Review Category: Movie

There is definite bite to Burke Doeren’s creature-feature Grizzly Night, a dramatization of the events leading up to and during the fatal bear attacks that occurred in Montana’s Glacier National Park on August 12th, 1967. Yet, while the ferocity and terror of the attacks themselves is chillingly recreated, the surrounding film is more of a documentary-style recreation.

With the rangers more concerned with the risk of forest fires than animal attacks, they’re quick to dismiss reports of some bad bear-haviour (apologies). That is, until there is an attack on two teenagers near one of the lodges, followed quickly by reports of another.

Doeren’s film expertly captures the horrific, first-person perspective of being mauled by a quarter-ton grizzly rather than luridly satisfying the gorehounds. This isn’t about blood and guts; this is a demonstration if one were needed of how powerful and dangerous a bear can be. Doeren is interested in the victims rather than exploitative action, and his film is better for it.

What isn’t so good is the wraparound story. The 1960s setting appears too polished and stylised, giving off a shop window aesthetic. And with perhaps the exception of rookie ranger Joan (Lauren Call), who at least as something passing for an arc, and Oded Fehr as the doctor who tries to save the lives of those attacked, the characters are one-dimensional and instantly forgettable. You just don’t feel engaged with any of the many, many people on screen, with any engagement in the story dissipating during every interaction that isn’t Ursine-related.

There’s much to admire about the bears, but it’s the humans who let the film down.

Writer-director Johannes Roberts (best known for the 47 Meters Down bloodbath) doesn’t hold back with his new creature feature Primate, immediately introducing the audience to chimpanzee Ben, who, clearly infected with something, inadvertently rips the face off a well-meaning vet. This sets the tone for a fun and bloody horror film that, despite some missteps and missed opportunities, delivers 90 minutes of chimp goodness.

Cut to 36 hours earlier; Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) is flying back to visit her father in Hawaii, accompanied by best friend Kate (Victoria Wyant), bitchy acquaintance Hannah (Jessica Alexander), and love interest Nick (Benjamin Cheng). Her deaf dad (Troy Kotsur) is a successful author, living in a plush, isolated villa, which is just as well because we won’t be venturing outside it. The house also contains Lucy’s sister Erin and loving chimp Ben; it turns out Lucy’s now-deceased mum was trying to teach him sign language, so he’s intelligent and lovable, complete with humanising red T-shirt.

It’s immediately noticeable that Ben is brought to life by an actor in a suit rather than CGI, which is refreshing and really helps you build affection for him. Unfortunately, we all know what’s going to happen. Ben is bitten by a rabid mongoose and tears off the aforementioned vet’s face, Dad leaves for a book signing, while the girls party and invite hot guys they met on the plane over, but they soon discover something is not right with Ben…

The film does a good job of making us care about Ben, so it’s almost upsetting to see him taken over by the rabies virus and attack the girls. However, despite a couple of moments when we see non-rabid Ben return for a brief moment, this is largely forgotten and he quickly turns into a generic creature for the remainder of the film – sneaking up on people, sniffing at them, and chasing them around. The girls also spend far too much time in the swimming pool (the one place Ben won’t venture), the writers finding it easier to stuff them in one location than to think of multiple scenarios.

Audiences have really come here for the kills, and they won’t be disappointed, with Ben employing tools to batter skulls and even removing the jaw of one of the guys. Primate certainly doesn’t shy away from the brutal nature of our closest cousin, never taking itself too seriously. The biggest missed opportunity, though, is not having the last remnants of Ben’s ‘humanity’ on show before he must be dispatched; he is skilfully set up as a member of the family but is ultimately terminated like a CGI shark. A shame, but a riot nonetheless.

PRIMATE is released in UK cinemas on January 30th 2026.

Timur Bekmambetov’s latest takes his fascination with so-called “screenlife” storytelling, most recently (and most appallingly) realised in last year’s irredeemable War of the Worlds (which he produced), in a much more appealing direction. This new AI-inspired thriller is in many ways the next generation of found footage film-making, with much of its twisty narrative unfolding via “accessed footage”.

In 2029, LA’s crime problem has been partly solved by the introduction of an AI justice system called Mercy. Criminals are faced with the overwhelming evidence of their crimes and allowed 90 minutes to prove their innocence. Chris Pratt plays sozzled cop Chris Raven, who wakes up to find himself strapped into the Mercy seat and confronted by the system’s AI interface Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson).

Raven’s wife Nicole is dead and all the visual evidence suggests that he’s the perp. Despite the rocky state of his marriage, he knows he didn’t kill Nicole. Faced with Mercy’s probability rating that he’s the killer, he’s given the chance to clear his name by accessing CCTV footage, mobile phone data, drones and anything else that might help him save his own skin.

It’s a dizzying whirl of a film, leaping nimbly across images lifted from a hundred sources. At first it’s a slightly disconcerting conceit, but once we’re on board with the way the narrative unfolds, we’re invited to relax and enjoy the deft spins and turns of the plot. Pratt’s performance as the embattled cop is a refreshing change from his usual everyman hero schtick and Rebecca Ferguson is as faultless as ever as the AI  that sometimes seems a bit too human.

Mercy won’t be anyone’s film of the year and it’s almost designed to be totally forgotten within in a month, but it’s brisk and action-packed and, despite the fact that its hero is strapped to a chair for much of its runtime, the film itself never sits still. If you can suspend your disbelief high enough, it’s sure to win you over with its restless energy and visual inventiveness.

MERCY is on general release in cinemas now.

Nia DaCosta takes the baton passed by Danny Boyle after last summer’s striking 28 Years Later to deliver a powerful, compelling and at times quite disturbing movie that’s really part two of the story so deftly set up by the “franchise” creators Boyle and writer Alex Garland last year.

The Bone Temple is a much more downbeat affair (although not without moments of pitch-black humour) that focuses not so much on the infected but on the world (well, the UK… the last film slightly frustratingly suggested that the rest of the world escaped the worst of the outbreak) that has sprung up around them in the wake of the rage virus carnage depicted in the first film way back in 2002.

Picking up from the end of the previous film, young Spike (Alfie Williams) has been recruited into the gang of “Jimmies” – all wearing blonde wigs, cheap tracksuits and bedecked with gaudy bling. They’re led by the charismatic but psychopathic Lord Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), who rules by fear by telling his followers that he is the son of Satan and receives occasional visitations from Old Nick. The Jimmies travel the country terrorising survivors of the infection and imposing Sir Jimmy’s own form of “charity” upon those who cross their path.

The appearance of the Jimmies at the climax of 28 Years Later was controversial to say the least, due to their unsettling resemblance to a certain disgraced deceased DJ and broadcaster; the resemblance is never remarked upon here but the analogy is clear – these are fictional monsters based on the  enduring image of a real-life one.

Elsewhere, Dr Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) is still living in isolation amongst his Bone Temple, his ossuary to the dead, listening to Duran Duran on his wind-up gramophone and forging an unlikely kinship with monstrous Alpha infected Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry) with the help of morphine-tipped darts that dull Samson’s rage tendencies. Eventually the paths of the Jimmies and Kelson cross – with devastating consequences for both sides.

The Bone Temple is a masterpiece of dread and horror, but it’s an expertly told story full of humanity in a world where it’s in short supply. Violence is sharp, brutal and bloody, and the appalling reign of terror carried out by the Jimmies is in sharp contrast to Kelson’s solitary, disconnected world where he is risking his own life in the hope of finding a way to quell the more psychopathic effects of the rage virus.

These are two worldviews that are never going to be easy bedfellows, and Garland’s beautifully crafted script, allied to DaCosta’s extraordinarily powerful and sensitive direction, and with hair-raising performances from Fiennes and O’Connell especially, creates a film that transcends the horror genre in which it ostensibly, if uneasily, sits.

The Bone Temple confounds and surpasses expectations. It’s the best in the series by some way and it thrillingly sets up the third entry in this new trilogy, recently greenlit and hopefully entering production sooner rather than later. A bold, bleak, but breathtakingly accomplished start to a new year of genre cinema.

28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE is in cinemas now.

The father (Christmas) of all slasher Santa films is back, over forty years after it once outraged audiences into a 1984 cinema ban.

The second remake in the franchise, director Mike P. Nelson’s Silent Night, Deadly Night returns the series to its gritty roots of violent axe murders and unsettled young men working dead-end retail jobs. A young boy, following a traumatic visit to his grandfather, witnesses his parents’ murder in a seemingly random attack on Christmas Eve. The man responsible? A lone weirdo, dressed as Santa Claus.

Years later, and an all-growed up Billy Chapman (Rohan Campbell) relieves his trauma by dressing up as jolly Saint Nick and delivering bloody punishment. Shorn of the Catholic guilt of his ’80s counterpart, Campbell’s Chapman is an entirely different beast – taking more inspiration from Dexter’s dark design than Santa’s naughty list. He even has a killer’s code! The film’s departures from the lore may upset Silent Night, Deadly Night purists, but it’s still a more faithful approach than the 2012 version (you don’t put avocado on the burger!) – and at least it never gets as silly as the one with Mickey Rooney.

A quietly intense Campbell is well-prepared for the material, having followed a similar path in Halloween Ends. Elsewhere, Ruby Modine injects some energy as fearsome shopkeeper’s heiress Pam, while Mark Acheson serves as another Christmassy Easter egg, following up his turn in Elf, as Billy’s dark passenger, Charlie.

Taking an approach which both modernises the source material and pays tribute to the grit of its ’80s predecessor, Silent Night, Deadly Night is a joyfully subversive take on the horror remake. While it never loses sight of what made the original tick (including a Garbage Day gag, in reference to its 1987 sequel), it’s not afraid to take some big swings either – specifically where Billy’s axe is concerned. This culminates in a sequence involving modern-day Nazis, a Christmas party, and multiple people in Santa costumes.

As remakes go, it’s up there with The Hills Have Eyes 2006 and Evil Dead 2013 as one of the best that the genre has to offer. A very naughty horror remake, executed with a devious glimmer of the eye.

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT is out in UK cinemas now.

 

 

Hannibal showrunner Bryan Fuller makes his feature debut with this dark, but family-friendly take on the monster under your bed.

Young Aurora (Sophie Sloan) is terrified of the monster under her bed, much to the amusement of her foster parents. When she hears some noises one night, she sneaks out of the house to spy on her intriguingly unnamed neighbour in flat 5B (Mads Mikkelsen). She witnesses him battle and slay a ferocious dragon (actually the type used in Chinese New Year celebrations), so naturally, she thinks he can sort out her monster problem. Scraping together some money, she approaches him to hire his services. Humouring her, he becomes her protector as the beast under the bed wreaks havoc in the house, particularly when the mob boss (David Dastmalchian) of the crew the neighbour beat the night before comes along for vengeance.

Mikkelsen is masterfully understated in the role of hitman-turned-monster slayer. The relationship between Aurora, fearless with her protector by her side, and the neighbour is evocative of Luc Besson’s Leon, only on a much more wholesome level. Young Sloan proves that not all child actors are precocious brats, delivering an endearing performance. Sigourney Weaver makes her presence felt with some awesome stiletto pistols.

From the dialogue-free opening to the floorboard-shaking conclusion, Fuller’s lush visuals captivate. The apartment complex features colourful rooms and a classic central elevator, all shot in a lush, sweeping style. And despite the action being very much teen-friendly, there’s still a fair bit of violence, and the monster could still be terrifying for younger tykes.

DUST BUNNY is out now in the US.