VFW (2019)

One Friday night, I went to a 9:15pm screening of VFW (2019) as part of MonsterFest, but it felt more like a midnight movie. Completely in the spirit of John Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13 right from the opening credits, particularly with the ominous synth of Steve Moore’s excellent score, it’s a splatter siege movie […]

Kill List (2011)

A bad habit I indulge in occasionally is reading the wikipedia plot summaries of thrillers or horrors that I can’t be arsed watching. I had heard good things about Kill List (2011) and that didn’t stop me from spoiling it for myself when I was bored and reading what happened. Yet watching it for the […]

Under The Shadow (2016)

Another spooky movie for Halloween! Directed by Babak Anvari and based upon his childhood memories of the Tehran bombings, Under The Shadow (2016) works as a solid drama that escalates into spookiness. It’s set during the Iraq-Iran conflict of the 1980s, focusing on a family living in Tehran during regular bombings, with details such as […]

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) is director Barry Jenkins’ follow up to the award-winning Moonlight, an adaptation of the James Baldwin novel. Beautiful cinematography by James Laxton and lush score by Nicholas Britell. Lovely performances from KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Regina King and Brian Tyree Henry. All of it working together to create a […]

Shoplifters (2018)

Shoplifters (2018; Manbiki Kazoku) is the first that I’ve seen of writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s many critically-acclaimed films. It’s about a struggling family that make ends meet by shoplifting and who take in a young girl from an abusive home. Observational, funny and warm, there were moments that just had me tearing up instantly. At first, […]