HOLLYWOOD DREAMS & NIGHTMARES: THE ROBERT ENGLUND STORY **** UK 2022 Dir: Christopher Griffiths & Gary Smart. 134 mins Here’s an engaging, insightful tour through the career of one of the few bonafide “horror stars” of the modern era in which, not surprisingly, the always witty and articulate Englund has the best tales to tell. It opens with a story of his first Freddy Krueger makeup experience and how he channelled his anger at the process and his envy of his pretty younger co-stars into the performance that would make him an icon. From there, we trace his life and…
Author: Steven West
WOLFKIN *** Luxembourg / Belgium 2022 Dir: Jacques Molitor. 90 mins This offbeat riff on lycanthropic opens potently with a fairly explicit sex scene, full-frontal nudity and a key character walking off in a distressed state. Subsequently, in Brussels, single mother Elaine (the excellent Louise Manteau) is under pressure at home and at work. Her troubled 10-year-old-son Martin (Victor Dieu) scratches a classmate and the teachers have pretty much given up on him. At his birthday party, he also savagely attacks and bites a young guest. Elaine takes refuge at the family home of the boy’s dead father in Luxembourg:…
SATAN’S LITTLE HELPER **** USA 2004 Dir: Jeff Lieberman. 100 mins His first feature since offbeat, prophetic satire REMOTE CONTROL, this inventive riff on slasher conventions was a breath of fresh air at the time – and right at home in an eclectic career that has veered from unique eco horror SQUIRM to subversive satire BLUE SUNSHINE and JUST BEFORE DAWN, one of the standout slasher-era DELIVERANCE riffs. There’s a deliciously anarchic attitude and plentiful dark humour at work in this tale of an meek-looking kid (Alexander Brickel) who befriends a Satanically-costumed madman and goads him into shoplifting, mowing down…
RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY **** UK 2023 Dir: Sebastiano Pupino. 13 mins The centuries-old nursery rhyme of the title gains a more disturbing meaning in Italian filmmaker Pupino’s slick, unnerving short – one of an eclectic series of films he has made since 2009’s REFRAIN. It’s written by Thalia Kent-Egan and showcases an impressive central performance by Lisbon-born actor Carolina Lopes. We first see her apparently in the throes of grief while getting her first tattoo, following the death of her grandfather. Pupino strikes a note of unease from the get-go: a persistently flickering light in the oddly disquieting studio…
HERD ** USA 2023 Dir: Steven Pierce. 97 mins Jamie (Ellen Adair) and Alex (Mitzi Akaha) decide a canoeing break in the Missouri countryside will help their marital woes: Jamie lets out her pent-up frustrations about the job she hates, the city life she resents and her dislike of having kids. Alex spills her guilt (there’s a lost-baby tragedy haunting the backstory) and frustration at Jamie’s tendency to shut out her emotions. As the camping trip exposes their individual flaws and bugbears, a boating accident forces them to take refuge in a town struggling to contain a zombie virus. Though,…