Very spoilery. Check out the ending below, or scroll down for a fuller explanation and plot details. (My 4/5 review is here.) In Deerskin, every loan that Georges accepts from Denise is followed by the purchase of another item of clothing made of 100% deerskin. It’s as if — as well as shaping his film… Deerskin ending explained Read More
Deerskin 4 stars
Georges is a man who has one ambition – to possess the finest jacket in the world at the expense of all others. It may be 100% deerskin but Georges’s new jacket is also the G.O.A.T., an item of clothing so perfect he’s prepared to spend his (and his wife’s!) life savings on it: 7,500… Deerskin Read More
The When The Screaming Starts serial killer table — how did your favourite do?
WARNING: VERY SPOILERY. Proceed at your own risk, as if you’ve just been shown round a motel bathroom by Norman Bates (If you’re after my review, it’s here. Or check out my interview with writer-director Conor Boru.) Cults are something of a Family business, albeit in Aidan’s case not a very financially successful one. You… The When The Screaming Starts serial killer table — how did your favourite do? Read More
When The Screaming Starts (FrightFest) 4 stars
A would-be serial killer decides to start a Manson-like murder cult with his girlfriend. Claire, Lady Macbeth to Aidan Mendle’s David Brent, is up front about what she can offer. “If you kill someone we can have sex,” she tells her boyfriend and murderer-in-training. The film-within-a-film being made in horror mockumentary When The Screaming Starts… When The Screaming Starts (FrightFest) Read More
The Woman In The Window 3 stars
A woman with agoraphobia who lives apart from her family spies a killing in the house across the road. Film lovers, you can sleep easy in your beds — unlike Anna in this movie — as The Woman In The Window is not the great disaster you may have heard. It’s not great either, but… The Woman In The Window Read More
The Devil All The Time: the devil is in the detail
Warning: full of spoilers, fire and brimstone. Well, spoilers anyway. My review is here. Character posters are at the bottom of the page. Despite the melodrama, multiple dead bodies and spiders, The Devil All The Time finishes – eventually – on a note that is both cathartic and hopeful. Arvin does survive. The ending is… The Devil All The Time: the devil is in the detail Read More
Unhinged: what’s it driving at?
Oh come on, we’ve been in lockdown since March, I’m allowed a pun. Note: This is very spoilery so if you don’t want to know who dies, or how, drive off into the sunset now, with your doors firmly locked. If you want to read my – yes, four star – review, it’s here. A… Unhinged: what’s it driving at? Read More
Unhinged 4 stars
After a confrontation with an unstable man at an intersection, a woman becomes the target of his rage. We used to say hell is other people but now hell happens in full view of other people. In Unhinged, drawn-out, cold-blooded murder is committed in front of several witnesses, all of whom prefer to record rather… Unhinged Read More
The Big Ugly trailer: Vinnie Jones’s gangland enforcer strikes oil, but has he met his match?
I did giggle at Vinnie Jones’s menacingly growly voiceover in this new trailer for The Big Ugly (a title with room for myriad tweaks and variations) – an action revenge thriller that sees a London mobster transplanted to the US for a money-laundering oil deal. Neelyn (Jones), an enforcer for UK gang boss Harris (Malcolm… The Big Ugly trailer: Vinnie Jones’s gangland enforcer strikes oil, but has he met his match? Read More
Blow The Man Down 4 stars
Teenage sisters Mary Beth and Priscilla Connolly, who have recently lost their mother, attempt to cover up a gruesome run-in with a dangerous man. To conceal their crime, they must go deeper into Easter Cove’s underbelly and uncover the town matriarchs’ darkest secrets. In this clever, layered thriller, the three older ladies of Easter Cove… Blow The Man Down Read More
Don’t Let Go 2.5 stars
I’m sure most of us would like to alter our past to improve on our present. If I could, you’d be reading this in The Guardian, a paper that would no longer, once I’d gone back far enough with my red pen, be susceptible to typos. That’s assuming it all went to plan and my… Don’t Let Go Read More
The Vanishing 4 stars
Three lighthouse keepers on the remote Flannan Isles find a hidden trunk of gold, leading to their mysterious disappearance. There’s a brutal scene half-way through The Vanishing, director Kristoffer Nyholm’s “what if?” take on the Flannan Isle mystery. It’s a fight between lighthouse keepers James Ducat (Gerard Butler) and Thomas Marshall (Peter Mullan), and two violent… The Vanishing Read More