A ponderous yet mostly empty creature feature from Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper confuses grimness for substanceIs Antlers, a grisly shift into body horror for the Crazy Heart and Hostiles director Scott Cooper, really about the curse of generation…
John and the Hole review – chillingly twisted coming-of-age fable
A teenager coolly assumes control of his family in this satirical thriller from Spanish artist Pascual SistoWhat does it feel like to be an adult? That’s the question haunting a privileged, empathy-free adolescent in this chillingly satirical feature f…
Dementer review – unsettling low-budget care facility chiller
When Katie takes a job in a centre for people with Down’s syndrome, she’s the model carer – until the terrifying flashbacks startFrom Don’t Look Now to The Masque of the Red Death, physical disability has been a troublingly cheap way for horror directo…
Halloween Kills review – indestructible killer returns in efficient follow-up
Forty years on from John Carpenter’s classic slasher film, David Gordon Green’s latest reanimation of the title is functional but enjoyableIt’s Halloween 2018 in Haddonfield, Illinois, and the time-honoured festivities are in full swing. At the start o…
Review: Candyman turns singular slasher into a timeless avatar for Black trauma
“Candyman ain’t a he. Candyman is the whole damn hive.”
Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon review – B-movie thrills in New Orleans superhero gumbo
The new film from Ana Lily Amirpour will keep the fans happy with the tale of mind-controlling waitress on the loose the French QuarterIranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour serves up heaped spoonfuls of B-movie thrills in Mona Lisa and the Blood …
Last Night in Soho review – a gaudy romp that’s stupidly enjoyable
Edgar Wright’s time-travel film plays like a 60s pop song building towards a big climaxThe nostalgia gauge is code-red on Last Night in Soho, a gaudy time-travel romp that whisks its modern-day heroine to a bygone London that probably never existed out…
Streaming: The Father and other films about dementia
Florian Zeller’s heart-rending film The Father is the latest in a spate of recent works tackling the condition and its effects on the familyFirst shown way back at Sundance in January last year, and repeatedly delayed by the pandemic, The Father waited…
Candyman director Nia DaCosta: ‘It is shocking the way people have talked to me’
As well as rebooting the horror classic, the 31-year-old is directing a Marvel movie with a $100m-plus budget. She talks about ambition, superstition – and whether she’s risked saying ‘Candyman’ five times“Say it,” implore the posters for the new Candy…
Candyman review – BLM horror reboot is superb confection of satire and scorn
Nia DaCosta’s quasi reboot develops the horror myth as an expression of rage against racism in the era of Black Lives MatterCandyman, in its first incarnation, stepped daintily out of the mirror in 1992, in writer-director Bernard Rose’s US-set version…