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With a multitude of successful hits across television and film, Netflix misses a beat with their latest film The Open House, its convoluted story and under utilized characters causing the film to fall flat before it even begins.
A provoking film that resonates long after the credits have roles, The Strange Ones is an understated debut, with just enough external beauty and internal unease to keep us hopeful for their cinematic future.
Devil’s Gate frustratingly flirts with greatness- however, director Clay Staub’s genre mash-up is too uneven to sustain the entirety of its running time.
Proud Mary would be nothing special if it did not star Taraji P. Henson. But it does, and as a result it stands out like a beam of sunshine piercing the dull grey murk that is January at the movies.
Using acute, penetrating realism, a career-best performance from Wyle, powerful secondary performances from the actors, air-tight writing incorporating pressing themes, and an unpredictable ending, Shot overwhelmingly succeeds as both a film and a statement about our culture.
Ana Asensio’s directorial debut, Most Beautiful Island, is an intimate view of the immigrant experience not as social realist drama or romantic comedy, but as a horror story.
Laying blame is a difficult one because nothing is particularly awful in American Made: even the screenplay peppers a handful of decent set pieces and sequences throughout – but there’s nobody on-hand to elevate the picture.
Desolation is a unique take on a traditional horror movie, bending genre conventions in to a unique (and thoroughly contemporary) nightmare.
The Insidious franchise has quietly grown to be one of the most impressive and contemporary horror- and Insidious: The Last Key is another solid entry, despite the January release date.
Though occasionally unsurprising, Better Watch out is a strong alternative to the regular holiday viewing because of the nasty genre thrills it delivers whilst being wickedly funny.
Mom and Dad maintains its absurdity, while not completely abandoning its eerie core, sensitively playing off a very personal, instinctual source of parents defending their young – until they become prey.
Director Luca Guadagnino’s three previous films, including critical favourite Call Me By Your Name, couldn’t seem any more different from the outside. All three are linked by the theme of desire- but does that reverberate into a thematically coherent trilogy?
Though containing some elegant set design and impressive cinematography, Murder on the Orient Express can’t quite intrigue you to the potential that it could’ve, due to underdeveloped characters and an anticlimactic final reveal.
From France, Nocturama is an unusual film about disillusioned teenagers that commit an act of terrorism; unsurprisingly, it provides no easy answers.
Paul Cotgrove’s Horror on Sea festival is championed by up and coming genre filmmakers across the world. Film Inquiry met with Paul to find out why his small seaside festival has become a phenomenon.