Reviewed by GREG KING Director: David Gordon Green Stars: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Will Patton, Andi Matichak, Haluk Bilginer, Nick Castle, Rhian Rees, Jeffereson Hall, Toby Huss, Dylan Arnold, Drew Scheid, Virginia Gardner. Set forty years after the events of the original, David Gordon Green’s take on John Carpenter’s classic genre defining slasher film from 1978 works effectively as a direct sequel. This new Halloween pretends that those other nine or so increasingly crappy and ridiculous sequels and Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake didn’t exist, and is all the more …
SLENDER MAN
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Sylvain White Stars: Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, Annalise Basso, Javier Botel. The term “creepypasta” is one I’d never heard of before, but apparently it was created to describe internet spread urban legends. One of the more notorious was that of the so-called Slender Man, a boogieman that was created by Eric Knudsen under the pseudonym of Victor Surge in 2009. The character went viral on social media, You Tube and the internet and became part of the consciousness of adolescents. The slender man of the title …
HEREDITARY
by GREG KING Director: Ari Aster Stars: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd. We’ve recently seen a number of horror films that have effectively relied on suspense and a creeping sense of dread rather than out right gore to scare audiences – films like It Follows, It Comes At Night, the recent A Quiet Place, etc - and now we get Hereditary. Following its screenings at the Sundance Film Festival in January where it has been acclaimed as one of the scariest films of all time, Hereditary reaches our screens, but it seems that it has …
TRUTH OR DARE
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Jeff Wadlow Stars: Lucy Hale, Tyler Posey, Violett Beane, Hayden Szeto, Nolan Gerard Funk, Sophia Taylor Ali, Sam Lerner, Landon Liboiron, Gary Antony Williams, Tom Choi, Morgan Lindholm, Aurora Perrineau. The familiar drinking game that played a small role in the recent comedy thriller Game Night takes on a more deadly and supernatural touch in the latest film from producer Jason Blum, whose production company specialises in low budget films like the Paranormal Activity and Insidious series. Blumhouse Productions knows its …
A QUIET PLACE
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: John Krasinski Stars: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cade Woodward. In a quiet place, no one can hear you scream? A well-made, tense and suspenseful horror film from director John Krasinski (best known for his work on the US version of tv sitcom The Office), A Quiet Place is also as scary as hell. Not since last year’s Don’t Breathe has the use of silence been such an effective and potent cinematic tool for creating edge of the seat tension and a palpable sense of dread. A …
IT
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Andy Muschietti Stars: Bill Skarsgard, Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Jack Dylan Grazer, Chosen Jacobs, Wyatt Oleff, Nicholas Hamilton, Stuart Hughes, Owen Teague, Jackson Robert Scott, Molly Atkinson, Stephen Bogaert. Based on the 1986 novel written by the prolific Stephen King, It is essentially a quintessential coming of age story in which the usual tropes of the genre are mixed with strong elements of the classic horror movie. The novel had two distinct parts, the first part …
MOTHER!
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Darren Aronofsky Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson, Brian Gleeson, Stephen McHattie, Kristen Wiig. This is the mother of all wtf did I just watch movies for 2017. This paranoid psychological horror thriller is one of the more complicated and divisive films to hit our screens and will polarise audiences. That is probably to be expected from filmmaker Darren Aronofsky though, whose films are deliberately provocative and have explored themes of religion, personal torment, love …
A CURE FOR WELLNESS
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Gore Verbinski Stars: Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth, Celia Imrie, Ivo Nandi, Harry Groener, Adrian Schiller, Ashok Mandanna, Magnus Krenner. Visionary filmmaker Gore Verbinski has a wonderfully diverse filmography that includes the very funny slapstick nonsense of Mousehunt, the first three film in the successful Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise that was based on a Disneyland ride, the animated spaghetti western Rango, the drama The Weatherman with Nicolas Cage, the Americanised version of the Japanese horror film Ring, …