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Adriana Matoshi \ Alief \ Antoneta Kastrati \ Crossing Bridge Films \ drama \ Kosovo \ Kosovo Cinematography Center \ On Film Production
Zana – Antoneta Kastrati (Kosovan Brutal War Trauma Film)
Kosovan film has remained largely marginal in spite of attempts to expand its market. This is pretty much the curse of most Eastern European cinema post-Soviet power, leaving the curating critic with a difficult path. Without notoriety, how can one find the gold? You like, just have to check out their stuff, bro. Scraping […]
Ascent Film \ Croatia \ Dalibor Matanić \ drama \ Italy \ Kinorama \ RAI Cinema \ symbolism
Dalibor Matanić – Zora / The Dawn (Nightmarish Trauma Symbol Film)
I’ve seen some deep films over the years, but I’m not sure I was expecting something quite like what I got out of The Dawn. Croatian film has been largely under the radar after the end of the Yugoslav “Black Wave” movement, the echoes of which continue to reverberate internationally. With the fall of […]
Danishka Esterhazy \ Shout! Factory \ slasher film \ SyFy \ United States \ Witter Entertainment
Slumber Party Massacre (Most Overlooked Film of 2021)
In my last column I discussed Last Night in Soho, an ill-advised attempt to ride the “good for her” wave. But I didn’t mean to imply that the theme (traumatized women shaking back to kick ass) is played out. There’s still plenty of life in it, and 2021’s best example comes in an unexpected […]
Complete Fiction Pictures \ Edgar Wright \ Film4 Productions \ Focus Features \ Perfect World Pictures \ psychological horror \ United Kingdom \ Universal Pictures \ Working Title Films
Last Night in Soho (Most Overhyped Film of 2021)
When the patron saint of gimmicky editing announced a giallo-inspired horror movie, film bros collectively squealed. Following prestige festival screenings, Last Night in Soho opened wide in the U.S. just in time for Halloween. The good news: Edgar Wright has reined in his showy style. The bad news: the film wants to be a […]
Abdelhamid Bouchnak \ horror film \ Tunisia \ witchcraft
Dachra (What Not to Do Witchcraft Film)
Criticizing horror movies for stupid character behavior is often wishful thinking–humans do silly things under stress, and nobody knows how we’d react in extreme situations until we’re in them. But poor decision-making by movie characters serves a dramatic purpose: it makes us feel superior to them. Telegraphing the missteps that lead to bad outcomes […]
Cosmotropia de Xam \ Eurotrash horror \ Phantasma Disques \ witch house
The Inferno Index (Eurotrash Horror Reborn)
Cosmotropia de Xam is best known for founding music collective Mater Suspiria Vision, pioneers of the witch house genre. It seems de Xam (henceforth CdX) uses the same techniques when making films as when making music: drones, backmasking, sampling, genre-hopping, heavy filters and effects, textures and the ethereal feminine, all adding up to something […]
FPS \ Giulio de Santi \ horror film \ Necrostorm
Hotel Inferno 3: The Castle of Screams (FPS Horror Stuff in Film)
Splattermeister Giulio de Santi made his name in the gorehound underground with his first film, 2012’s Taeter City. On the heels of that opus came Hotel Inferno, an audacious experiment in film mimicking video games, and the start of a tentpole franchise. The crowdfunded third chapter checks all the series boxes: it’s shot entirely […]
James Ashcroft \ Light in the Dark Productions \ MPI Media Group \ New Zealand \ Sundance \ thriller film
Coming Home in the Dark (Killer Drifter Daymare Fuel Film)
There’s a chilling line of dialogue early in Coming Home in the Dark, the debut feature by New Zealand filmmaker James Ashcroft, that lays bare the film’s themes. It’s a standard thriller scene: the near, but missed, opportunity for rescue. As villain Mandrake (Daniel Gillies) and his accomplice hold a vacationing family led by […]
coming-of-age \ Dweck Productions \ Flies Collective \ horror film \ Jane Schoenbrun \ Love in Winter LLC
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Loneliness Creepypasta Glitch Horror Film)
The avenue connecting horror cinema and creepypasta culture has generally been a one-way street. Creepypastas take plenty of influence from horror films, but the only mainstream stabs at adapting them are Sony’s 2018 Slender Man and Syfy’s Channel Zero series. There’s assorted indie Youtubers, exploitation mockbusters, and scaremongering docudramas, but We’re All Going to […]
Dustin Mancinelli \ Madeline Sims-Fewer \ MPI Media Group \ One Plus One \ rape revenge \ Shudder
Violation (Naturalistic Rape Revenge Film)
With a few isolated exceptions (1986’s The Ladies Club), throughout the 20th century the rape-revenge subgenre was the exclusive province of male filmmakers. But since the Soska sisters threw open the doors in 2012 with American Mary, a wave of female-directed reimagined rape-revenge films has touched every corner of the cinemaverse, from New French […]
