10 h. ago Return to Silent Hill review – video game horror series births another middling movie

Director Christopher Gans returns to the haunted town franchise but can’t seem to figure out what to do with itThere’s an admirable loyalty, maybe even poetry, in a film-maker returning to an unpromising, barely-there movie series 20 years after his first crack became a minor hit. The horror film Silent Hill, based on a video game of the same name, has garnered a cult following in the decades since its 2006 release, but it’s not exactly a genre classic nor beloved franchise, with a single little-seen 2012 sequel to its name – until now. Return to Silent Hill brings back the first film’s director Christopher Gans for a new story set in the same ash-strewn ghost town, this one based on the Silent Hill 2 video game. Characters in these movies tend to wander into a place that is obviously haunted or cursed, refusing to leave even after it becomes clear that they should, and only decide to escape after it’s too late. Maybe Gans can relate.Or maybe he’s the only man for the job because no...

Culture

5 d. ago MOVIE REVIEW: We are gripped by fascinating documentary 'Predators'

Examination of controversial TV show has no easy answers and doesn't thrust ideologies upon you.

Culture

1 week ago Primate review – pet chimp gone wild makes for giddy, gory good time

There’s a great deal of unpretentious B-movie fun to be had in this brief, brutal and slickly made creature featureThere’s a refreshing lack of subtext and pretension to this week’s gory creature feature Primate, a straight-to-the-point riposte to the glum, trauma-heavy horror films we’ve been enduring of late. Rather than following his genre peers who are busy aiming for the lofty heights of Don’t Look Now and Possession, British director Johannes Roberts is happy to give gen Z their very own Shakma, the goofy 1990 schlocker about a baboon driven wild by an experimental drug.That film took a while to gain a cult following, ultimately accepted by the same drunk Bad Movie crowd who took in Troll 2, but Primate won’t take anywhere near as long. It’s a far better, slicker movie for one, a surgically well-made crowd-pleaser that swaps out baboon for chimp, cleverly turning him from test subject to domesticated pet. At 89-minutes and paced like a rollercoaster, there’s little room for li...

Politics

1 week ago Greenland 2: Migration review – disaster sequel is disastrously self

Gerard Butler returns to keep his family safe from post-apocalyptic chaos in a glum and misjudged follow-up to the superior 2020 adventureGerard Butler has made his fair share of sequels, but few have held as much potential as Greenland 2: Migration. The original Greenland wasn’t even a traditional hit; it was released in theaters and on VOD at the end of 2020, when plenty of movie theaters remained closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it garnered some attention for being an unusually sober and thoughtful apocalypse movie, especially given that Butler previously starred in the likes of Geostorm. Because Greenland was about surviving a global apocalypse rather than averting one, any sequel would have to venture into the unknown with a drastically different status quo.Greenland 2 obliges for a little while, though it also walks back some of the hope that ended the first film. The story rejoins engineer John Garrity (Gerard Butler), his administrator wife Allison (Morena Baccarin),...

Events

2 w. ago We Bury the Dead review – Daisy Ridley tackles the undead in solid zombie twist

Star Wars alum gives an impressively modest performance in this slightly smarter-than-average survival taleUnlike some other less resilient horror subgenres, the zombie movie is, fittingly, never going to really die. Neither will film-makers attempting to add their own twist, understandable given how repetitive the die, wake up, lumber, bite and repeat formula has become. Australian director Zak Hilditch’s attempt, the rather buried We Bury the Dead, is therefore not quite as striking as it might have seemed a decade and change ago. Using words such as “contemplative” and “mournful” to describe a film that includes its fair share of gnarly head-smashing has become something of a cliche, so much so that last month’s meta-comedy Anaconda reboot had its characters joke that these days, even a film about a giant snake needs “intergenerational trauma” to work.But Hilditch mercifully avoids drowning his film in drab self-seriousness. Yes, it’s a zombie survival thriller that’s also about ...

Events

3 w. ago MOVIE REVIEW: Is there much to like in YouTuber's debut horror 'Shelby Oaks?'

Very polished filmmaking shrouded in mystery is influenced a bit too much by other work.

Events

3 w. ago The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants review – swashbuckling, snicker

With a turn by Mark Hamill and a saltily suggestive catchphrase for Patrick, the fourth SpongeBob film shows that anything can still happen in Bikini BottomCould the students who snickered their way through those first SpongeBob adventures have foreseen the franchise persisting 25 years on, even after metabolising the most lysergic pharmaceuticals? Such longevity is partly down to extra-commercial considerations, in that the series has a capacity for tickling adults’ funny bones – possibly even those now fully grown students – as well as the very young. Though it can’t claim anything quite as unexpected as the David Hasselhoff cameo in 2004’s The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie – not so much a high bar as an unforgettably wonky one – feature four thinks nothing of making Clancy Brown talk like a pirate while handing royalty cheques to Barbra Streisand and Yello. Anything can still happen in Bikini Bottom.Preceded by a festive short for Paramount’s other weathered babysitters, the Teenag...

Politics

4 w. ago MOVIE REVIEW: Does thriller 'Bone Lake' manage to stay afloat?

Couples retreat into web of manipulation occasionally drowns in its own ambition.

Science

4 w. ago Song Sung Blue review – Neil Diamond tribute act gets sweet treat of movie thanks to Jackman and Hudson

Film that follows a Milwaukee married couple as they rise to fame with a real-life band called Lightning and Thunder is undeniably entertainingHere is a startlingly strange, undeniably entertaining true-life story from the heartland of American showbusiness; a lovable crowdpleaser whose feelgood flavour won’t prepare you for the way the plot repeatedly and savagely twists like an unsafe fairground ride. I actually had my eyes closed and mouth open at certain key points, and was grabbing the seat in front of me with both fists. It also may yet prove that, yes, Hugh Jackman really is the greatest showman (his role here is much more interesting than his bland impersonation of PT Barnum) and his co-star Kate Hudson brings just the same performance megawattage.Mike and Claire Sardina, terrifically played by Jackman and Hudson, were a Milwaukee married couple with kids from previous relationships who in the 90s formed a cheesy Neil Diamond tribute act called Lightning and Thunder; they be...

Culture