow burn, tinged with a thoughtful sadness that ultimately unravels into chaos.

Following the death of their father, Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong) are put into foster care and sent to live with Laura (Sally Hawkins) and her other foster child Olly (Jonah Wren Phillips). Laura is grieving the loss of her own daughter, and the emotional scars remain raw. She immediately takes Piper under her wing and into her heart.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://screenrealm.com/bring-her-back-movie-review-philippou-brothers-horror-2025/

IMDB: Bring Her Back

THE G (full review at Screen Realm)

The G (for Grandmother) is a hard nosed crime story from writer / director Karl R. Hearne, that sees an elderly couple placed into a court ordered guardianship against their will. But the perpetrators soon discover dark secrets in their past that mean this was not the easy job they first thought.

Ann (Dale Dickey) is the primary carer for her bed-bound husband, looking after him at home with the weekly support of visits from her granddaughter (by marriage), Emma (Romane Denis). After a visit to the doctor, where Ann is admonished for some minor neglect of her husband’s hygiene, they are forcibly removed from their home in the middle of the night by a court-appointed guardian, Rivera (Bruce Ramsay). They are taken to a care facility, where Rivera and his assistant Ralph (Jonathan Koensgen), believing they have inheritance money squirrelled away, violently interrogate the couple.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://screenrealm.com/the-g-movie-review-dale-dickey/

IMDB: The G

MONKEY MAN (full review at Screen Realm)

With Monkey Man, his feature directorial debut, Dev Patel takes a classic revenge tale to the streets of Mumbai and reinvents himself as an action hero in the process.

Patel’s unnamed lead, referred to in the credits as Kid, but also under the pseudonym of Bobby, has been honing his skills and earning money in underground prize fights run by a man named Tiger (Sharlto Copley). The fighters take on animal personas and The Kid scraps under a monkey mask in deference to his favourite story from childhood – that of the Hindu monkey deity, Hanuman.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://screenrealm.com/monkey-man-movie-review-dev-patel/

IMDB: Monkey Man

Thanksgiving (full review at Screen Realm)

Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving first came to life as one of the fake trailers in Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s ill-fated Grindhouse experiment. Now supersized as a feature in its own right, Thanksgiving is a seasonal slasher that pits a masked, axe-wielding maniac against a group of college kids and assorted townsfolk.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://screenrealm.com/thanksgiving-movie-review-2023-horror/

IMDB: Thanksgiving

INFINITY POOL (full review at Screen Realm)

Infinity Pool is the third feature from writer / director Brandon Cronenberg, and as you might expect if you’re a fan of either Cronenberg Jr or Snr, it is an imaginative science fiction / horror hybrid that asks some interesting questions around the nature of wealth, privilege and accountability.

Struggling author James (Alexander Skarsgård) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are holidaying in the fictional country of Li Tolqa. Staying in a high end resort, shielded and fenced off from the local populace, they befriend another couple, Gabi (Mia Goth) and Alban (Jalil Lester’s) and sneak out of the resort to enjoy a drunken day at the beach. On their way home, a local man is struck and killed by their car. Panicking, they flee the scene.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://screenrealm.com/infinity-pool-movie-review/

IMDB: Infinity Pool

RESURRECTION (full review at Screen Realm)

Resurrection is a psychological thriller from director Andrew Semans. It deals with dark themes, including the impact of resurfacing trauma, as a woman is haunted by a presence from her past.

Margaret (Rebecca Hall) is strong, confident and successful in her career. She juggles her responsibilities as single parent to her daughter Abbie (Grace Kaufman), has a demanding job in medicine, and enjoys a commitment-free relationship with her colleague Peter (Michael Esper). She’s fit and healthy and in control, living life completely on her own terms.

While at a work conference, Margaret spots a man from her past in the audience, causing her to flee in terror, breaking down in tears once she arrives home. As the week goes on she spots the man, David (Tim Roth), more and more frequently, but always in public places and never approaching her directly.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://screenrealm.com/resurrection-movie-review-rebecca-hall-tim-roth/

IMDB: Resurrection

RESURRECTION MOVIE INTERVIEW: DIRECTOR-WRITER ANDREW SEMANS ON REBECCA HALL THRILLER

I had an enlightening chat with director Andrew Semans about his excellent psychological thriller, RESURRECTION, starring Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth. The interview is up now at Screen Realm and the movie is released on digital platforms on 30 November.

It also features an unexpected cameo from my cat, Charlie, at 7:58 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lXLW6z-_I4

The full Screen Realm piece is here:

https://screenrealm.com/resurrection-movie-interview-director-writer-andrew-semans-rebecca-hall/

PROJECT WOLF HUNTING (full review at Screen Realm)

Project Wolf Hunting is a genre switching action / horror blitz from South Korean director Kim Hong-sun. It’s bloody and visceral and over the top, but sadly, lacks focus and outstays it’s welcome by the end.

Forty seven criminals, arrested in the Philippines, are to be transported back to South Korea by boat. They are loaded aboard a cargo ship - The Frontier Titan – with twenty detectives and a two person medical team.

Of course, things don’t go as planned and the crooks are quickly sprung by gang members posing as the ship’s crew. As the cops and criminals wage a pitched battle across the boat, something is awoken in the bowels of the ship and Project Wolf Hunting shifts from bloody action movie to super bloody horror film.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://screenrealm.com/project-wolf-hunting-movie-review/

IMDB: Project Wolf Hunting

BULL (full review at Screen Realm)

Bull (Neil Maskell) is a top enforcer in a criminal gang. A brutal and merciless thug on the streets, yet a caring and doting father at home. His boss, Norm (David Hayman), also happens to be his father-in-law. So when Bull’s relationship with his wife turns sour, both his livelihood and well-being are put at risk. A dispute over custody of Bull’s son turns nasty and he is attacked and left for dead. Ten years later, Bull returns home to exact bloody vengeance on those who betrayed him.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/bull-movie-review-neil-maskell/

IMDB: Bull

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (full review at Screen Realm)

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known collectively as Daniels, follow up their previous feature - the strange and bittersweet oddity Swiss Army Man – with the strange and bittersweet oddity Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) runs a laundromat with her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) but they are on the brink of divorce. She is rushed off her feet planning a party for father Gong Gong (James Hong) and preparing for an audit at the tax office. On the way to the meeting with the auditor, Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), Evelyn is approached by Waymond from another dimension, known as Alpha Waymond. 

He reveals the Alpha Dimension possesses technology enabling them access to all other dimensions, and all other possible versions of oneself. This technology, known as Verse Jumping, allows the jumper to absorb the skills and knowledge of their alternate dimension counterpart. Unfortunately, there is an evil Verse Jumper called Jobu Tupaki who is intent on destroying the multiverse and Evelyn is the only one who can stop it. 

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-movie-review/

IMDB: Everything Everywhere All At Once

HELLBENDER (full review at Screen Realm)

Hellbender is an indie horror from directing / writing / acting family Zelda Adams, John Adams and Toby Poser.

Izzy (Zelda Adams) and her mother (Lulu Adams) live in a remote forest some distance from the nearest town. Izzy is home-schooled and, for fun, they play in a band together – Hellbender. Her mother is over-protective, not letting Izzy go to town or school or have any friends. So Izzy spends her days hiking and exploring the large acreage of their property, while her mother runs to town for supplies, forages in the woods… and practices witchcraft.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/hellbender-movie-review-shudder-horror/

IMDB: Hellbender

DRIVE MY CAR (DORAIBU MAI KÂ) (full review at Screen Realm)

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is a thoughtful and enigmatic character drama, based on a short story by celebrated author Haruki Murakami.

Yûsuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is a successful theatre director, married to TV executive Oto (Reika Kirishima), they share a complex, creative relationship together. One afternoon Yûsuke returns home unexpectedly and discovers Oto having an affair with a young actor, Kōji (Masaki Okada), but he does not say word.

Yûsuke loves to drive his car, a red Saab, and run lines on his way to work. Oto records scenes onto cassette for him to play against. It is during one of these rehearsals when Yûsuke is involved in a small accident. Although unharmed, at the hospital Yûsuke learns he has glaucoma and will lose his sight in one eye. Not long after the crash a tragic event disrupts their life forever.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/drive-my-car-movie-review/

IMDB: Drive My Car

FIREBITE (full review at Screen Realm)

Firebite is an Australian vampire series created by Warwick Thornton and Brendan Fletcher  which is streaming in Australia on AMC (via Amazon) from 16 December. It’s a unique spin on the vampire myth which takes the creatures out of their traditionally cold, dark environs and places them in the hot, bright outback sunshine.

Vampires were transported to Australia in the hold of colonial ships, brought over by the British to deal with the Indigenous population. But in the two centuries since, they have been kept at bay by a solitary band of fierce Aboriginal vampire hunters known as Blood Hunters. Tyson (Rob Collins) fights the local vampire population in the small mining town of Opal City. He trained to be a Blood Hunter but was forced to stop before his training was complete. With the help of his adoptive daughter Shanika (Shantae Barnes-Cowan) they keep the numbers under control.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/firebite-series-review-amazon-prime-australia/

IMDB: Firebite

TITANE (full review at Screen Realm)

Titane is the second film from Julia Ducournau and the follow up to the acclaimed 2016 cannibal movie Raw.

As a child, Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) is in a serious car crash and has a metal plate fitted inside her head. Bearing a striking scar from the incident we meet her again as an adult, working as a dancer and living at home with her parents. She has an uncomfortably terse relationship with her father, who was driving the car at the time of the accident. 

Events take a turn when Alexia murders a fan who is harassing her. It’s not her first homicide, it transpires, and Titane takes a step into some truly wild territory when, having had sex with a car (!), Alexia discovers she is pregnant and her body is producing a jet black motor oil. If all this sounds a little weird, rest assured… it is! But Ducournau skilfully offsets the oddity with some ferocious and bloody violence, so the film remains resolutely a horror movie and never laughable, despite how it might sound on paper.

As the police close in, Alexia goes on the run, assuming the identity of a missing person, Adrien. She goes to live with the boy’s father Vincent (Vincent Lindon), at a fire station, pretending to be his son and hiding her pregnancy from everyone.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/you-cannot-kill-david-arquette-movie-documentary-review/

IMDB: Titane

RIDERS OF JUSTICE (RETFÆRDIGHEDENS RYTTERE) (full review at Screen Realm)

Riders of Justice is a Danish thriller from Academy Award-winning director Anders Thomas Jensen (Adam’s Apples, Men & Chicken). Part revenge movie, part primal scream, it tackles grief and revenge as both an action thriller and dark comedy.

Markus (Mads Mikkelsen) is a soldier, deployed to Afghanistan, when he receives the news that his wife and daughter were in a train accident. His wife did not survive. Returning home to Denmark, Markus struggles with his grief. He refuses advice, counselling and anything resembling any form of help. Markus struggles to relate to his daughter, Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg), and is not a comforting presence. Their relationship was already distant and his grief-driven bouts of violence and unsympathetic advice drive a further wedge between them.

A few days after the crash, they are visited by Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and his two friends, Lennart (Lars Brygmann) and Emmenthaler (Nicolas Bro). Otto was on board the train with Mathilde and her mother, Emma (Anne Birgitte Lind). As a mathematician by trade, Otto is convinced that, statistically, the chances of the crash being an accident are almost impossible. He presents Markus with compelling evidence that the three friends have uncovered: The crash was intentional, and responsibility lies with a criminal biker gang called the Riders of Justice. The four new friends set out to make them pay.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://www.screenrealm.com/riders-of-justice-movie-review-mads-mikkelsen/

IMDB: Riders Of Justice

YOU CANNOT KILL DAVID ARQUETTE (full review at Screen Realm)

On 26 April 2000, the actor David Arquette won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Despite reservations from Arquette himself, the victory was devised as a publicity stunt to promote the wrestling movie Ready To Rumble in which he was starring.  

Somewhat predictably, the fans did not like the idea of an untrained Hollywood actor winning one of the most prestigious titles in wrestling, feeling that it cheapened the sport. As a result, Arquette has spent the best part of two decades being despised by fans of the sport he grew up loving.

A pariah in wrestling circles, Arquette also attributes his stint in the WCW as the reason his acting career stalled. Although in fairness, his filmography would suggest he has, in fact, worked quite regularly over the last twenty years. Highlights including the very underrated Eight Legged Freaks and a supporting role in the excellent horror western Bone Tomahawk. Nevertheless, between the WCW and his most famous role, as the lovably inept Deputy Dewey in the Scream franchise, Arquette has found it hard to be taken seriously in the intervening years.

So David Arquette sets out to put things right...

Read the full review at Screen Realm:

https://www.screenrealm.com/you-cannot-kill-david-arquette-movie-documentary-review/

IMDB: You Cannot Kill David Arquette

JAKOB'S WIFE (full review at Screen Realm)

Anne (Barbara Crampton) is married to small town minister Jakob (Larry Fessenden), although their marriage is in trouble. Jakob doesn’t listen to Anne. He speaks over her and on her behalf and his overbearing behaviour has Anne questioning whether she wants to stay.

So Anne reconnects with an old flame, Tom (Robert Rusler), but while out together they are attacked by a supernatural creature, turning Anne into vampire. As luck would have it, vampirism turns out to be just the boost she needs. Anne’s new found blood lust and aversion to sunlight come hand-in-hand with assertiveness and self-confidence.

Unfortunately you can’t be a vampire in a small town for long before somebody starts to notice. Local police begin to snoop around the various disappearances in town, and when Jakob discovers the truth, he and Anne set out to find and destroy the head vampire.
 
Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://www.screenrealm.com/jakobs-wife-movie-review-vampire-horror/

IMDB: Jakob's Wife

NINE DAYS (full review at Screen Realm)

Will (Winston Duke) is an administrator in an existential no-man’s land. Existing in a time and space outside of life as we know it, it is his job, along with the help of his assistant and friend Kyo (Benedict Wong), to vet a group of applicants vying for the chance to be born. Having previously been alive himself, Will is best suited to make the call and over the course of nine days engages the group in a number of activities designed to assist him in making his decision. Will spends the rest of his time monitoring his previous charges, witnessing and recording onto VHS tape, the significant moments of their lives.

Nine Days is the debut feature from Brazilian director Edson Oda, who picked up the 2020 screenwriting award for the movie at the Sundance Film Festival. It is a reflective and thought provoking rumination on life and how to live it.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://www.screenrealm.com/nine-days-movie-review/

IMDB: Nine Days

 

 

AWAKE (full review at Screen Realm)

Jill (Gina Rodriguez) is widowed ex-soldier and recovering addict. She works in security at a research laboratory and sells expired drugs on the side for extra cash. She is determined to win custody of her two children, Matilda (Ariana Greenblatt) and (Lucius Hoyos), who live with their grandmother.

During a routine school-run an unspecified global event take place, cutting the power and, it transpires, preventing the entire world from falling asleep. Without any decent shuteye, it’s not long before everyone descends into hysterical wide-eyed mania and society begins to crumble.

Jill escapes the city with her kids, meeting escaped convict Dodge (Shamier Anderson) en-route and heading for a research station run by her boss, Dr Murphy (Jennifer Jason Leigh). All the while keeping the closely guarded secret that Matilda can still sleep.

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

IMDB: Awake