2.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Digital Review: Hail To The Deadites Anya Stanley August 1, 2020 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews “Everything you see in the next 80 minutes was created by Evil Dead fans (Deadites).” Such is the opening quote of writer-director Steve Villenueve’s documentary Hail To The Deadites. The film...
5.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: Midnight Simon Fitzjohn September 10, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews True story - there have been a handful of occasions in my movie-watching/writing life where I have straight up felt special. Getting to spend the weekend with cult exploitation director Pete Walker was one...
2.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: Rabid David Watson September 9, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Timid, mousy designer Rose (Laura Vandervoort) dreams of taking the glamourous fashion world by storm but in an arena where looks and confidence seems to count for more than talent, Rose is lacking the...
3.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: Tales From The Lodge Simon Fitzjohn September 6, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Us Brits have got quite a track record when it comes to anthology horror, whether it be vintage classics like 40s favourite Dead Of Night, or the 70s Amicus efforts such as Asylum. Last year’s film...
3.5 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: The Black String Matthew Hammond September 4, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Jonathan is a lonely twenty-something stuck in a dead end job, spending most of his life away from work alone and working through self-help guides for inspiration. One night, he takes a leap and dials a...
3.5 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: Bliss Matthew Hammond September 4, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Dezzy is a supremely talented painter confronting the most devastating affliction that can strike an artist: an artistic drought. Struggling to shake the block, she embarks on an odyssey of extremity on...
5.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: The Deeper You Dig David Watson September 4, 2019 Editor's Choice, Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Every year at FrightFest there’s a film I rave about, that I get evangelical about, that I breathlessly run up to people and grab them and shake them and tell them “You HAVE to see this...
4.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: Mutant Blast Matthew Hammond September 4, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Escaping a top-secret military base, gutsy soldier Maria and a superhuman test subject TS-347 find themselves fleeing in a zombie apocalypse. Their high action world collides with that of Pedro, a regular guy...
3.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: A Serial Killer’s Guide To Life Sophie Elizabeth September 4, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Thirty-something Lou Farnt (Katie Brayben), is a self-help addict floating through life in the stale seaside town in which she grew up. Controlled by her overbearing mother and stuck in a dead-end corner shop...
3.5 Arrow Video Frighfest Review: The Sonata David Watson August 25, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews When notoriously reclusive composer Richard Marlowe (Rutger Hauer) commits operatic suicide, dousing himself in petrol and burning himself alive, his estranged daughter Rose (Freya Tingley) inherits his...
4.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: Darlin’ David Watson August 25, 2019 Editor's Choice, Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Arguably one of the sickest, most depraved, downright disturbing and, crucially, truly feminist horror movies of recent years, Lucky McKee’s 2011 Jack Ketchum-authored The Woman saw Pollyanna McIntosh’s...
3.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: The Magnificent Obsession Of Michael Reeves David Watson August 25, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews The Magnificent Obsession Of Michael Reeves as titles go is somewhat misleading. A far better title would have been The Magnificent Obsession Of Dima Ballin. Perhaps better known as the founder and...
2.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: The Furies David Watson August 25, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews In Greek mythology, the Furies were three goddesses of vengeance and retribution who punished men for their crimes. In Australia, not so much, as leaving aside the film’s epilogue, the most feminist thing...
2.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: The Drone Simon Fitzjohn August 24, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London Reviews There are certain genre films that you just know, before a frame has even flickered onto the screen, have a very strong chance of being crap. And, I’ll be brutally honest, when you sit down to watch...
4.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: Feedback Simon Fitzjohn August 24, 2019 Editor's Choice, Film4 Frightfest, London Reviews Brutal, full of twists and turns and, at times, suffocatingly tense, Feedback is one of those little gems that Frightfest throw up every year that take us pleasantly by surprise. Okay, it stars Eddie...
4.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: Fingers Matthew Hammond August 23, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Some films just strike the right note. Like a tuning fork, Fingers masterfully resonates and shifts the audience into it’s own bizarre reality with a deft balance of dark comedy and an...
4.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: Knives And Skin Matthew Hammond August 23, 2019 Editor's Choice, Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews An elegant, laconic modern noir where the mystery of a young girl’s disappearance is lost within the mystery of the teenage experience itself, Knives and Skin plays like an eerie fusion of Brick, Twin Peaks...
3.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: Red Letter Day Simon Fitzjohn August 23, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Inventive, gory and a lot of fun (for the most part), Red Letter Day is one of those disposable horror flicks that merely sets out to give you a good time – and delivers. With more than a whiff of The...
5.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: The Wind David Watson August 23, 2019 Editor's Choice, Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Paranoia, isolation and ancient evil stalks the wilderness of the plains in debut feature director Emma Tammi’s atmospheric homesteader horror The Wind. Living alone in the middle of nowhere,...
2.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: Dachra Matthew Hammond August 23, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews While a box office hit in North Africa, Dachra is a frustrating experience that fails to live up to the hype, suffering from a muddled atmosphere and a lack of complexity that strangles a film that at time...
3.0 Arrow Video Frightfest Review: I Am Toxic David Watson August 22, 2019 Film4 Frightfest, London, London Reviews Argentina, 2101. A nameless man (Esteban Prol) wakes up in a pile of bodies covering a vast plain with no memory of who he is or how he got there. Overhead, transport planes circle lazily, corpses being...