The second longest running play (excluding musicals) in London’s West End, The Woman in Black is no neatly packaged fairy story. It is a dark tale of despair and revenge. It concerns a man driven to tell his truth after the death of an elderly and reclusive widow, Mrs Alice Drablow. I speak of Arthur Kipps (John Waters),…
– The Exorcism – Only in cinemas from 13 June 2024 We have 5 double in-season passes thanks to Rialto Distribution. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE Academy Award-winner Russell Crowe stars as a troubled actor who begins to unravel shooting a supernatural horror film. His estranged daughter wonders if he’s slipping…
Renny Harlin was one of the great action directors of the late 80s and early 90s, with films like Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger and The Long Kiss Goodnight to his credit. But lately he seems reduced to directing second-rate formulaic action films like The Misfits and episodes of various TV series. And now he’s helming…
Two actors, some props, lighting… sounds rudimentary – but the result in The Woman in Black is astounding. This storied play remains the second-longest running production in London’s West End, racking up over 13,000 performances between 1989 and 2023. (The longest-running is The Mousetrap.) Now this localised version of the London production is touring the…
Abigail is a gory hybrid of crime drama, horror and comedy with a black streak of humour. And it proves to be one of the guilty pleasures of the year. A disparate group of six people are assembled to carry out a kidnapping. The man organising the kidnapping is Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito). The team consists…
The First Omen is a prequel to the classic horror film franchise that began with Richard Donner’s The Omen (1976), starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. That film introduced audiences to Damien, the Antichrist. Director Arkasha Stevenson’s prequel opens in 1971, five years before the events of The Omen. A young American woman, Margaret Daino…
Every year when I get my hands on the Melbourne International Film Festival program and start selecting my films, the first strand I pore through is Night Shift, which contains some bizarre horror and cinematic oddities. And the offbeat Late Night With the Devil (MIFF ’23) offers a fresh take on the tired found-footage genre….
The speculative fiction genre got a bit of a kick in the teeth back in 2000 with the release of China Miéville’s Perdito Street Station and Jeff Vandemeer’s City of Saints and Sinners. With these came the advent of what has become known as ‘New Weird’. One source in 2023, defined New Weird novels as…
– Immaculate – Only in cinemas from 21 March 2024 We have 5 double in-season passes thanks to Rialto Distribution. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE Cecilia, a woman of devout faith, is warmly welcomed to the picture-perfect Italian countryside where she is offered a new role at an illustrious convent. But…
Sometimes we get two films released around the same time with the same basic concept (eg: Deep Impact and Armageddon both films concerning a giant meteor headed for Earth; or Dante’s Peak and Volcano, both dealing with destructive volcanic eruptions). Another case in point is the new horror film Baghead. A quick skim of the…
