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4/5
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Twisters
(2024)
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Paul Mount
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Twisters doesn’t rewrite the disaster movie rule book, but it does redefine it a bit by giving us characters we can genuinely invest in. Even when it drifts into cliché now and again, it’s bound to bring a smile to your face with its sheer chutzpah.
Posted Jul 18, 2024
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3/5
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Thine Ears Shall Bleed
(2023)
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Robert Martin
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The effort required to make this film must have been huge, and what has been achieved is admirable. Certainly, Thine Ears Shall Bleed is a solid experience, which bodes well for what lies in store for the Bigelow boys.
Posted Jul 18, 2024
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4/5
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Longlegs
(2024)
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Joel Harley
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The scares are as surface-level as the 1990s setting and Cage's caked-on makeup, but they're certainly there, buried in a sustained, skin-crawling nightmare.
Posted Jul 18, 2024
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4/5
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Starve Acre
(2023)
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Martin Unsworth
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There's a grittiness to Kokotajlo's film that invokes an underlying feeling of dread throughout. It wouldn't be out of place as an extended episode of the brilliant '70s anthology show Beasts, shifting from melodrama to skin-crawling scares.
Posted Jul 18, 2024
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3/5
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Die, Monster, Die!
(1965)
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Paul Mount
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Nearly scuppered by a bland performance by troubled star Nick Adams, the film is lifted enormously by both Karloff as Nahum and Freda Jackson as the disfigured Letitia, who give the story a much-needed sense of urgency and dramatic dynamism.
Posted Jul 11, 2024
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3/5
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Nobody Is Crazy
(2019)
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Rich Cross
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While the pacing meanders occasionally, this remains interesting, unformulaic filmmaking, told from an often neglected narrative perspective.
Posted Jul 10, 2024
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3/5
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MaXXXine
(2024)
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Joel Harley
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This is a colourful but uneven closer to the series, impressing with ball-busting gore and slick storytelling but not quite sticking the landing. Maxine Minx deserved better.
Posted Jul 09, 2024
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4/5
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In A Violent Nature
(2024)
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Joel Harley
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In a Violent Nature isn't a reinvention of slasher cinema – but nor does it claim to be. Instead, Nash uses the audience's familiarity with its tropes to poke fun at horror franchisedom, offering a lesser-seen perspective on the ensuing carnage.
Posted Jul 05, 2024
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3/5
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MaXXXine
(2024)
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Hayden Mears
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While Maxine Minx isn’t the showstopper Pearl is, both roles benefit from Goth’s uncanny ability to elicit pity, fear, and revulsion almost simultaneously. This has been and will always be the Mia Goth show, and we won’t soon forget it!
Posted Jul 03, 2024
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4/5
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A Quiet Place: Day One
(2024)
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Paul Mount
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Scary, suspenseful and driven by two well-developed characters we genuinely care about despite the fact that, by the very nature of the film, they barely speak to one another, A Quiet Place: Day One is another assured and mature entry...
Posted Jun 28, 2024
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5/5
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Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
(2018)
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Rebecca Sayce
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This is the definition of terror: needling into your brain and never offering even a morsel of relief throughout its runtime.
Posted Jun 27, 2024
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3/5
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The Devil Came Home
(2021)
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Rebecca Sayce
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The Devil Came Home is nothing new for horror fans, but it’s a solid film with fully fleshed-out characters and a sympathetic take on mental illness with effective supernatural elements that will keep you hooked from start to finish.
Posted Jun 26, 2024
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5/5
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I Saw the TV Glow
(2024)
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Anthony Oleszkiewicz
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TV Glow has created a coda for the television age and a dogma for the iPhone era.
Posted Jun 24, 2024
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Slay
(2024)
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Vicky Lawrence
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It’s a perfectly fun and camp film; silly, action-packed, and a nice easy watch that packs in important themes with ease.
Posted Jun 21, 2024
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4/5
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The Last Breath
(2024)
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Jack Bottomley
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The Last Breath effectively strands you in the rusted vessel on the sea bed, with these characters, as they try and evade their ef(fin)’ deadly captors, and it might just make you savour every gulp of air that bit more.
Posted Jun 18, 2024
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3/5
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Something in the Water
(2024)
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Paul Mount
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... This is a good-looking, well-crafted film that doesn’t rewrite the shark movie rule book but provides a decent 85 minutes of familiar finny fear.
Posted Jun 17, 2024
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4/5
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What Remains
(2022)
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James Perkins
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Although the film falters slightly with its pacing in the latter half, and the ending is slightly rushed, leaving a few unanswered threads, What Remains is still a brilliant debut feature from Huang and gives us G. Skarsgård’s best performance to date.
Posted Jun 12, 2024
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3/5
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Homesick
(2015)
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Rich Cross
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Berger is good as the brooding, emotionally inarticulate Henrik, while Wilmann is even better as the self-destructive but endearing Charlotte. It's a well-shot and evocative film, with a tight narrative focus on its extended familial ensemble.
Posted Jun 12, 2024
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3/5
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Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey II
(2024)
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Joel Harley
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Chugging along at a breezy 93 minutes, it nips from one gory set piece to the next, rarely pausing to deflate the inherent silliness.
Posted Jun 10, 2024
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3/5
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The Watchers
(2024)
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Paul Mount
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[Shyamalan] has a pretty firm grasp on the genre and how to draw the best out of what is, here, a potentially tricky and uninvolving story. It also suggests that she has a very bright future in the world of the dark and mysterious.
Posted Jun 10, 2024
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4/5
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Hanky Panky
(2023)
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Hayden Mears
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Sharp, silly, and brimming with disarming emotional intelligence, Hanky Panky is an energetic horror-comedy with the chops – and the good sense – to indulge its goofy premise without resorting to insincerity.
Posted Jun 03, 2024
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3/5
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In Flames
(2023)
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Rich Cross
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Zarrar Kahn evokes the hectic, crowded life of the city and the emptiness of the countryside and coast with an unromantic sense of realism.
Posted Jun 03, 2024
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3/5
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Darkness of Man
(2024)
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Martin Unsworth
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The stylish direction from Bressack gives what could have been a throwback action flick a fresh feel and while it might not be up there with JCVD’s best, it provides the actor a chance to show off more than his famous muscles.
Posted Jun 03, 2024
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5/5
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Sasquatch Sunset
(2024)
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Martin Unsworth
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It’s a simple premise that rewards in spades.
Posted May 29, 2024
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4/5
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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
(2024)
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Laura Potier
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Theron could not have wished for a more perfect predecessor (or is it successor?) than Anya Taylor-Joy. Witness her.
Posted May 24, 2024
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3/5
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Sting
(2024)
|
Daniel Goodwin
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Roche-Turner delivers a gruesome jaunt that sometimes feels a tad off-kilter and ill-toned when coupled with surprisingly poignant family drama and spiky frights...
Posted May 23, 2024
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4/5
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Hoard
(2023)
|
Rich Cross
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This is unusual, unsettling, and irresistibly vivid, next-generation British filmmaking.
Posted May 23, 2024
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4/5
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Ibelin
(2024)
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Martin Unsworth
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The story of Ibelin is the story of a generation.
Posted May 23, 2024
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3/5
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Cuckoo
(2024)
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Martin Unsworth
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Although Cuckoo is a fine picture, it's a shame that the talents behind it couldn't create a more culturally productive work.
Posted May 22, 2024
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2/5
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Alone
(2020)
|
John Townsend
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Easy to imagine that upon conception was an intelligent, thoughtful horror-thriller.... Whether during the development process or through production that movie became lost, hidden behind clichéd melodrama, leaving only remnants of what could have been.
Posted May 21, 2024
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The Borderlands
(2013)
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Iain Robertson
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The Borderlands is a superior entry in the genre.
Posted May 20, 2024
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William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill
(2023)
|
Iain Robertson
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It’s a typically unconventional insight into an unconventional man, and typical of the film’s offbeat approach to approaching Shatner, which may give us more insightful look at the man than many conventional documentaries.
Posted May 20, 2024
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4/5
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The Moor
(2023)
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Martin Unsworth
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The Moor is dripping with malevolent atmosphere and by occasionally using first-person ‘found footage’ techniques, puts us in the middle of the terror.
Posted May 20, 2024
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2/5
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The Girl in the Trunk
(2024)
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Joel Harley
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The Girl in the Trunk does have some moments that live up to its initial promise... but otherwise, this one should be given the boot.
Posted May 20, 2024
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IF
(2024)
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Paul Mount
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Tearing itself in two directions, IF is a film that’s likely to frustrate both audiences who will find the parts not aimed at them uninteresting, distracting and, at times, downright dull.
Posted May 17, 2024
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3/5
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Sleep
(2023)
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Martin Unsworth
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By keeping the horrors imaginative yet believable, we are made to participate in this psychological horror’s twists in sickness and in health, for better or worse.
Posted May 17, 2024
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1/5
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Handling the Undead
(2024)
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Anthony Oleszkiewicz
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The lackadaisical film wants to be a study of grief, loss, and the psychology of letting go, but its lack of personality and characterization and its over-leaning on archetypes and standard zombie tropes leave us feeling hollow.
Posted May 17, 2024
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3/5
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Oddity
(2024)
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Anthony Oleszkiewicz
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Although it is held back from being a genre-defining work by stuffy performances and a so-so camera, Oddity is a fresh, low-brow horror experience that will keep you guessing where the next scare is going to come from.
Posted May 15, 2024
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1/5
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In A Violent Nature
(2024)
|
Anthony Oleszkiewicz
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There's an old legend, plenty of stupid 'bro' dialogue… all the cliché writing packed into the margins of a story about a zombie taking a walk. Simply slowing the pacing of a film to a crawl doesn't elevate it to a worthwhile art piece.
Posted May 15, 2024
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3/5
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The Last Stop in Yuma County
(2023)
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Anthony Oleszkiewicz
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The washed-out digital desert of Yuma County lacks the personality of those films made on celluloid. This fun mix of clichés and archetypes never really has a strong viewpoint on itself.
Posted May 15, 2024
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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
(2024)
|
Paul Mount
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It’s a magnificent, intelligent achievement, and if we’ve any criticism, it might be that the first half-hour is slightly sluggish...
Posted May 10, 2024
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3/5
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The Fall Guy
(2024)
|
Paul Mount
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... A film that’s powered by the irresistible on-screen chemistry between Gosling and Blunt and let down only slightly by a script that’s weaker than it ought to be thanks to glib dialogue that tries to be funny but ends up slightly tiresome.
Posted May 07, 2024
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3/5
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Tarot
(2024)
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Joel Harley
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It’s a functional spook ’em up but isn’t playing with the full deck.
Posted May 06, 2024
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4/5
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Infested
(2023)
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Paul Mount
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Infested is a well-made, tightly presented thriller that uses its grotty, rundown setting and its misfit characters who, despite their faults, we actually start to care about as they are forced together by something truly ghastly...
Posted May 01, 2024
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4/5
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Spy x Family Code: White
(2023)
|
James Perkins
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SPY x FAMILY CODE: White is a superb side story for the wider universe in which it is set, with all the charm and characters you know and love, while also being a great introduction for new fans.
Posted Apr 30, 2024
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3/5
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Boy Kills World
(2023)
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Joel Harley
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Featuring some truly astounding violence... its action chops are up there with the best of its (many) influences, climaxing in a bone-crunching, flinch-inducing final beatdown that makes up for the headache it took to get there.
Posted Apr 30, 2024
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2/5
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Witch
(2024)
|
Spleeny Dotson
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Witch is a folk horror with insufficient sense of place or community to be folk and too little in the way of jump scares or suspense to be horror, a vibe in desperate search of a genuine mythos or plot to tie it all together and sadly coming up short.
Posted Apr 29, 2024
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4/5
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The Coffee Table
(2022)
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Joel Harley
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... An impressive work of boundary-bashing trauma-baiting from filmmakers who both delight in and profoundly understand their victims’ pain. The ultimate in feel-bad cinema!
Posted Apr 26, 2024
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4/5
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Riddle Of Fire
(2023)
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Spleeny Dotson
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Riddle of Fire will definitely deliver the fresh baked blueberry pie taste of nostalgia you need.
Posted Apr 25, 2024
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3/5
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Hunt Her, Kill Her
(2022)
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Joel Harley
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The budget may be low... but the action is well done. Employing gloopy practical effects and putting the many warehouse tools and environmental kills surrounding Karen to good use, Hunt Her, Kill Her is a particularly nasty genre work.
Posted Apr 24, 2024
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