Charlie Polinger’s feature debut is, ostensibly, a ‘thriller’ set at a boys’ water polo camp. Unfortunately, the unmet expectations of The Plague don’t stop at the film’s genre credentials. The Plague follows 12-year-old Ben (played by Everett Blunck, whose already impressive list of credits includes the beleaguered Rust) as he arrives at an all boys […]
The Shrouds Review: Cronenberg’s most personal film is his least accessible
Be warned: this review contains spoilers. Everyone’s favourite techno-corporeal freak is back and this time he’s looking death right in the face – both metaphorically and literally. David Cronenberg, father of the body horror subgenre and the acclaimed filmmaker behind taboo-breaking cult classics like Videodrome, Crash (not that one) and Dead Ringers has just released […]
Longlegs and the Burden of Feminine Sacrifice (2024)
Care has been taken to avoid spoilers in this review but please proceed with caution if you have not seen the film. An innovative and aggressive marketing campaign may have prepared audiences for Longlegs’ nightmarish visual elements and unsettling tone but it certainly didn’t signal the film’s complex and deeply intimate take on motherhood and […]
The Invisible Man and the Paradox of Invisibility (2020)
Most people who have had lived experience as a woman could attest to the occasional fantasy of invisibility. Being seen, particularly under the harsh lights of the male gaze, begins to erode girls’ self-esteem and sense of security from the time they’re in primary school. In order to counteract the vulnerability that comes with being […]
Pumpkinhead and Viewing Trauma Through a Patriarchal Lens
This review contains spoilers. Keep away from Pumpkinhead,Unless you’re tired of living So begins a schoolyard rhyme recited about the titular character during an early scene in VXF artist Stan Winston’s directorial debut, Pumpkinhead. Over the next 70 minutes, the movie proves this adage true, in a way that we may not have foreseen. While […]
Bliss (2019)
Young filmmaker Joe Begos has a tough sell on his hands with Bliss, his new psychedelic, drug-fuelled horror. Though only 80 minutes long, it’s hard to tell where in that runtime you are in any given moment, or to remember when you started. The film seems to play with the concept of time itself, making […]