Review Category: Movie

British-Iranian director Babak Anvari, best known for 1980s Tehran-set horror Under the Shadow, shifts setting to modern-day Britain for Hallow Road, while maintaining the unnerving tone of real-life horror meeting the supernatural.

The film begins late at night in the home of paramedic Maddie (Rosamund Pike) and her husband Frank (Matthew Rhys); their daughter Alice (Megan McDonnell) has earlier stormed out following a tense family dinner. They receive a phone call from a distraught Alice – she has hit someone with her car and needs her parents’ help. The rest of the film plays out in Maddie’s car, as she and Frank race towards the suitably dark and creepy forest where the incident occured.

This single-location setup is used to great effect, with William Gillies’ script throwing multiple twists into the narrative that prevent it ever feeling slow. Key to this is a growing tension between the two parents, who disagree on how to handle the situation. Maddie, brutally honest, wants to encourage Alice to do everything possible to save the girl’s life, even if it means accepting responsibility. Frank wants to tell his daughter what she wants to hear, and help preserve her promising future. And just when it seems that tension has reached its peak, someone else arrives at the scene before Maddie and Frank – but who exactly is it?

With its only fault being some slightly overdramatic dialogue in this final act threatening to derail the realism, Hallow Road uses its gradually building horror conceit to interrogate how forgiving a parent should be of their child. The film retains a pleasing sense of ambiguity, never giving a firm answer to either this thematic question or to the true nature of the events that take place. But stick around to read the credits and you’ll spot a vital clue (if you hadn’t twigged it already). This is a creepy, tense horror, in a pleasingly tight 80 minutes.

HALLOW ROAD is in UK cinemas now.

The midnight movie cult has obtained a new sheen. OBEX takes the aesthetics of late-20th-century screen technology combined with modern indie B-movie special effects to create an adventure with horror elements. Its charm comes from the surreality of the special effects and the winking acknowledgement of the tropes of old school computer gaming. Like recent films in the same vein, the film depends upon a shared language with nerdom to elevate its simplistic storytelling into style.

The story itself gains potency from that same simplicity. Conor, a recluse whose life revolves around the televisions and computer monitors scattered throughout his home, has his life challenged by a video game that claims it can place him into the game. Of course, strange and supernatural events occur that blur the line between game and reality. The game becomes a psychological inquiry of what led to Conor’s retreat into media, forcing him to think outside the box of his screens.

While it is charming and small in a YouTube-video-filmed-in-the-woods kind of way, OBEX looks so cute in the far more expressive shadows of those it is compared to. Its cold camerawork, tone setting cuts to fascinating details, and pointed storytelling points feel like a performance of its inspirations without knowing what made Eraserhead or The Legend of Zelda work in their mediums.

Additionally, the film’s story is unemotional and simple, with only the performance of casual personability and deeper trauma exploring truth. Its scrappy special effects make it a worthwhile midnight screening, but the core story lacks tenderness and overly relies on simplistic referencing.

If you’re looking for a video game-inspired midnight romp, seek out Hundreds of Beavers, a better executed example, before you circle back for this lovely but lesser work.

A young woman finds herself at odds with her neighbours in a remote community of religious fanatics, led by her father, the town Pastor (Toby Stephens). With her abusive husband having been killed under mysterious circumstances, Magpie (Emma Appleton) is already an outcast. When another monstrous man (Oliver Maltman) turns up dead after a run-in with Magpie, she finds herself the prime suspect – never mind the white-eyed horned beast lurking in the woods.

Directed by Dean Puckett, The Severed Sun is a stark work of folk horror, cross-breeding the small-town hysteria of The Scarlet Letter with classic genre stories Witchfinder General and The Witch. By not specifying when or where we are exactly, the film achieves a sense of timelessness, which works in its favour, leaving the audience constantly unmoored and on edge. The rolling hills of Cornwall perform as an intimidating backdrop to this fable of religious panic and perpetual misogyny. It’s a bare bones narrative, but a compelling one nevertheless, throbbing with palpable dread as it builds to its unhinged climax.

However, the stripped-back approach doesn’t apply to its cast, which is abundant with talent. Appleton makes a spirited lead, while former Bond villain Stephens is a commanding presence as her father. Elsewhere, Lewis Gribben (Black Mirror, Generation Z) continues to prove himself a talent to be watched as local lad David. Stealing his every scene without even showing his face, James Swanton dons the demonic horns to play the creature lurking in the woods – another feather in the cap for one of horror’s most prolific monster actors who you’ve probably never heard of. Like everything else, the creature design is simple but effective, setting this entry into the subgenre apart from the rest.

A sparse yet fertile modern (yet very not modern!) folk horror tale, The Severed Sun keeps its slimy black tendrils lodged in one’s brain long after the end credits roll.

THE SEVERED SUN is out now via digital platforms.

John Lennon’s “Long and Winding Road” seems a theme for this year’s crop of genre pictures. The Desert Road in Shannon Triplett’s film is where a young photographer (Kristine Froseth) finds her life stuck as she retreats from her dreams of photographic recognition. Some unknown force keeps her in the same place, unable to progress until she masters the place’s secret and chooses to continue on her own path.

Desert Road is a lovely coming-of-age story with a Groundhog Day approach to forcing its character to change that can’t help but be charming. We are ultimately as delighted as she is to figure out what the film’s puzzle is, and its complexity leaves us reeling in a rollercoaster type of way. It’s unnecessary to find a Primer-adjacent road map that might best explain how everything ties together; there’s enough emotional payoff and keep-you-guessing plot points edited with precision to make an effective little picture, if not an exceptional one.

Part of what made episodes of The Twilight Zone effectively creepy and exhilarating were their short length. The show’s infamous fourth season extended their oddball premises to hour-length episodes, leaving too much fat still hanging on what could be solid thrills. Desert Road‘s 90 minutes similarly stagnates a few times, leaving us feeling as lost and pointless as its protagonist for long, empty stretches. Most viewers will forget the second act boredom when the relief of the third act’s reveals kick in, but an effective thriller requires a road that twists from beginning to end.

The premise of Best Wishes to All hinges on an integral twist that must be experienced or else lose the film’s only piece of potency. Visiting her grandparents in the country makes a young woman realise a dark secret that will change how she thinks about not only her own life, but every life. Horror lovers will likely cheer the source of fear inherent to the film, but yawn at its ploddingly standard use of it.

In the spirit of letting the film keep its single effective card a mystery, most of what’s left to discuss is technical. Outside of a few lovely and harrowing wide shots, the picture doesn’t have much to offer in cinematography. Stagnant, matter-of-fact camerawork makes the horror seem ordinary, which would almost be part of the premise if the J-horror approach wasn’t so occupied with shock value. The shocking moments are also more conceptual than visual, with only a few body horror moments to keep the darkness rolling in.

Characterisation remains nonspecific throughout the picture as well, with only archetypes to latch onto. With a bland audience surrogate and standard creepy relatives besides, Best Wishes to All forces audiences to latch onto only the thoughts behind its premise. Like a movie such as Sophie’s Choice or The Human Centipede, the concept is more effective than the movie’s execution of it, leaving Best Wishes to All as shorthand more than cinematic experience.

First time director Alex Ullom makes his generation proud with his Gen Z cosmic horror flick It Ends. Inspired by his own generalised ennui in the face of adulthood, Ullom crafts a tight Twilight Zone premise about four twenty-somethings stuck on a road that stretches on seemingly forever. Their reoccurring decisions to keep going (or not) act as a metaphor for the nihilistic post-post-modernity of those who struggle with depression, anxiety, and bed-rotting-filled lives. Through this horrifying premise and powerfully simple, sense-dulling filmmaking, Alex Ullom becomes a filmmaker to watch as he inquires about the very real lack of motivation in a generation without direction.

The four main characters find themselves so small in the universe that pays them no mind. There’s terror in knowing every day will have the same depressing outcome. Progress amid a mental health crisis appears impossible. The worst case scenario is suggested in the film’s title; maybe it is.

The joy in the film comes from the genre mashup Ullom has dubbed “hangout horror”. Though the existential core never wavers, the picture could be considered this generation’s Dazed and Confused or American Graffiti; it is still a movie about young people driving around aimlessly. Expo marker graffiti, meme-like discussions of animal on animal violence, and the savoring of a cliff bar create an atmosphere of love that’s worth saving. They remind us that connection earns life’s purpose.

It Ends will terrify anyone who claims to think too much and supercharge the spiraling thoughts that break their own consciousness into an unmotivated mush. A younger generation will find familiarity in the film’s endlessness, and fear in its bleak outlook. Not everyone will find a perfect connection to the themes on a generational level, but everyone can find something to grab onto in Ullom’s world of existential dread. Nothing scares everyone, but nothing scares everyone.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning fumbles where most of its predecessors didn’t – it assumes we care more about its plot than we do. Christopher McQuarrie again directs, but this instalment is so clunky, so dull, so committed to everything but its wow factor, that it often feels like the work of a much less capable filmmaker. For starters, the exposition is exhausting. It’s sporadically compelling, but McQuarrie and co-writer Erik Jendresen are so bent on tying The Final Reckoning to every other Mission: Impossible entry that they completely neglect comprehensibility.

Picking up months after Dead Reckoning, The Final Reckoning finds Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and co. scrambling to stop the near-omniscient AI The Entity from obliterating humanity. The dastardly Gabriel (Esai Morales) seeks to control the AI, echoing the hate and hubris of nearly every other action movie villain as he murders his way to what he perceives is his destiny.

Cruise’s latest – and ostensibly last – turn as IMF agent Ethan Hunt carries weight without any finality, no doubt a symptom of Paramount’s reluctance to bid its danger-magnet of a protagonist a serious goodbye, which in turn renders ‘This is it’ marketing completely meaningless.

Cast-wise, it goes about the way you’d expect: Cruise is nuts, Simon Pegg is goofy but competent, Hayley Atwell emotes circles around her co-stars, and Ving Rhames, ever the emotional anchor, is oddly sanguine about their predicament.  Among the newcomers, Tramell Tillman is a standout, snatching focus from every one of his co-stars (including Cruise) and again proving his chops as a bona fide star.

Cruise’s misguided, indiscriminate showmanship is as fascinating as ever. Whether it’s conscious or unconscious, calculated or off-the-cuff, the guy’s antics – and our expectations for those stunts – define this franchise. Cruise will probably include a ‘Human Vegetable’ clause giving McQuarrie express permission to launch his comprehensively paralysed body from a cannon or use it as a flail in an action sequence.

That’s not to say The Final Reckoning is completely devoid of thrills. Two-thirds of the way through, as Hunt navigates the wreckage of the Sevastopol submarine, he finds himself in a small room clogged with ready-to-go nuclear missiles. It’s an unbelievably tense sequence that marks a high point for Max Aruj and Alfie Godfrey’s mostly forgettable score.

The best that can be said about Ethan Hunt’s alleged swan song is that it seems to be having more fun than Dead Reckoning. The worst is that it’s bloated, silly, and shoddily constructed around a hollow promise to definitively conclude Hunt’s adventures. This series deserved a great ending, but The Final Reckoning isn’t it.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING is in cinemas from May 21st.

 

I’m not sure I completely understood Miguel Llanso’s third feature, Infinite Summer, or if there is anything really to understand. Another Estonian Spanish co-production filmed in Tallinn, perhaps the solution lies in one of the final lines spoken in the film: “Of all the animals in the zoo, humans are the saddest.” As with Crumbs and Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway, the protagonist – Teele Kaijuvee-O’Brock’s Mia – has a riddle to solve and a seemingly intangible obstacle in her way, but Mia is also quite content to let things play out before her as her summer break with friend Grete (Johanna Aurelia Rosin) – with whom she seems to have little in common – very slowly spirals out of control. But who is the catalyst for the change? World-wise and world-weary Canadian girl Sarah or creepy cyber-dealer Igor?

This is Jodorowsky via Baumbach, with a touch of Dick. Futuristic dating technology, individually tailored pharmaceutical mindfulness, and a zoo AI that tunes each animal’s environment to its specific needs all come together to move the story along, although – as with Llanso’s previous films – the journey is every bit as important as the destination. For some, that destination may prove unsatisfactory, but it’s entirely possible that they’re looking for something that was never there to begin with. Because, as a meditation on the point and purpose of existence – and as a contrast with those from previous generations who glimpsed but didn’t quite grasp what was behind the curtain, as illustrated by Mia’s father – it might just be that there’s no point to it at all. That’s quite a thing to capture in 86 diverting minutes, but Llanso is proving a master of setting and exceeding high expectations.

Fourteen years after last traumatising a generation with everything from logging trucks to tanning beds, horror’s most disaster-prone franchise returns, fully loaded with a fresh vat of nightmare fuel.

Following 2011’s secret prequel, Final Destination: Bloodlines finds new threads to unpick in the franchise’s past and present. This kicks off with the story of a young woman (Brec Bassinger) who suffers a terrible premonition featuring the glitzy sky-high restaurant she’s currently standing in.

You know the drill – Iris manages to avert disaster, but one by one, those she saved start dying horrible deaths. Decades later, and young Stefani Reyes (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) begins seeing visions of that night and what should have been. The starting point is different, but the (final) destination is the same – Stefani realises that her family are living on borrowed time, and must figure out a way of staying Death’s hand before it comes for them. Awkward family reunion time!

Bloodlines feels like the first Final Destination film that’s seen a Final Destination film, and spends the bulk of its time playing various games of bait-and-switch with an audience who’ve seen all the logging truck memes already. When it’s not re-iterating the rules, that is. After five films, writers Guy Busik and Lori Evans Taylor have their work cut out staying ahead of the curve. Gone are the days when a guy could just get smeared over the front of a truck, or beheaded by a precariously loose chunk of metal without the audience seeing it coming, and the film is forced to seek inventive new ways of offing its characters.

Together with directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, the team are mostly successful, finding a balance between short sharp shocks and the more elaborate Rube Goldberg set pieces. While the more knowing, tongue-in-cheek approach soon grates (one longs for the simplicity of that very first bathtub kill), there’s an edge to the death sequences that the franchise hasn’t seen since 2006. Between a tense family barbeque and a mishap in a tattoo parlour, there’s something to upset almost everyone, and those who come for the more drawn-out disasters won’t be disappointed.

Of the five films that preceded it, Bloodlines shares most of its DNA with series high Final Destination 2, which it continually references with a series of knowing nods and winks. The Easter eggs are cute but largely unnecessary – it stays just as true to its roots with a great soundtrack and respect for the franchise’s lore. It’s only the use of ugly modern CG that holds its opening disaster back from matching that motorway set piece, otherwise it may well have been a contender. It also veers further into black comedy than previous films, making it less effective as a horror film and undermining some of the tension. Gone are the melodramatic ruminations on life, death, and fate (“it’d be a fucked up god to take down this plane”), replaced with a family who carry on quipping even after the violent death of a beloved patriarch.

A shame, as the premise (an entire family tree pruned by Death!) is full of potential. Of that family, Santa Juana is a solid lead, but the dynamic between her and estranged mum Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt) goes largely unexplored, and little brother Charlie (Teo Briones) lacks depth. Elsewhere, the show is stolen by Richard Harmon (The 100) as emo cousin Erik, who scores the film three of its best sequences, and all the most piercing lines, too. Outside of the family, the late Tony Todd reprises his role as mortician William Bludworth in a way that feels entirely natural and serves as a fitting send-off to a horror icon.

Final Destination: Bloodlines isn’t quite a return to form for the long-running franchise – that would imply it has ever been anything less than entertaining. Instead, it’s more of a revitalisation, re-writing Death’s Grand Design for a generation that’s largely wise to His tricks already.

FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES is out in UK cinemas from May 14th 2025.