SOUND OF VIOLENCE **** USA / Finland 2021 Dir: Alex Noyer. 93 mins Writer-director Alex Noyer’s feature debut is an expansion of his exceptional 2018 short Conductor and reaffirms him as a talent to watch. Told via voiceover narration, it opens in 2002, with young, deaf Alexis (Kamia Benge) struggling to understand the mental state of her PTSD-afflicted father, who quivers silently at the dinner table before finally snapping and bludgeoning her family to death with a meat hammer. She survives by carrying out an act of extreme violence herself, and the act has a miraculous effect on her hearing.…
Author: Steven West
MIND GAMES *** USA 1989 Dir: Bob Yari. 93 mins Derbyshire-born actor Maxwell Caulfield had the misfortune to get his big break in the 1980s with an unpopular sequel to one of the previous decade’s biggest hits. In truth, GREASE 2 has always been sorely underrated and he was genuinely unsettling opposite Charlie Sheen as the eponymous THE BOYS NEXT DOOR (1985), Penelope Spheeris’ grim study of disaffected 80s youth. MIND GAMES, a rare directorial effort by future Oscar-winning producer Bob Yari, is also a fine showcase for the good-looking young actor. Confusingly marketed as a more conventional slasher-inflected chiller,…
HANUKKAH * USA 2019 Dir: Eben McGarr. 106 mins A Jewish slasher movie modelled partly on IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA with straight-from-the-horror-convention casting and composer Harry Manfredini and stunt co-ordinator Kane Hodder among the credits. It opens with a long-haired, cadaverous Sid Haig as a notorious serial killer who carves the Star of David into his victim’s chest but is shot dead by cops while preparing to sacrifice his young son Obediah Lazarus (Joe Knetter). 36 years later, Obediah believes that God is personally giving him access to a further 53 commandments not in the Torah, and begins killing…
THE NIGHTS BEFORE CHRISTMAS ** Canada 2019 Dir: Paul Tanter. 103 mins Director / co-writer Paul Tanter reunites here with the stars of his earlier jokey British slasher flick ONCE UPON A TIME AT CHRISTMAS (2017), in which the killings were modelled after the Yuletide favourite The 12 Days of Christmas. This strained, vastly overlong sequel sees the returning axe-wielding, silver-toothed, cackling Santa (co-writer Simon Phillips) liberating his Mrs Claus (Sayla de Goede) from jail and resuming their earlier rampage – with a particular vendetta against the corrupt board of the asylum in which he was incarcerated. Topless girls and…
THE LAST FIVE DAYS * USA 2020 Dir: Clay Moffatt. 70 mins Framed by an unconvincing press conference about the mysterious deaths of two students (“Wasn’t there a tape found in the camera?”), this found footage movie is largely a two hander starring co-writers Clay Moffatt and Joe Pacini, with Moffatt directing. Greg (Moffatt) and Brian (Pacini) are studying film production and the footage in question is from their ill-fated final project as they set off to capture some salacious clips from supposedly haunted sites at Pennington Orchard and Silly Mountain (yes, they note what a stupid name that is).…