FIGHTING THE SKY ** USA 2018 Dir: Conrad Faraj 97 mins As strange eerie noises are resonating around the world and people are turning up claiming to be from the future. A team of Extra Terrestrial enthusiasts led by Ufologist, Lorraine (Angela Cole) uncover the source of the noises and…
Browsing: Sci-Fi
UPGRADE **** USA 2018 Dir: Leigh Whannell. 100 mins Leigh Whannell’s second film as director (following the superior INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3) is a hard-edged slice of technophobic sci-fi in which budgetary restrictions work in the film’s favour and obvious thematic parallels to ROBOCOP and Cronenbergian body horror do not distract…
NEKROTRONIC **** Australia 2018 Dir: Kiah Roache-Turner. 98 mins Another confident, crowd-pleasing comic horror from the director of the well-liked WYRMWOOD (co-written with his brother Tristan), Kiah Roache-Turner’s NEKROTRONIC joins a small cycle of killer app movies. In the words of the film’s engaging early animated exposition, “some evil bastard”…
LEVEL 16 *** Canada 2018 Dir: Danishka Esterhazy. 102 mins Writer-director Danishka Esterhazy is destined for some level of cultdom due to her BANANA SPLITS horror movie, but this earlier credit is an understated, chilly sci-fi spin on familiar genre themes: class division and the extremities of the 21st century…
THE THING ***** USA 1982 Dir: John Carpenter. 108 mins The horribly disturbing tagline: “Man is the warmest place to hide”. In the same year as VIDEODROME (also released by Universal) and at the height of the special make-up effects revolution, this was contemptuously received by mainstream critics disgusted by…