THE BLOODY APE *** USA 1997 Dir: Kevin Crocker. 77 mins That sound you hear is Edgar Allan Poe turning (or, perhaps, wanking) in his grave at being credited for inspiring this horny, rough-and-ready Super 8 “homage” to the oft-filmed “Murders in the Rue Morgue”. You’ll know quite early on as to whether this is your cup of snuff: if you like your camerawork to always be in focus and don’t find the line “Your cock smells like an ape” thigh-slappingly funny, it might not be for you. For the most part, it’s an enjoyably grungy, eager-to-please tribute to 42nd…
Author: Steven West
SPIRAL ***** Canada 2019 Dir: Kurtis David Harder. 90 mins Co-written by John Poliquin and latter-day Canadian genre maestro Colin Minihan, SPIRAL sports a familiar horror narrative structure. It opens with a past act of violence that will haunt the present before unravelling a cycle of horrific events destined to recur every decade. Its execution, however, is far from routine: a powerful character-driven piece about society’s unending need to pursue a scapegoat, the relentless persecution of a minority group in order to justify pre-existing cultural prejudices and individual insecurities. SPIRAL is a truly chilling 21st century horror film. Following the…
IT CUTS DEEP **** USA 2020 Dir: Nicholas Santos. 77 mins Riffing on the slasher tropes built into his earlier shorts (notably HOLIDAY FEAR) debuting feature writer-director Nicholas Santos captures the relationship holocaust of Christmas in IT CUTS DEEP. Opening with an archetypal festive slasher prologue – a horny young couple butchered by a mystery killer – it swiftly shifts into something more relatable, more human before nodding again to the sub-genre for a bloody denouement. Sam (Charles Gould) and Ashley (Quinn Jackson) have been together for several years. She is sensible and loyal and yearns to take their relationship…
RELIC ***** Australia / USA 2020 Dir: Natalie Erika James. 89 mins The title immediately invokes images of a classic Hollywood monster movie – or, specifically, 90s creature feature THE RELIC – but this feature debut for director Natalie Erika James (co-written with Christian White) is a truly frightening, moving piece about the monster that finds us all in the end, one way or another. It opens with the image of an over-flowing bath tub, familiar from past horror films as a signifier of a terrible drowning that will come to haunt the protagonists. Here, it’s followed by a shot…
RENT-A-PAL ***** USA 2020 Dir: Jon Stevenson. 108 mins Set in 1990, the feature debut for writer-director Jon Stevenson offers nostalgia-inducing, almost fetishistic images of the mechanics of a VHS top loader. Albeit within a narrative propelled by a reminder of the days when society’s loners would attempt to forge relationships via pre-recorded tapes of potential mates. It would be easy to mock the film’s protagonist or portray him as a one-note caricature. He lives the cliché of the 40-year-old virgin living in the basement of his mom’s house. But this Denver-based 40-year-old, David, is written with care and portrayed…