The premise here is certainly promising: a dangerous synthetic drug that takes lives in an unusual way, altering users’ biological makeup so much that they literally fall back in time and die at the hands […]
Tag: Horror
TIFF Review: The Lighthouse (Eggers, 2019)
Robert Eggers delivered a memorable frightfest when he debuted The Witch in 2015, introducing Black Phillip into our collective consciousness. His follow-up is another period horror film, sans demonic goats this time around, but one […]
TIFF Review: Jallikattu (Pellissery, 2019)
Malayalam director Lijo Jose Pellissery takes us on a frenzied spiral into the heart of darkness in his latest blood-pumping thrill ride Jallikattu. As the opening title cards explain, the Indian tradition of the Jallikattu […]
Knife+Heart (Gonzalez, 2018)
Yann Gonzalez wants the giallo to make a modern comeback, and honestly? I’m here for it. Knife+Heart revels in all the genre’s sleazy elements, including the impressionistic uses of vivid colour, ambient soundscapes (courtesy of synthpop band […]
Greta (Jordan, 2018)
Grande Dame Guignol lives on! Maybe not with the same panache as the films from the ‘60s, or the same level of insanity, but a film like Greta is worth it for the camp spectacle alone. Here […]
Weekly Spotlight #5: Hotel (Hausner, 2004)
In this weekly series, The Lonely Film Critic highlights an older release of interest, whether it be an oft-overlooked gem or a classic worth revisiting. This week, as the Cannes Film Festival gets underway, we highlight a past feature from one of the filmmakers competing for this year’s Palme d’Or: Jessica Hausner.
Weekly Spotlight #3: Séance on a Wet Afternoon (Forbes, 1964)
In this new weekly series, The Lonely Film Critic highlights an older release of interest, whether it be an oft-overlooked gem or a classic worth revisiting. This week we unearth a startling mix of crime and horror from the Swinging Sixties, fronted by a memorable Oscar-nominated performance.
Velvet Buzzsaw (Gilroy, 2019)
If Velvet Buzzsaw was going for incisive critique of the art world’s myriad frivolities, it doesn’t work well. The best it can do is to emulate the kind of dead air that’s generated by those who equate […]
Upgrade (Whannell, 2018)
It’s not exactly sophisticated aesthetically or thematically, being another skeptical morality play on the dangers of biotechnological advancements that seek to erase our humanity, but Upgrade is quite a likable bit of pulp. There’s a Frankenstein quality […]
Cam (Goldhaber, 2018)
This film does a good job of fooling you into thinking you’ve pressed play on a low-rent affair, with sets that look like they were assembled on a tight budget, and a premise that feels […]
Suspiria (Guadagnino, 2018)
A bit of a disclaimer: I am not an Argento purist, so a reimagining of Suspiria was never going to drive me up the wall. I’ve only seen the original once, and that was but a month […]
November (Sarnet, 2017)
Lithuanian though I am, Estonian folklore is still quite a ways away from what I used to hear as a child. For instance, the concept of a kratt—a sentient creature made from household implements and […]
The Cloverfield Paradox (Onah, 2018)
I’m not averse to schlock if it’s entertaining. And there are definitely moments in The Cloverfield Paradox that are fun in a schlocky sense, like Chris O’Dowd’s arm being… ripped? sliced? bitten? from his body, and then […]
Don’t Breathe (Alvarez, 2016)
A most dangerous game of “blind man’s buff” plays out in Don’t Breathe, with a group of thieves trying to avoid the wrath of a blind army veteran after breaking into his home. It’s an interesting […]
The Wolf House (Cociña & León, 2018)
I don’t know all that much about the Chilean cult that haunts The Wolf House. A cursory search reveals far more than I want to know, with atrocity after atrocity being unveiled like stepping stones. It’s […]
The Lonely Film Critic 