Tag: chloe leeson
-
‘It Lives Inside’ Finds Frights in Western Assimilation
An otherworldly red landscape, screaming and burning bodies and a book left open covered in blood splatter are the first images we see traversing the demonic netherworld of Bishal Dutta’s It Lives Inside. There’s something about these in-between spaces, creeping realities and alternate dimensions ripped out from under our own that are haunting Gen-Z horror…
-
GSFF’23 – Comedy Pilot ‘Stunners’ Is Packed With Charm, Heart And Plenty Of Filthy Laughs
Sarah Grant and Katrina Allen will save comedy on this hellish island. Stunners is a soothing balm to antidote much of the middle-class, privately-educated and Southeast England-centric TV comedy being circulated around the UK. Commissioned as a pilot by BBC Scotland (clearly the more fun younger sibling of Britain’s broadcasting giant), the 14-minute short played…
-
Experimental Found-Footage Nightmare ‘Skinamarink’ Conjures the Worst of Your Childhood Imagination
The success of Kyle Edward Ball’s analog experiment Skinamarink, has much to thank to the viral (here meaning an infection passing rapidly throughout a people, as opposed to something like the ‘Mr Beast does Squid Game’ video) origins of the internet’s spookiest corners and the freaks that (lovingly) keep the culture alive. Skinamarink spread through…
-
Persuasion Is Petulant And Somehow Even Worse Than Imagined
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Austen sells. Whether it be the measured mini-series of Andrew Davies, to the sweeping elegance of Ang Lee and Joe Wright, to the indulgent glory of Amy Heckerling and Autumn De Wilde. Thus far, aside from a few misfires, most adaptations have brought something new to the Austen-verse,…
-
Spiritual Horror Debut ‘A Banquet’ Bites off a Little More Than it can Chew
**CONTENT WARNING: DISORDERED EATING, EATING DISORDERS** Everything in Ruth Paxton’s debut feature, A Banquet, is designed to put you off. From the heightened sound design to the stark interiors and the body contortions, Paxton’s world is inhabitable, unmanageable. The first time we enter the home of mother Holly (Sienna Guillory) and her daughters Betsey (Jessica…
-
Subverting Rom-Com Tropes, ‘The Worst Person in the World’ Tackles the Challenges of the Millennial Woman
Millennial women have had it rough. Over the last few years think-pieces on millennial women have been published at every major news outlet. Some praise the advances of feminism that have allowed western women to make decisions about things like when to have babies (if at all), how much sex they have (and who with),…
-
Welsh Horror ‘The Feast’ Serves up a Deliciously Unsettling Debut
The last section of Lee Haven Jones’ debut feature The Feast opens with a title card reading, ‘After you’ve taken everything, what will be left?’ — a defiantly anti-capitalist sentiment that rings throughout this atmospheric slow-burn. Haven Jones’ decision to shoot the film in Welsh feels particularly important to a country that often feels disenfranchised…
-
‘V/H/S/ 94’ is a Gritty and Gory Found Footage Anthology, and Probably the Best One Yet
When The Blair Witch Project premiered in 1999 it popularised found footage to the masses, but before that the technique had only been seen in a couple of other horror films. Cannibal Holocaust and Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood were both thought at one point to be real snuff films —the pretty…
-
Rape and Revenge in the Disturbing ‘Violation’ Offers no Catharsis
*CONTENT WARNING: Rape and sexual violence* Rape revenge films are a divisive topic at the best of times. Opinions vary between seeing the films as a cathartic exercise and on the other hand that rape should never be used as a narrative vehicle. One of the great successes of the emergence of a new age…
-
PAFF ’21— 2020 Election Slasher ‘Red Pill’ Tries to Play with Politics
Red Pill, from Tony award-winning actress turned director Tonya Pinkins, premiered at the Pan African Film Festival this month, and might just be the first horror film to attempt to tackle the 2020 US election. The film follows a group of Democrat supporters heading into “red” territory in Virginia to canvas white women voters (attributing…
Screen Queens 