THE LAKE *** Thailand 2022 Dir: Lee Thongkham & Aqing Xu. 120 mins A superb finale to Grimmfest 2022, THE LAKE is a Thai homage to Japanese giant monster horror where a young girl finds a large egg by the river and takes it back to her village. Unfortunately, it’s mum follows her. Considering we were deliriously tired, this film was a total hoot thanks to it’s unintentional humour. The subtitles seemed to have been created via Google Translate and some didn’t seem quite right for the situation on screen. This may have, in part, been due to the script…
Author: Poppy Blundell
MOON GARDEN *** USA 2022 Dir: Ryan Stevens Harris. 93 mins Whilst 5 year old Emma (Haven Lee Harris) is unconscious, she goes on an adventure to get home by following her mother’s voice on the radio. I found this could have been shortened by at least 15 minutes as there was a bit of a lull in the pacing around the midway point of the film. At such a young age, Haven Lee Harris provides a powerful performance that keeps the audience hooked. She truly is the lightness in the dark. The reality and fantasy blur together as Emma…
HOUSE OF DARKNESS *** USA 2022 Dir: Neil LaBute. 88 mins HOUSE OF DARKNESS begins with Hap (Justin Long) dropping his mysterious date Mina (Kate Bosworth) at her castle in the country, having met her earlier that night in a bar. However, once he goes inside, he feels something is off. This was yet another gothic vampire horror, this time with a modern twist. I had been expecting great things from an all star cast and Neil LaBute writing and directing. This certainly didn’t meet my expectations or it’s potential, but it is still an enjoyable watch for the most…
THE LONELIEST BOY IN THE WORLD ***** UK 2022 Dir: Martin Owen. 90 mins Oliver, The Loneliest Boy In The World, just wants to make friends following the death of his mother but his peers have other ideas. Rather than be carted off to a psychiatric ward, he decides he’ll have to come up with a new way to make friends and heads back to the local graveyard after dark. Max Harwood was truly brilliant as oddball Oliver and was able to portray a broken character in a light-hearted manner to add charm and humour to this enjoyable comedy horror.…
MEGALOMANIAC ** Belgium 2022 Dir: Karim Ouelhaj. 100 mins Ouelhaj takes us to Wallonia Brussels, where we meet Martha and Félix, the two children of the Butcher of Mons. We follow their unstable lives as they descend into dark chaos. Thoroughly violent, Megalomaniac takes us on a bizarre fictional ride that is influenced by the real life Butcher of Mons who was terrorising Belgium back in the 90s. To this day, they haven’t been caught. The cinematography was well done, for the most part, and combined with the gore, there are some images that will likely not be forgotten in…