In Bologna 1852, a lady having had a romantic tumble with a beau sees him off then spies her employers praying over their baby.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5750/Cinema/Kidnapped-Rapito
Anthony DeBlasi’s Malum is a remake of his own 2014 film Last Shift. Looking back on my files I didn’t review it and I don’t remember seeing it at the time either. It’s unusual though not...
This is a revised version of the review that was published when Hunt Her Kill Her was screened at Glasgow FrightFest 2023.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5749/Cinema/Hunt-Her-Kill-Her
With an opening sequence that could suggest a number of motives for collecting the spiders, it soon becomes blindingly obvious that regardless of the reason, they are really nasty.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5745/Home-Ent/Infested-Vermines
Seems that it’s possible to trade and exploit anything. In All You Need is Death, couple folk singer Anna (Simone Collins) and partner Aleks (Charlie Maher) go around collecting, secretly recor...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5701/Cinema/All-You-Need-is-Death
Take a trip down memory lane and leave your troubles by the wayside, well, at least for several hours: the BFI’s THE CHILDREN’S FOUNDATION Bumper Box – Vol 5 will transport you back to a ti...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5744/Home-Ent/The-Children-s-Foundation-Vol-5
Gloriously restored in 4K Blu-ray, director Paul Leni’s spooky horror-comedy (an adaptation of John Willard’s play of the same name) was already a huge success on Broadway before Universal Pi...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5743/Home-Ent/The-Cat-and-the-Canary
Since Mongolia moved away from a soviet one-party system in the 90's, it’s been battling to become a player on the global stage, to varying success.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5742/Cinema/If-Only-I-Could-Hibernate
The following is lifted from the film’s publicity note:
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5740/Home-Ent/Max-Beyond
A tense pupil/teacher meeting trying to establish who has been thieving at a school is only the first scene in a film that from its initial premise doesn’t appear to have the torque of a thrill...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5739/Cinema/The-Teachers-Lounge-Das-Leherzimmer
That the film opens with shots of the roman god Janus (god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames and endings) is telling as all that features in Victor Eric...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5738/Cinema/Close-Your-Eyes-Cerrar-Los-Ojos
A massive earthquake hits Seoul – though the images suggest it has gone well beyond - leaving one huge block, standing alone amidst the rubble and destruction of the rest of the city.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5732/Home-Ent/Concrete-Utopia
Standing up in the theatre after clearly fidgeting during a mediocre play – Le Cocu (The Cuckold), and saying he’s not entertained Yannick (Raphaël Quenard), is just doing something that man...
This one of those films where the least known the better yet once into the film things begin to fall into place and the viewer will quite quickly work out where things are going.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5726/Cinema/The-Origin-of-Evil-L-origine-du-mal
Its 2041 and Central Europe is so overwhelmed by violent crime that a restoration process has been developed to bring people back to life if they don’t go over a 48-hour limit. After that death...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5725/Home-Ent/Restore-Point-Bod-obnovy
The on and off narrator Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha) opens the film explaining that this is not his world, the disappears. Shortly after he’s hit by the financial crash and pondering his life over...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5723/Home-Ent/The-Shift
Opening in Poznan 1986 ambitious Citizens Militia officer Andrzej Baran (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz) is met by his wife Jola (Lena Góra) as he warns of a would be illegal street foreign currency deal...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5717/Cinema/Saint-Swiety
This tender ‘coming of age/coming out’ story from 1996 is based on the award-winning play by Jonathan Harvey first performed at the Bush Theatre. Stage director Hettie Macdonald directed this...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5714/Home-Ent/Beautiful-Thing
This Taiwanese film from 1968 is a tale of honour and revenge by celebrated master of ‘wuxia’ cinema, Joseph Kuo, has just been released on 2K Blu-ray in a Limited Edition set. Get ready for ...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5710/Home-Ent/The-Swordsman-of-all-Swordsmen
Dull, leading a dull life, would-be lifer bank employee Morán (Daniel Eliás) decides he’s had enough. So he hatches a plan to steal just enough money from his employers to see him through his...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5711/Cinema/The-Delinquents-Los-delinquentes
1980’s New York even to those who never experienced it, feels authentic here in its animated form.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5709/Cinema/Robot-Dreams
Like the zombie sub-genre, found footage has had its up and downs along with the sort of saturation that should have drowned them long ago. But its still here and while there are creative talents...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5704/Cinema/Late-Night-with-the-Devil
There isn’t much more to say about a clutch of Ealing films that have come to define the studio over the years. The likes of Kind Hearts and Coronets, Passport to Pimlico and a dozen or so othe...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5676/Cinema/The-Lavender-Hill-Mob
This British ‘New Wave’ kitchen sink drama from 1964 sees Kenneth More in one of his finest roles: that of a middle-aged actor arriving in Swinging London after he gets fired from his job in ...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5703/Home-Ent/The-Comedy-Man
It’s not a new phenomenon. There have always been people who get an adrenaline rush out of danger. Mercenaries for one. Most are lured by the money, others also have an addiction to peril, poss...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5697/Cinema/Danger-Zone
The title is not misleading. Newly graduated Tomek (Jakub Zajac) all bright eyed bushy tailed and as green as they come, is fresh from university. With a degree in banking he’s expecting to lan...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5696/Cinema/Horror-Story
ROOM AT THE TOP, the boundary-pushing and multi-Oscar winning British drama from 1959 ranks among the finest ‘kitchen sink dramas’ of its generation – charting the rise of Joe Lampton, an a...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5695/Home-Ent/Room-at-the-Top
Set mostly in a rural small-town diner, writer and director of Taylor Sardoni and Alan Scott Neil respectively don’t deviate too far from the not quite white trash of the trailer parks that aud...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5694/Cinema/Last-Straw
Opening in 1993 art restorer Lisa (Lauren LaVera) on a bus to small village in Italy acquaints herself with a group of American biologists there to catalogue the local plants.
Couple, Harriet (Abigail Hardingham) and Jasper (Rowan Polonski) are online porn performers catering to the more sophisticated audience. This includes an artier approach to sex and BDSM.
This isn’t the first or likely to be the last horror film based on what Gen X sees as horror. Not for them vampire and monsters. The global terrors of climate change and environmental abuse pre...
It’s an idyllic scene that’s common in many films and not just the creepy and spooky ones. A young couple arriving home with their newborn, joyful in readiness for the next chapter of their l...
In pure sci-fi horror send-up mode, the film opens with a couple of scientists tampering with things that should well be left well alone, creating the titular creature, and paying dearly for it. ...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5689/Cinema/The-Invisible-Raptor
In Flames is one of those films that ostensibly looks like a ghost story and a tale with supernatural overtones but below the surface is telling another story and one potentially far more frighte...
It is 1856 and with canaries in a coal mine the scene is set for an explosion and cave in which duly happens as well as providing a glimpse something else present in the mine.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5688/Cinema/The-Deep-Dark-Gueules-Noir
Fantastic Machine is a film about cameras. An important distinction to make to anyone hoping for another love story to the silver screen.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5686/Cinema/Fantastic-Machine
Hans (Jakub Gierszal) meets his uncle Helmut (Joachim Raaf) in Strasbourg 1977. It’s a family reunion with Hans freed by the Polish communist authorities having been left as an orphan by his Ge...
As with a lot of sci-fi there’s more in Tropic than the story of non-identical twins Tristan and Làzaro Guerrero (Louis Peres and Pablo Cobo, respectively) in a very intensive programme of men...
The sequel, DUNE: Part 2, continues the saga, sweeping audiences into a mesmerizing universe where the sands of time shift beneath their feet.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5679/Cinema/Dune-Part-2
Texan Ann (Dale Dickey) and ailing husband Chip (Greg Ellwand) have retired to a derelict US suburb to be close to their family. But the reality is that they are fairly dysfunctional the only one...
To the melodious sounds of Iron Butterfly’s epic In-A-Gadda-Da-Vidda, Red Island opens with a strange animated sequence that has the superhero Fantômette defeating eggheaded, plain-featured vi...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5673/Cinema/Red-Island-L-Ile-Rouge
Beautifully restored on Blu-ray format, A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS is more about a slice of life in 1950’s London’s East End rather than a film with a solid plot, although it could be described ...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5664/Home-Ent/A-Kid-For-Two-Farthings
Guaranteed to alienate female viewers, these ultra-violent (and ultra-sexist) Yakuza thrillers from 1972 are at times rather hard to stomach. That said, both films star the late great Shinichi �...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5662/Home-Ent/Yakuza-Wolf-1-and-2
Despite set 43,000 years ago Out of Darkness taps into many current issues, with a infusion of horror tropes.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5658/Cinema/Out-of-Darkness
Opening with one of the most memorable scenes ever filmed City of God twenty-one years ago seared itself into the minds of viewers and it hasn’t lost any of is potency. It remains a masterpiece...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5657/Cinema/City-of-God-Cidade-de-Deus
Grief and dealing with it is the core of writer Rachel Sommer and director Luke Sommer’s film. They’ve built on that and quite skilfully developed a spooky psychological thriller.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5656/Home-Ent/Cellphone
Ground-breaking filmmaker, explorer, auteur, poet, actor… German director Werner Herzog is all of those things and more! In this insightful documentary, released by BFI in HD-Blu-ray, we get ex...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5654/Home-Ent/Radical-Dreamer
There’s not much of a secret to what Ian Macshane playing Wilson is about even before the gun is revealed. Dressed in a smart black suit he lands in Fuerteventura and drives to the middle of no...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5652/Cinema/American-Star
Wim Wenders' "Perfect Days" offers a poignant exploration of human connection and the search for meaning in an increasingly fragmented world.
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5643/Cinema/Perfect-Days
This fascinating documentary opens with a song called ‘Dove’ that I would guess many people will recognise, though ask: who are the band? For about the first ten minutes it’s an intro to Cy...
https://www.film-news.co.uk/review/UK/5641/Cinema/Getting-it-Back-The-Story-of-Cymande