Review Category: Movie

Imagine if a tryst between Johns Wick and McClane had produced Beatrix Kiddo as their love child. Next, suppose that she’d checked into the Grand Budapest Hotel for a game of hide-and-seek with a cult of Satan-worshipping lunatics. Now picture what a side-scrolling video game adaptation of that film might look like.

Thrown onto this wild ride is Asia Reaves, a seemingly unassuming young woman who takes on a housekeeping job at a luxurious New York high-rise. As she settles in for the night, Asia comes to realise that there’s more going on than meets the eye… but that’s fine, the murderous denizens of the Virgil are in for an eye-watering wake-up call too.

Of its many influences, the fingerprints of Quentin Tarantino are all over this thing – extreme bloodletting, red ball gags, toe-slurping and all. If that sounds insufferable, then They Will Kill You probably isn’t your tempo. It’s a relentless onslaught of violence, exploding body parts and geysers of blood, compounded by an insanely game performance from star Zazie Feetz – sorry, Beetz – as Asia.

Standing in the way of a touching family reunion (an unexpected parallel to Ready or Not 2) is house mother Lily (Patricia Arquette, saddled with an inexplicable Irish accent) and her clan of dark deity-worshipping monsters. This includes Draco Malfoy star Tom Felton as hapless Kevin (his best post-Potter performance since Rise of the Planet of the Apes), and a scene-stealing Heather Graham in her most eye-opening role to date. It’s a fun cast, with Myha’la and Peep Show’s Paterson Joseph also popping up to ensure that things don’t get too one-sided in either direction.

It’s all deeply silly, but Beetz and director Kirill Sokolov commit wholeheartedly to the bit, utilising the logic of a video game to deliver fight sequence after fight sequence, each more beat-’em-up coded than the last. It’s exhausting viewing, but never outstays its welcome, throwing Asia into a new situation or peril before the previous scene has had time to get stale. Barely pushing ninety minutes, it barrels from brisk setup to bonkers ending, never losing momentum or pausing for thought.

THEY WILL KILL YOU is out in UK cinemas from March 27th, 2026.

A haunted journalist, traumatised by a particularly harrowing recent experience, learns that he may be a reincarnated serial killer when he encounters a celebrity hypnotherapist. Guided by slick Bevan (Jeremy Piven), Jason (Aneurin Barnard) attempts to unlock the mystery by stepping into the shoes (and black leather gloves) of his past self. Forced to bear witness as he slaughters a number of women in the 1980s, disgusted Jason is determined to make his past self answer for these awful crimes. But how sure can he be of what he’s experiencing? And what have Jason and Bevan wrought by dredging up the grisly past?

Directed by Simeon Halligan (creator of Grimmfest and director of 2014’s White Settlers), Past Life utilises the filmmaker’s beloved Manchester, setting the stage for a modern Giallo. It’s an unexpected but welcome genre riff, and although it doesn’t have the visuals nor the verve to pull off its Hitchcock or De Palma aspirations, there is a sense of atmosphere there which makes good use of its setting.

What Past Life also boasts is a strong cast, including Nicholas Farrell, Tim McInnery and Pixie Lott (yes, that Pixie Lott) in small but effective roles. The pop star is particularly charming as Jason’s pregnant partner Claira, overcoming some goofy dialogue and flimsy characterisation to deliver the film’s meatiest performance. She’s doing quite a bit of heavy lifting here, between Barnard’s unconvincing lead and a distracting Piven – who flits in and out of the narrative when it suits – but it all comes together as past and present converge in a tense finale.

Written by Halligan along with screenwriters Ray Bogdanovich and Dean Lines, Past Life is an engaging mystery, and one which does a good job of keeping the audience on its toes. There’s a sense of Déjà Vu to some of its twists toward the end, but it’s an enjoyably grimy British Giallo with a cool cast and original setting.

PAST LIFE is out now in UK cinemas.

2019’s Ready Or Not was an unexpected delight. It transformed the then-mildly-famous Samara Weaving (at the time best known for Netflix’s teen-centric horror The Babysitter… and Home and Away) into an instant horror icon, and propelled directors Radio Silence (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett) onto the horror A-list, with two Scream entries and the wildly entertaining Abigail following.

The ironic part of this is that, for the most part, the movie is more of a black comedy than a horror. The ‘hide and seek in a creepy old house with a Satan worshipping cult’ is ripe with scary potential, but it’s played largely for laughs, albeit with copious amounts of blood and a few gnarly moments. Scares were few and far between, but the movie was so much fun that you instantly forgave it.

Following the original’s popularity, a sequel was inevitable, and the awkwardly titled Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come sticks largely to the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ formula, pitting Weaving’s Grace against a new group of ultra-rich devil worshippers.

The story picks up immediately after the first movie, as Grace awakens in hospital where – unusually for a horror – the police have a couple of questions about her recent killing spree. That’s interrupted by the arrivals first of Grace’s estranged sister Faith (an excellent Kathryn Newton) and then another of those lovely devil worshippers. Within minutes, Grace is back in her bloodstained wedding dress and covered with a copious amount of fresh gore. We’re back.

It turns out that the Le Domases from the original weren’t the only rich family who’d made a literal deal with the Devil, and Grace’s defeat of them has triggered a power play for control of the world. Whoever kills her in a new game gains ultimate power, along with a natty ring symbolising it (current owner, one David Cronenberg, obviously). Overseeing this game to determine who controls this all-powerful ring – and the world – is the Devil’s lawyer, played by Elijah Wood (we see what they did there) who sets out some ground rules, throws Faith into the game for LOLs, and does an impressive job of remaining blood-free whenever someone explodes in his vicinity.

Cue another deadly game of hide and seek. As per the rules of sequels, everything’s a bit bigger. The original creepy house is here upgraded to a golfing resort (in what we’d like to think is a subtle jibe at a certain US president), and the number of adversaries is increased. In a neat twist, only one member from each family is permitted to hunt at once, with the rest watching on CCTV, bickering and occasionally exploding when rules are breached. Oh, did we mention that the new additions include the long-overdue proper big screen return of a certain Sarah Michelle Geller as one of the potential heirs to ultimate power? The erstwhile (*sob*) Buffy Summers is a brilliant addition to the cast – and yes, she does indeed wield a (metal) stake at one point.

Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett have cited Aliens and Terminator 2 as their inspirations for expanding their world in the sequel, and they do a good job of growing the mythology. Unlike those films though – which essentially transplanted the original concept into a new genre – this hews fairly close to the original. When the idea’s as entertaining as Ready or Not that’s no bad thing, but anyone expecting an expanding of the mythology on a par with Cameron’s masterpieces (back when he made good sequels) may be left wanting.

While we’re nitpicking, there’s also a couple of male-on-female violence moments that are a bit too realistic and verge on crossing the line into bad taste. And in a post-Epstein/Trump world where we’re regularly exposed to the actual crimes of those who do wield power, a Satan-worshipping cult controlling the world seems quaint, if not actually preferable. However, the movie isn’t really interested in exploring the satire its concept presents, which is somewhat of a shame.

Still, Weaving’s Grace is a true modern horror (and/or black comedy) icon, and her pairing with Newton is inspired. Two bickering sisters mending their relationship while dispatching bad guys (and girls) in various bloody ways makes for very entertaining cinema. There are some great set pieces (one which we’ll call ‘Battle of the Brides’ is hilarious), some neat gnarly kills, and – if possible – even more blood than the original. What more could you ask?

READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME is in cinemas now. 

The beloved horror sequel The Bride of Frankenstein recently celebrated its 90th anniversary (an occasion marked on the cover of STARBURST issue 492), but as iconic as she’s become, Elsa Lanchester’s title character only appears on screen in that movie for just over two minutes.

Now, writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal has set out to redress that balance with The Bride!, a bold reimagining of the tale. Her radically feminist approach is evident from the opening scene, in which the spirit of Mary Shelley (newly Oscar-winning Jessie Buckley) addresses the camera to tell us that her story as we’ve previously been told it was incomplete, and we’re about to witness the missing chapter.

That chapter takes place in 1930s Chicago, and follows Ida (also Buckley, because why not?) and Frank (Christian Bale), aka Frankenstein’s monster. Looking for companionship, Frank enlists the aid of Doctor Euphronius (Annette Bening), and together they bring back Doctor F’s old methods and resurrect a dead woman – Ida, who’s recently had a fatal fall.

The two former corpses set off on a journey across America, but everywhere they go, they discover that being a monster isn’t easy, and for Ida, being both a monster and a woman doubly so. The film doesn’t shy away from showing the dangers they face, or from the violent methods Frank uses to protect Ida. What begins as an optimistic quest to meet Frank’s favourite silent movie actor Ronnie Reed (Maggie’s brother Jake Gyllenhaal) turns into a brutal bloodbath and a Bonnie and Clyde-esque crime spree – with a dance number in the middle. And the choice of song for that number is one so associated with a different Frankenstein-related movie that you can’t quite believe Gyllenhaal would dare go there, but she does, and through strength of convictions, and having a very different angle on it, it works.

That’s a common strand throughout The Bride! – it’s a maximalist approach to the subject which takes everything it has, every possible idea Gyllenhaal must have thought of, and chucks it forcefully at the screen. A lot of it works, joyfully rattling ahead alongside the soundtrack by Hildur Guðnadóttir and original songs by Swedish electropop musician Fever Ray.

Some of it doesn’t work – Ida’s ‘possession’ by Shelley’s spirit is laboured and unexplained, and a climactic piece of dialogue hammers in the film’s message in a painfully unsubtle manner. But the film moves along with such pace, energy and conviction that it hardly matters. If Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein was too by-the-book for your tastes, you couldn’t get a more alternative take than this fabulously punk update.

THE BRIDE! is in UK cinemas now.

No film has made this writer feel so anxious and tense quite like this one did. Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is an absolute masterpiece in exploring the struggles of a working mother who has the whole world against her. It’s strongly focused on mental health and the difficulty of balancing all your responsibilities, while also being a psychological horror relating to the sheer pressure mothers are put through from start to finish.

From the get go, the film sucks the viewer into its world of stress and exhaustion. Psychotherapist and mother Linda (Rose Byrne) has everything against her – a medically complex child who is just not getting any better, a husband who’s away for work, nightmare clients, a destroyed home, and personal trauma that is eating away at her; even just one of these things would drive anyone up the wall.

The exhaustion that Linda is experiencing is palpable, and you have no idea when she’s going to snap. Bronstein’s visual direction drags the viewer into this nightmare and amps up the anxiety – though absolutely stunning, it’s so nerve-wracking at the same time.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You does a momentous job of exploring the struggles a mother, who is spread so thin, can go through when all she wants is a break or some help – because god forbid a woman enjoys a glass of wine and a cigarette after a long stressful day. This film deserves all the time in the world and is a shining entry in the feminist horror catalogue.

IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU is in UK cinemas now.

Clocking in at around an hour, Dariuss is another assault on the senses from Guerilla Metropolitana (who brought us the similarly shattering The Benefactress). It’s a blending of found footage, surrealism, and avant-garde filmmaking in an equally uncompromising way.

The story, set in rural Essex, follows a family destroyed by the disappearance and presumed death of a young girl. The family’s seemingly idyllic middle-class existence in the English countryside descends into violence, pain, and bloodshed as each family member struggles to deal with their loss. It’s not exactly an original premise for a psychological horror film, but rather than telling this story in a linear fashion, Dariuss fractures it into disjointed, often disturbing vignettes that depict grief in its most grotesque and psychologically unhinged forms. The result is a viewing experience that feels intentionally disorientating, forcing the audience to piece together meaning from fragments of imagery, sound, and symbolic violence.

Like The Benefactress, Dariuss is not a film for everyone. Its explicit imagery and confrontational themes have been seen by some as signs of a bold work of underground art. Others dismiss it as excessive and impenetrable. Guerilla Metropolitana employs degraded film textures, strobe effects, and layered sound design to create a nightmarish atmosphere that feels both intimate and alienating.

Dariuss is less about narrative satisfaction and more about immersion in a director’s uncompromising vision. It’s a film that challenges, disturbs, and lingers. Whether you view it as a daring artistic statement or an exercise in extremity will depend entirely on your tolerance for experimental cinema.

DARIUSS is available on Blu-ray from Srs Cinema.