Review Category: Movie

Where do you start with The Third Man? Regarded by many, including the BFI, as the greatest British film ever made, it practically reads as a tick list of how to make a perfect film – the beautiful, atmospheric setting of post-war Vienna; a superb, intricate plot, courtesy of Graham Greene; Orson Welles’ memorable villain; one of the best theme tunes in cinema; enough crazy Dutch angles to give Sam Raimi palpations, and the best mention of a cuckoo clock in cinematic history.

Plot-wise, it’s the most Hitchcockian film the great man never directed. Dime store novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) arrives in Vienna to take up a job offer from an old friend, Harry Lime. Upon arrival, he discovers his friend has died in mysterious circumstances, and with the help of Lime’s girlfriend (Alida Valli) sets about investigating the circumstances of his death. As he’s drawn deeper into the mystery, he runs afoul of both the racketeers looking to profit in the war-ravaged city, and the various occupying forces – in particular the British – who control various areas of Vienna.

Director Carol Reed incorporated many then little-used techniques from German expressionist cinema – including the frequent use of distorted angles – to add to his leading man’s sense of alienation, putting both him and the viewer in an unusual, uncomfortable environment. The technique’s shown up in everything from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to The Evil Dead, but has never been used to greater, more disorienting effect than here.

And then there’s Orson Welles. After one of the most memorable entrances in film history, the film takes great care not to overuse its villain. He appears in only a handful of scenes, but is mesmerising in each. His explanation of his own dubious morality – imparted from the top of the city’s famous Wiener Riesenrad Ferris wheel – is borderline enough to convince anyone to turn to a life of crime. It’s arguably Welles’ greatest role, certainly his best in a film he didn’t himself direct (rumours have persisted over the years the Welles at least partially directed The Third Man, something he himself denied).

It’s Welles’ performance which always gets the praise in The Third Man, but in truth, there’s not a weak performance here. Welles’ frequent collaborator Joseph Cotton and Alida Valli have less showy roles, but are no less impressive. They’re ably supported by a who’s who of 1940s British character actors, including Trevor Howard and James Bond’s Bernard Lee (Bond fans may also want to note that, besides the appearance of M, future Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton was assistant director here, and the film’s Ferris wheel made a memorable cameo in The Living Daylights).

Re-released in a stunning 4K restoration to mark Welles’ centenary, if you’ve somehow never seen The Third Man, now’s the perfect time. Every shot of the film has always looked stunning, but the restoration makes it look better than ever. Each shadow is blacker than ever before, each Dutch angle more disorientating. Whilst it’s not a perfect restoration – with some shots still betraying the film’s age – this is the closest we’ll ever get to seeing an as-new version. There’s also a comprehensive set of extras, including fans such as Martin Scorsese and Ben Wheatley waxing lyrical about the film and its influence on them.

The Third Man remains one of the greatest British films ever made (and yes, quite possibly the best). It’s thrilling, complex, morally ambiguous, beautiful to look at, and features a captivating performance from one of cinema’s true icons. Genuinely essential.

Extras: Audio commentary, interviews, filmmaker’s influence documentary (featuring Martin Scorsese & Ben Wheatley), alternate narration, restoration featurette, 90 minute documentary, radio play (written by & starring Welles), Graeme Green documentary.

THE THIRD MAN: LIMITED COLLECTOR’S EDITION (1949) / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: CAROL REED / SCREENPLAY: GRAEME GREENE / STARRING: JOSEPH COTTON, ORSON WELLES, ALIDA VALLI, TREVOR HOWARD / RELEASE DATE: JULY 20TH
 

It’s fair to say that from the beginning of Ted 2, when the opening credits stop the film dead for three minutes of a big musical number, we realised we weren’t going to get along with it. Sadly, this did indeed not bode well for the rest of the film, as it stops for musical or drug-related interludes about three or four times.

Actually, we should be grateful that it spends time away from the ‘subtleties’ of the main plot. Here’s a question for you: have you seen the excellent Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ‘The Measure of a Man’ about Data’s struggle to be recognised as a person? You have? Then you’ve already seen this movie. Let’s consider a follow-up question, for those who haven’t watched that fine hour of television. Have you seen literally any buddy movie? Then, again, you’ve essentially seen Ted 2. This is a film completely devoid of any originality.

But it’s a comedy, the plot isn’t important, you say. That is true, but there’s a difference between having an excuse of a plot and adhering rigidly to a precisely timed movie template (the third act’s coming around? Must be time for a completely arbitrary argument designed to separate the two leads). It’s just insulting and isn’t good enough in this day and age.

For what it’s worth, there are some genuine laughs in there. But there was just so much that we didn’t like. The unnecessary fight at Comic-Con, the endless cameos (what exactly was the point of Liam Neeson’s cameo? Answers on a postcard) and the truly horrendous life advice (babies do not repair an already-broken marriage).

There’s a whole spiel in the film about how so many people end up on the wrong side of history. You can laugh at the dumb jokes but if you try and defend this as a good movie then that’s where you lose us. Consider where your money is going. Please, don’t end up on the wrong side of history.

INFO: TED 2 / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: SETH MACFARLANE / SCREENPLAY: SETH MACFARLANE, ALEC SULKIN, WELLESLEY WILD / STARRINGL: MARK WAHLBERG, SETH MACFARLANE, AMANDA SEYFRIED, JESSICA BARTH, MORGAN FREEMAN / RELEASE DATE: JULY 8TH
 

Twenty years in the future, all recreational drugs have been legalised and their manufacturers have grown rich and powerful. When a police officer responsible for rounding up black market dealers discovers a mysterious dead body that might have a link to the corporate overlords, he sets about proving it.

One of the many frustrating things about Narcopolis it is that despite the title, illicit substances actually play very little part in its story. The name conjures images of a dystopian noir within a futuristic megacity of incandescent neon and rotting slums, a cyberpunk nightmare where everyone is so high on designer narcotics the promise of the future has decayed into a haze of drugged-out despair. Which sounds awesome.

Instead, what we have is little more than a sci-fi police procedural, but one less than the weakest episode of Almost Human. The unnecessarily convoluted plot can’t decide what kind of story it’s trying to tell and so ends up cramming in several at once to the detriment of them all. It also commits the cardinal sin of failing to establish the rules of the world it portrays, meaning that any old crap can be thrown into the mix should the plot demand it, which, without wanting to give too much away, it does several times.

Even so, its quasi-futuristic trash might have been faintly enjoyable were it not for the utterly gormless protagonist. If he’s not getting warned off, beaten up or outsmarted (or hiding unlicensed weaponry in his young son’s bedroom), he’s having flashbacks to when he was an unreliable junkie screw-up. A main character of a plucky underdog might work well for some films, but for a police officer it just ends up looking pathetic.

Most egregiously, when faced with a specific and distinctive word acting as an enormous clue to the truth behind what’s going on, he completely fails to ascribe any significance to it, despite having first encountered it only the previous night. Yes, it can be satisfying for the audience when they’re ahead of the characters, but that should be on account of their intelligence rather than the film’s stupidity.

Despite an interesting premise and an opening sequence far superior to anything else in the entire film, Narcopolis should just take a hit from one of its bottom-feeding addicts and sit quietly drooling in the corner while everyone ignores it.

INFO: NARCOPOLIS / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JUSTIN TREFGARNE / STARRING: ELLIOT COWAN, ELODIE YUNG, COSIMA SHAW, MOLLY GAISFORD, ROBERT BATHURST, JONATHAN PRYCE, JAMES CALLIS / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expecting Rating: 8 out 10

Actual Rating:
 

Let’s get something out of the way. Despite what the title may lead you to assume, this film is not about the infamous action star with the luxurious beard (underneath which there is no chin, only another fist) single-handedly roundhouse kicking his way through the assembled forces of the Red Menace. Anyway, that film already exists in the form of Invasion USA and it is glorious.

No, it’s actually a documentary about the lengths the Romanian people living under the Communist regime (sorry, socialist republic) of Nicolae Ceaușescu in the 1980s had to go in order to watch some films. However, the aforementioned tale of Gawd-bless-‘murica, with its wanton destruction and duelling bazookas, is precisely the kind of movie that the citizens of the Orwellian nation rejoiced in being able to watch.

Information was continually repressed and the only media legally available was on the nation’s single TV channel, which was “as terrible as the food you could find” (all in all, it sounds not entirely dissimilar to how North Korea is perceived today). To counter this, a one-man film smuggling operation brought banned films into the country where they were dubbed, copied and distributed amongst the people, their tales of lone men standing against overwhelming forces striking a chord with the oppressed populace in a way they could with few others. Being able to watch a film was an event, and the home of any person fortunate enough to own a video player would become a community focal point, particularly in the dirt-poor concrete tenement buildings.

Clips from dozens of films in their dubbed form illustrate the points of the talking head interviewees, along with dramatisations of their tales and memories. The main story largely focuses on Irina Nistor, a translator who worked in a governmental department dedicated to censoring imported media and producing propaganda. Her bilingual skills led to her recruitment by smuggler Teodor Zamfir to create the Romanian dubs, recording audio for around 3,000 films. Performing as every single character in the process, she ended up as much a part of the films as their action and for many of the viewers became a symbol of resistance to the oppression under which they were living. Knowing her only through her voice, many of them wistfully describe how they imagined her, each relating an idealised vision of femininity, ultimately turning her into a nebulous, ethereal presence simultaneously capable of being all things to all people. In keeping with such perception, Nistor remains unseen for most of the film, telling her story in voiceover while a younger actress plays her in the dramatisations.

It takes a certain talent to inject humour into a story of life under an oppressive regime, but amidst tales of persecution and repression Calugareanu manages it (such as with a pair of middle aged women describing their initial reaction to seeing Last Tango In Paris), crafting a story that’s part reminiscence, part documentary, part drama, and all fascination.

INFO: CHUCK NORRIS VS COMMUNISM / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: ILINCA CALUGAREANU / SCREENPLAY: N/A / STARRING: IRINA NISTOR, ANA MARIA MOLDOVAN, TEODOR ZAMFIR, DAN CHIOREAN / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:
 

One day, two ex-cons kidnap a millionaire’s daughter, bound her to a bed in a sound-insulated vacant apartment and holds her up for ransom or else she dies. As the clock ticks, Laura discovers that she may have a relationship with one of the kidnappers that she never expected and that the two men hold a secret that one could not have expected. Sounds strangely similar to The Disappearance of Alice Creed, doesn’t it? Well in fact, not only is Reckless’ narrative similar to Alice Creed’s, it’s pretty much an exact shot-for-shot, almost word-for-word remake with the only difference being that it’s all in Dutch instead of English. It’s like as if the film was styled and crafted by déjà vu.

It’s almost an inverse to the ever-growing problem of English-language remakes of foreign-language films, like Let the Right One In/Let Me In and both versions of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games. What we have here is something that is dangerously similar to Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho, with everything being copied and pasted from Alice Creed, but lacking the edge, soul, wit and integrity of the original. Everything right about Reckless is so closely copied from Alice Creed as to suggest that the makers of this version understand the original well enough to know exactly why they shouldn’t have remade it in the first place. It’s not that this remake is terrible, it’s that it’s incredibly baffling why this redundant remake even existed in the first place.

The fact of the matter is simply this: The Disappearance of Alice Creed did not need to be remade, and if you had made Alice Creed as well as it was, why bother doing it all again? It’s annoying, inexcusable and there’s absolutely no reason for it. Alice Creed was a perfectly stripped-down, three-handed thriller that was shot almost entirely on a single-location set, and even though it was tough and uncomfortable at times, it had a solidly smart script, incredibly strong performances, made the most of its limited resources, and reaped the benefits of fat-free filmmaking. When remaking a film, you have to do something that is both surprising and special in order to have the remake justified, but in the case of this, it isn’t justified at all. It just ends becoming pointless to watch, lacking the bite Alice Creed definitely had, and ends up being oddly toothless, reminding you just how fantastic the original was when it came out back in 2010.

In the end, Reckless is once again another classic example of a pointlessly redundant remake of a great film that didn’t need to be remade in the first place, and leaves you wondering why the hell it was remade shot-for-shot in the first place. Plus, if you are one of those people who loved The Disappearance of Alice Creed when it came out, that’s great, but if you are even remotely interested in seeing the remake, then why?

INFO: RECKLESS (BLOEDLINK) / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: JORAM LURSEN / SCREENPLAY: FRANK KETELAAR / STARRING: TYGO GERNANDT, MARWAN KENZARI, SARAH CHRONIS / RELEASE DATES: TBC

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:
 

If you haven’t already seen the latest trailers and posters for Terminator Genisys, AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS! The film adds a pretty huge wrinkle to the Terminator timeline, one that could have been one of the best, most head-scratching moments of the year, if it hadn’t been ruined by an over-eager marketing team. Needless to say, you won’t find this spoiler discussed here.

What you will find is a film that seems to worship the canon of James Cameron’s original Terminator films while simultaneously smashing it.

Judgment Day, the day the A.I. Skynet tries to wipe out humanity in nuclear fire, once again takes place on August 29th 1997, the date described in the original films (having been updated in the sequels). Those who survived banded together under the leadership of one John Connor (Jason Clarke), to fight back against the machines. After a hard fought war, humanity triumphs but not before Skynet uses the world’s first “tactical time weapon” to send a Terminator cyborg back to 1984 to kill John Connor’s mother Sarah before he’s even born. So far, so 1984.

This time, however, when John sends his friend Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back in time to protect his mother, instead of finding the naive, poodle-haired waitress of the first film, a much more capable and heavily-armed Sarah saves him from a familiar foe, along with the assistance of an aging “pet” Terminator she calls “Pops” (Arnold Schwarzenegger, obviously).

How did this happen? Is the “original” timeline gone forever? What happens to the future now? How, after A Good Day to Die Hard and I, Frankenstein does Jai Courtney keep getting work?

Surprisingly, most of these questions (except, perhaps, the last one) are resolved acceptably, and in many cases quite cleverly, but unfortunately the writers take this approach with a lot of ideas; introducing an initially dumb-sounding concept, wait out the eye-rolling of the fans, and then show how clever they are by revealing it to be perfectly well thought-out and in keeping with this new version of the franchise.

For example, in what seems like an incredibly lazy way to move the plot along, this version of Reese develops prophetic dreams telling him where next to strike at Skynet. Eventually an explanation is forthcoming, and not only does it fit neatly within the new temporal rules of the film, but it’s then reused a number of times, to great effect.

Despite these frequent hiccups, director Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World) keeps the pedal to the metal for almost the entirety of the film, only letting off on the enjoyable action to build up the central trio of Emilia Clarke, Schwarzenegger and Courtney or to take an unexpected detour to make room for an awful joke involving the old TV show Cops in the third act!

Thankfully the cast are engaging. Clarke doesn’t quite fill the Polaroid picture frame of Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor, but after Terminator 2 that’s an insanely high standard to live up to. Clarke does as well as anyone could be expected to, whether toting massive weaponry or sharing tender moments with her surrogate parent Terminator.

Schwarzenegger settles back into the role that made him famous like a well-worn biker jacket, and despite his age (and thanks to decent special effects) he manages to be fully engaged in the action, engaging multiple Terminators in epic battles. He’s also given more than enough opportunities to offer classic one-liners, most of which land perfectly on target.

Courtney is the weakest of the trio, turning Michael Biehn’s intense, desperate, cool Kyle Reese into a somewhat competent but almost perpetually confused lunkhead. J.K. Simmons also pops up as an engaging witness to our heroes’ adventures and his presence, along with numerous jokes shared between the main cast, lends a pretty light-hearted tone to a movie about averting the apocalypse.

Courtney’s casting, all those jokes, the rippling timeline and THAT twist all make Genisys feel like Terminator: Remix or an odd spin-off of the franchise. If you can accept this, then the film can be quite enjoyable, but many will be sure to dismiss it out of hand.

A franchise implies sequels and those clever writers again manage to create a mostly satisfying conclusion to the film, give Arnie the option to turn up again if he wants to and then provide a back door to future sequels during the credits.

Judgment Day, it seems, can be stopped. Terminator sequels… not so much.

INFO: TERMINATOR GENISYS / CERT: 12A / DIRECTOR: ALAN TAYLOR / SCREENPLAY: LAETA KALOGRIDIS, PATRICK LUSSIER / STARRING: ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, EMILIA CLARKE, JAI COURTNEY, JASON CLARKE, J.K. SIMMONS, MATT SMITH / RELEASE DATE: JULY 2ND

Expected Rating: 4 out of 10

Actual Rating:
 

When computer hacker Benjamin is brought in for questioning by Europol’s cybercrime division, he claims he has information on a dangerous hacker collective they are chasing. During his interrogation, he weaves an elaborate history of his experiences in the fast-paced and intense life of an online criminal.

In a setup reminiscent of The Usual Suspects or Norwegian thriller Jackpot, Benjamin acts as an unreliable narrator, sitting in police custody after a massacre and relating the events leading up to it, his tale growing ever more fanciful in the retelling. As he begins, he is revealed to have something of a superhero complex (and with an absent father and a dead mother, he practically has an origin story) but his frustration with how society has placed him doesn’t allow him to realise this, so instead he turns to cybercrime as a release. The small hacker collective CLAY he forms gives him a sense of purpose, while the online community of international cybercriminals allows him to feel a part of something.

One of the problems with making movies about hackers is that people hunched over laptops typing away at keyboards are not especially interesting to watch. To remedy this, the action takes several paths to keep the viewer engaged. As the online stunts CLAY performs often feature as much physical infiltration as they do actual coding, their events are more akin to the action of heist flicks. From their beginnings with infiltrating a meeting of white supremacists in order to plant a humiliating video to breaking into the offices of Germany’s national security agency, there is always a degree of real-life deception to their undertakings.

Like that seen in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, during the hacking sequences we get realistic representations of what the craft actually looks like, showing screens of code instead of the daft interactive 3D visuals so beloved of Hollywood’s glamorous misconception of what hacking entails. There is also an acknowledgment of the vastly different types of expertise programmers possess and how different areas of knowledge and proficiency are applicable in different situations, along with another offline element from the utilisation of the fact that the biggest threat to computer security is the people operating them failing to take proper precautions.

The film attempts to liken the technological deception to magic tricks, which in itself is certainly an admirable aspiration, but magic tricks in films rarely work as effectively as they do on stage due to the ease of deceit through editing choices. There’s nothing particularly clever about simply withholding information from your audience. Despite a rather smug payoff, Who Am I is still an engaging techno-thriller that also rather unnervingly reminds us that in the information age there can be no such thing as absolute security.

WHO AM I: NO SYSTEM IS SAFE / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: BARAN BO ODAR / SCREENPLAY: JANTJE FRIESE, BARAN BO ODAR / STARRING: TOM SCHILLING, ELYAS M’BAREK, WOTAN WILKE MÖHRING, ANTOINE MONOT JR, TRINE DYRHOLM, HANNAH HERZSPRUNG / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10
Actual Rating:

 

Tired of the ubiquitous online presences of their peers, a group of schoolgirls opt to abandon their digital lives and instead meet up in the woods in secret at night. When a classmate makes allegations against them, doubts over what they’ve been doing begin to be voiced, while the wall of silence they offer up in response only serves to make people more suspicious as events begin to spiral out of control.

The Sisterhood of Night is a film that could not have been made before now. Only in the information age where the minutiae of people’s lives are plastered online for all too see, can the conscious choice to remove yourself from social media be seen as unusual, and the decision to not talk about what you do with groups of friends be seen as suspicious.

In the beginning, the film’s reticence to relate exactly what it is the girls are doing during their nocturnal woodland excursions is a little frustrating, but after a while you realise that’s precisely the point. The teenage omertà is what binds the girls together, and to break it to any outsiders goes against the core of their understanding. When the truth is ultimately revealed everything becomes clear, and the revelation serves to reinforce the dangers of leaping to conclusions based on misunderstandings and assumptions.

It’s stated from the outset that the story end in tragedy and the news-style interviews of several characters from after the fact add further mystery over how events escalated from a trio of girls meeting in secret to an all-out modern day witch hunt. They are accused of being everything from witches to devil worshippers to a lesbian sex cult, and as the media fervour descends upon the unsuspecting town, unethical journalists blow every small detail way out of proportion for the sake of sensation, adding further fuel to an already volatile situation.

An interesting moral grey area comes from the girl who made the initial accusations. After sharing her alleged experiences on her blog, the site slowly grows into an online haven for victims of sexual abuse, a safe space for them to open up about the things that have been done to them. Whatever you make of her using her claims to attain the attention she originally craved, you can’t argue that at least in this respect she has done some good.

The Sisterhood of Night is a story of witch hunting in the modern age, where online abuse can prove just as deadly as the inquisitor’s pyre. And like those trials of centuries previous, the most galling thing is not what may or may not have been done, but the obstinate refusal of people to even consider anything other than their preconceived notions, along with what they do to go about proving them.

THE SISTERHOOD OF NIGHT / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: CARYN WAECHTER / SCREENPLAY: MARILYN FU / STARRING: GEORGIE HENLEY, KARA HAYWARD, WILLA CUTHRELL, OLIVIA DEJONGE, KAL PENN, LAURA FRASER / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10
Actual Rating:

The Minions shouldn’t work. Anything designed to be this cute, endearing and funny should be annoying as hell, call it the “Jar-Jar effect”,  but after arriving seemingly fully formed with relatively little fanfare in 2010’s Despicable Me, they have, nonetheless managed to steal the show from Steve Carell’s Gru in their debut and its 2013 sequel. So much so that they now have their own movie, a prequel and an origin story, of sorts, for the yellow, denim dungaree wearing, weirdos.

Minions is only an origin story in the very loosest definition of the term, their original creation mostly explained away as they just evolved this way, so deal with it. Without any real reason, a large part of that DNA is that they want to be led by the most evil creature they can find. Unfortunately, for any prospective bosses, the other parts of their DNA contain a certain tendency for accident proneness, not at any risk to themselves of course, but that can prove terminal for whoever deicide to take them on. After a particularly bad run of luck, narrated by Rush, the minions settle down to live in an underground idyll away from the world. Without a boss, however, they become despondent pretty quickly and so it falls to one particular minion, Kevin, to venture back out into the world to find his buddies a boss, less-than-ably-assisted by music loving Stuart, who has no real idea if what he has been volunteered for and eager, adventure loving, (if a bit silly) Bob. Oh and not forgetting Bob’s teddy bear Tim.

The ensuing adventure is less a story progression that a series of sketches all linked by the common presence of these three minions in 1968. They’ll have some hijinks in an uptown department store, encounter a slightly mad family on a road trip, attend “villain-con” (essentially comic-con for villains, there’s even a “Hall H” reference for the faithful), bump into famous figures of the 60’s and try and get Scarlett Overkill (Bullock), the biggest villain around, to take them on as her minions, all accompanied by an era specific soundtrack. Getting accepted by Scarlett will require the completion of some tasks, with assistance provided by some gadgets provided by Scarlet’s husband, Herb (Hamm), but really after this point things just get more and more silly. Importantly though, they do so while remaining entertaining, especially when Jennifer Saunders’  buck-toothed, have-a-go, 60’s Queen Elizabeth pops up, although it’s hard to say just how UK audiences will take to all the cod-Englishness on display here.

While boasting an impressive cast, many of the bigger names appear only as extended cameos. Keaton and Janney pop up here and there; Steve Coogan only appears for a very brief scene at villain-con while Bullock and Hamm weave in and out of the story from the middle until the end. Bullock is on great form as the temperamental Scarlet, relishing every purr and snarl as her moods swing, and Hamm is pretty much unrecognisable. The brunt of the movie however, rests squarely on the shoulders of co-director Pierre Coffin, who is credited as voice of the minions (perhaps along with some of those “other voices” credits?). Most of the movie is his sing song dialogue, sometimes consisting of total gibberish, sometimes with scatterings of French, Spanish and even Malay, amongst others, thrown into the mix. Along with some savvy writing, he manages to create characters and even character arcs for Kevin, Stuart, and Bob, and it never becomes wearing. Yes, the minions somehow manage to retain their charm in this third outing, whether it’s due to their slapstick antics, weirdly mundane names, sunny dispositions (especially Bob) or just the fact that it’s impossible to know how just they’ll react in any given situation.

The Minions movie is almost complete nonsense, but it’s good natured, enjoyable nonsense nonetheless.

MINIONS / CERT: U / DIRECTOR: KYLE BALDA, PIERRE COFFIN / SCREENPLAY: BRIAN LYNCH / STARRING: SANDRA BULLOCK, PIERRE COFFIN, JON HAMM, JENNIFER SAUNDERS, MICHAEL KEATON, ALLISON JANNEY, STEVE COOGAN, GEOFFREY RUSH / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10
Actual Rating: 

Adam and Clare are English spouses temporarily relocated to the Irish countryside for Adam’s work. Met with disregard and mistrust by the locals, they are warned of things in the woods that take babies in the night, especially ones like the adorable blob they are raising. It soon becomes all too apparent that strange happenings might not be the work of their disgruntled neighbour, but something far more dangerous.

It soon turns out that they are facing fairies. Not the insipid sparkling insects of Disney films, or even the supernatural warriors of contemporary fantasy, but backwoods legends spoken of in hushed whispers. Vicious creatures of malice and spite, they lurk in the darkened shadows of nature where humanity is yet to exert its influence, embodying primal fears shunted into the darkest recesses of our collective subconscious.

On paper The Hallow sounds like little more than just another generic supernatural horror titled with some ominous-sounding word you don’t quite know the meaning of, but it proves itself far, far superior to such standard fare.

Although the action often utilises standard jump scares, they are timed in such a way that they manage to surprise you. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with the application of judicious lighting choices and well-timed sound effects. Similarly, camera angles are positioned in such a manner to make you expect something to leap into frame, only for something else to appear elsewhere right at the moment you let your guard down, or shots lingering for a few moments on something you can’t quite make out. It’s like someone finally paid attention to Scream, and then transposed the lessons to Irish folklore.

As well as the slowly revealed nightmarish creatures, we get the forest itself intruding on the couple’s home with spreading black sludge, out of which grow sentient wooden tentacles that call to mind the spider tendrils of The Thing. Also, after a bit of gradual body horror, we also learn that no matter how good a film might have been so far, it can always be improved with the addition of a flaming scythe. Flaming scythes are cool.

Anyone familiar with stories of the fairies may guess the third act plot development, but it doesn’t play out in the way you would assume, and actually manages to inject some tension and uncertainty into what is happening, managing to keep you from guessing between reality and illusion until the very last moment.

Decent horror films are few and far between these days; great ones are even rarer, but you can most certainly count The Hallow amongst the latter. In spite of its familiar set up and character types, it feels fresh, original and, as is also depressingly infrequent theses days, genuinely scary.

THE HALLOW / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: CORIN HARDY / SCREENPLAY: CORIN HARDY, FELIPE MARINO / STARRING: JOSEPH MAWLE, BOJANA NOVAKOVIC, MICHAEL MCELHATTON, MICHAEL SMILEY / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 13TH

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating: