Tag Archives: movies

Dark Nights Film Fest V.3: Surgery on the Soul of Modern Horror

14 Tuesday Apr 2026

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

There’s a growing divide within modern horror.

On one side, the polished and palatable—the algorithm-friendly nightmares designed to deliver quick shocks and clean resolutions. On the other, something far more insidious: films that resist structure, that burrow into the psyche, and refuse to offer the audience the comfort of escape.

It’s within this latter space that Dark Nights Film Fest has firmly embedded itself.

Returning for its third iteration on October 10 at The Reservoir Cinema in Sydney, Dark Nights Film Fest V.3 continues its quiet, calculated dissection of what horror can be when it is stripped back to its rawest nerve endings. This is not a festival concerned with spectacle—it is concerned with sensation. With unease. With the lingering afterimage.

From its inception, Dark Nights has operated less like a traditional festival and more like a curatorial scalpel, carving out a space for filmmakers who exist on the fringes of genre. Those who understand that true horror is not always seen—but felt. A slow infection rather than a sudden shock.

Festival Director and Curator Bryn Tilly articulates this ethos with precision: this is not a platform for safe horror. It is a space for works that feel almost unnatural in their existence—films that challenge, provoke, and destabilise.

And in many ways, this philosophy aligns with the core of what Surgeons of Horror has long explored: the idea that horror, at its most potent, functions as a form of psychological excavation. A peeling back of layers to expose something uncomfortable, something unresolved.

Dark Nights Film Fest V.3 sharpens this focus even further through its pared-back, single-night format. There is no excess here—only intention. Each film selected is part of a carefully constructed experience designed to immerse audiences in a continuum of dread, where the boundaries between stories begin to blur into a singular, oppressive atmosphere.

It’s also worth noting the festival’s continued commitment to nurturing new voices—not only through its short film program but via its unproduced screenplay competition. In an industry often dominated by established names and recognisable formulas, this remains a vital artery for fresh, unfiltered perspectives to emerge.

Recognition from Dread Central—which listed Dark Nights among the “90 Best Genre Film Festivals on Earth – 2025”—only reinforces what many within the horror community are already beginning to understand: that this is a festival less concerned with growth in size, and more invested in depth of impact.

Because horror, in its purest form, has never been about comfort.

It is about confrontation.

It is about forcing an audience to sit with something they would rather avoid.

Dark Nights Film Fest V.3 doesn’t just programme films—it curates experiences that linger in the subconscious, resurfacing long after the screen has gone dark.

For filmmakers, the invitation is clear: abandon restraint. Reject convention. Submit the work that feels too strange, too confrontational, too much.

Because those are often the films that matter most.

Submissions are now open via FilmFreeway, with deadlines running through to August 30.

For audiences, October 10 marks an opportunity not simply to watch horror—but to undergo it.

And as any good surgeon knows… the deeper the incision, the more revealing the outcome.

  • Saul Muerte

Dark Nights Film Fest – V.3

The Reservoir Cinema, Sydney – October 10

Submissions via FilmFreeway.com/DarkNightsFilmFest

Deadlines:

Earlybird – April 30, Regular – June 21 , Late – August 2, Final – August 30  

For festival info and submission guidelines, visit darknightsfilmfest.com

The Sound of Silence: Undertone (2026)

13 Monday Apr 2026

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

There is a quiet audacity to Undertone — a film that dares to strip horror back to its barest components and, in doing so, exposes both the potency and the peril of minimalism. Where many genre efforts lean into excess — of imagery, of narrative, of shock — Undertone instead retreats inward, crafting an experience defined less by what is shown than by what is felt.

It is, for better and worse, a film built on absence.

Less as Language

Minimalism in cinema is often misunderstood as restraint for its own sake. In Undertone, it becomes a language — one that communicates through negative space, elongated silence, and the careful withholding of information.

The narrative itself is skeletal, almost deliberately so, allowing themes of grief, emotional suppression, and psychological entrapment to seep through the cracks rather than announce themselves outright. Characters feel less like fully articulated individuals and more like vessels for internal states — fractured, repressed, and quietly unraveling.

This approach is undeniably immersive… but also demanding.

The Power of Sound

If Undertone has a defining strength, it lies in its sonic architecture.

Sound here is not merely accompaniment — it is the film’s primary instrument of tension. Subtle shifts in tone, the intrusion of low-frequency hums, the absence of expected auditory cues — all contribute to a sense of unease that lingers beneath the surface.

In many ways, Undertone aligns itself with traditions of psychological horror that privilege atmosphere over spectacle. It understands that fear often resides not in what we see, but in what we anticipate — and what we cannot quite place.

The result is a film that listens as much as it shows.

The Slow Burn of Suppression

Thematically, Undertone is preoccupied with what happens when emotion is buried rather than expressed. Grief, in particular, becomes a suffocating presence — not explosive, but corrosive. It manifests in the stillness, in the hesitation, in the inability of its characters to confront what lies beneath.

This is horror as internalised pressure.

The pacing reflects this intent. Scenes linger. Moments stretch. Time itself feels elongated, mirroring the psychological stasis of its characters. For some, this will read as hypnotic — an invitation to sit within discomfort. For others, it may verge on inertia.

Minimalism as Double-Edged Sword

And here lies the film’s central tension.

The same minimalism that gives Undertone its identity also limits its reach. The scarcity of overt scares, the deliberate narrative opacity, and the glacial pacing risk alienating viewers who seek more immediate engagement.

There are moments where the film feels on the cusp of revelation — where its restraint might give way to something more tangible — only to retreat once again into ambiguity. This can be frustrating, particularly when the emotional payoff does not fully match the investment required.

Yet to criticise Undertone for this is also to acknowledge its commitment. It refuses to compromise its vision, even when that vision narrows its audience.

The Prognosis:

Undertone is a film that exists in the margins — of sound, of space, of emotion. It is an exercise in restraint that occasionally teeters into limitation, but never without purpose.

A haunting, slow-burning meditation on grief and suppression, where minimalism becomes both its greatest strength and its most significant constraint.

  • Saul Muerte

Undertone is currently screening in cinemas nationwide

Ready or Not… It’s Hunting Season Again

07 Tuesday Apr 2026

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

5…4…3…2…1…. Ready or not, here it comes!

A sequel to 2019’s Ready or Not.

There are many angles this review could take, but regular readers will probably think we’ll go through the Six Qualities that make a good sequel checklist. And you’d be right.

  • Does it respect the first film and not shit on it?
  • Is it just a carbon copy of the first film?
  • Is it just a carbon copy of the first film, but “bigger” and nothing more?
  • Does it add/expand on the legend/universe started by the first film?
  • Does it still stay within the SAME SPIRIT established by the first film?
  • Does it stand on its own 2 feet as a standalone film?

Before we go through these points, just a quick recap. In the first movie a young woman – Grace – marries into an uber rich family. It’s established she has no living relatives, so marrying for big love and even bigger money is pretty much jackpot for her! Cue the night of the wedding, and Grace’s new husband tells her his clan has a tradition where any newcomer must play a game with them. Over the years they have made a fortune selling boardgames, so as traditions go, it’s quirky more than weird. That is until Grace pulls a playing card to determine what kind of game they’ll be enjoying, and the card says “hide ‘n’ seek”. Said fam then all try and kill Grace in their giant mansion by sunrise – otherwise their mysterious benefactor; who has bestowed upon them all their family’s good fortune and glory – will be displeased. And will appear and kill them all if Grace is not caught. And the dude is basically the devil.

So onto movie 2, which would have been waaaay cooler if the #2 hadn’t appeared in the title. I mean from a marketing perspective I get it, people are idiots, but if the sequel to Ready or Not was just actually Ready or Not, Here I Come… that would have been awesome along the lines of Aliens to Alien. Prey to Predator. Happy Death Day 2U to Happy Death Day. As this fits into Point # 7 (which is not mandatory) Does it have a cool title that doesn’t have a number tagged on the end (like most sequels do) or a subtitle? Eg: Indiana Jones and the ever- decreasing quality of adventure.

Anyway – this new instalment literally picks up from the last scene of the last movie, and Grace – it is revealed – has a sister! And if you think that feels like a jammed in retcon, you’d be right. But more on that later. It is also revealed that the family Grace married into is actually one of 6 who have made the same pact with the devil. And as Grace has effectively wiped out one of these families (her former in- laws) the title for head family (think Lannisters versus all the other Houses) is up for grabs. So, one kidnapping later of her and her sister (who is estranged from Grace – of course; ya gotta have sibling conflict) and we have our setting for another round of deadly hide and seek. Whichever family gets to kill Grace before sunrise gets the brass ring (or in this case gold ring) to rule them all; and with it get a ton of world influencing power.

So – going through our points, does this pass the Surgeons’ Pub Test of what makes a good sequel? Does it respect the first film and not shit on it like Highlander 2 did to Highlander?

Well, considering the sister angle was from another script from directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett that they then re-purposed for this movie, you would be forgiven for thinking this could go off the rails ala the plethora of Die Hard movies after 3. But this film is very much in-universe in flavour, and whatever leaps it takes feels natural and earned. Even the explanation as to why Grace has a sister when the first film has her earnestly state she has no siblings, feels acceptable. Sort of. Certainly the fact this bump happens at the start of this movie makes it easier to drive over, as you are still open to seeing if this instalment will be any good.

Is it a carbon copy of the first film? Or a carbon copy, but just bigger? Ie: a re-hash with just more kills – like any number of countless slasher horror sequels, the most offensive in recent memory being I Know What You Did Last Summer Because It’s I Know What You Did last Summer. This is a delicate one for a lot of films, as the main hook for a horror called “hide & seek” is that it should contain characters playing hide and seek. So if this film deviates from that, then it violates point 1. But if it contrives a lazy way to throw Grace into another mansion to be hunted in, then it fails point 2 & 3.

But the set up as to why Grace (and her sister) gets hunted in this film feels well-earned enough to check off point 4, as it expands this movie’s in-universe mythos in a compelling way.

Point 5, does it stay in the same spirit of the last movie? Considering that spirit is an entertaining graphic horror tale with a strong streak of black humour?
Definitely. Two words, bride fight. You’ll get it when you see it.

Point 6 – does it stand up on its own 2 feet? Again, yes. There are multiple reasons why, but one (and this might be a little surprising) is Samara Weaving (who plays Grace). There is no questioning her acting pedigree, but her chops – especially at the gut-wrenching realisation that the nightmare she has just endured is about to happen again – is surprisingly grounded and real. Being in a popcorn movie doesn’t mean you can’t sell it. In fact, it’s one thing to act powerfully with Oscar award winning material. But to draw in an audience in a setting that is meant to be silly fun… some would say that’s where the real game lies.

The Prognosis:

This is a worthy sequel to a film that felt like a nice self-contained B-grade home run. It didn’t need a second instalment, but that didn’t stop the film makers from crushing it. The fun is still there, the jeopardy is still there, and the sister element – whilst at times feels a little forced – doesn’t get in the way of another well executed romp.

Ready or Not… this finds you.

  • Antony Yee 06/04/26

Bad Taste as Baptism: Fuck My Son! (2026)

04 Saturday Apr 2026

Posted by in Movie review

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

There are films that provoke… and then there are films that weaponise provocation as their entire identity.
Fuck My Son!, directed by Todd Rohal, firmly belongs in the latter camp — a grotesque, confrontational descent into taboo that feels less like storytelling and more like an endurance test.

Adapted from the underground comic by Johnny Ryan, the film embraces its origins with unapologetic aggression. Narrative coherence is secondary. Characterisation is almost incidental. What matters here is impact — how far it can push, how hard it can hit, and how long an audience can withstand the onslaught before recoiling.

The Aesthetics of Offence

Rohal’s approach is not without craft. In fact, what makes Fuck My Son! so confronting is how deliberately constructed it is. This is not chaos by accident — it is chaos curated.

The practical creature effects, in particular, demand attention. There is a tactile, squirm-inducing quality to the film’s physical grotesqueries that places it in lineage with boundary-pushing auteurs who understand that revulsion is most effective when it feels real. Flesh stretches. Fluids flow. The body becomes both canvas and battleground.

In an age of digital sanitisation, this commitment to the physical image is perversely admirable.

Taboo as Currency

But provocation, when used as currency, quickly devalues itself.

The film’s central conceit — deliberately offensive, aggressively transgressive — initially shocks, then unsettles, and eventually… numbs. Without thematic grounding or emotional counterpoint, the transgression begins to feel repetitive rather than revelatory.

This is where Fuck My Son! falters.

The most effective works of extreme cinema often use taboo as a gateway to deeper commentary — on society, morality, repression. Here, the suggestion of meaning is fleeting at best. The film gestures toward satire, but rarely commits to it.

Know Your Audience

And yet, to dismiss the film outright would be to misunderstand its purpose.

There is an audience for this. A dedicated, discerning subset of genre fans who seek out the extreme not for narrative satisfaction, but for experiential confrontation. For them, Fuck My Son! is not a failure — it is a badge of honour. A film to be survived, debated, and worn like a scar.

It is cinema as dare.

The Prognosis:

Fuck My Son! is not interested in pleasing you. It barely cares if you understand it. It exists to provoke, to repel, and to challenge the limits of what can be put on screen.

A technically committed but narratively hollow exercise in taboo, elevated by its practical effects and sustained only by the endurance of its audience.

  • Saul Muerte

Fuck My Son will be screening at select cinemas from Apr 9 for a limited time.

Filth, Flesh and Freedom: A Brief History of Trash Cinema

Love, Blood and the Loss of Shadow: Dracula (2025)

02 Thursday Apr 2026

Posted by in Movie review

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

There is something perversely fitting about Luc Besson tackling the story of Dracula — a filmmaker long enamoured with heightened emotion, operatic visuals, and characters driven by obsession. With Dracula, Besson does not so much adapt the myth as he attempts to drown it in longing, reframing the Prince of Darkness as a tragic romantic caught in an eternal spiral of grief, rage, and devotion.

It’s a bold swing.

But one that doesn’t always draw blood.

A Vampire in Love with Loss

Besson’s Dracula leans heavily into the oft-explored notion that monstrosity is born not of evil, but of heartbreak. The film traces Vlad’s transformation from mortal prince to cursed immortal, driven by the brutal loss of his bride and his subsequent renunciation of faith.

It’s familiar terrain — territory previously carved out with gothic grandeur in Bram Stoker’s Dracula — yet Besson strips away much of the baroque sensuality that defined that iteration, replacing it with something colder, more abstract.

The result is a film that feels emotionally intense, yet curiously distant.

Where the gothic tradition thrives on atmosphere — on shadows, candlelight, decay — Besson opts for a cleaner, more stylised visual language. His Dracula exists in a world that is visually striking, but rarely suffocating. The rot beneath the surface is implied, not felt.

And in a story like this, that absence matters.

Performances That Bleed Through the Fog

What anchors the film — what almost saves it from its own indulgence — are its performances.

Caleb Landry Jones delivers a portrayal of Vlad that is as fragile as it is feral. There’s a volatility to his performance, a sense that beneath the stillness lies something constantly threatening to fracture. His Dracula is not a figure of dominance, but of disintegration — a man hollowed out by grief and sustained only by obsession.

Opposite him, Christoph Waltz brings his trademark precision, injecting the film with moments of clarity and control. Where Jones spirals, Waltz steadies. It’s a dynamic that gives the film its most compelling exchanges — brief flashes where character overtakes spectacle.

And yet, even these performances struggle against the film’s broader uncertainty.

Style Over Myth

Besson has always been a visual storyteller first, and Dracula is no exception. The film is filled with striking imagery — battlefields soaked in blood, vast landscapes frozen in time, bodies moving through space with an almost dreamlike detachment.

But style, here, becomes a double-edged sword.

In prioritising visual expression over narrative clarity, the film allows its mythology to drift. The rules of this world — its logic, its structure — become increasingly opaque, leaving the audience to navigate a story that feels more like a sequence of emotional impressions than a cohesive arc.

This is where the film falters most.

Because Dracula, as a figure, thrives on myth. On clearly defined boundaries between life and death, sacred and profane, desire and damnation. When those boundaries blur too far, the character risks losing his shape.

And here, he occasionally does.

The Missing Gothic Pulse

Perhaps the film’s most surprising omission is its lack of true gothic weight.

For all its talk of damnation and eternal suffering, Dracula rarely feels haunted. The atmosphere — that essential ingredient of any great vampire tale — is present in fragments, but never fully realised.

In stepping away from the heavy shadows and oppressive dread that have long defined the character, Besson creates something more ethereal… but also less impactful.

It’s a Dracula without fangs.

The Prognosis:

Dracula (2025) is a film caught between impulses — romance and horror, spectacle and substance, myth and mood. It reaches for operatic tragedy but often finds itself lost in its own aesthetic.

And yet, there is enough here — in its performances, in its ambition — to keep it from collapsing entirely.

A visually striking, emotionally charged reimagining that gets lost in the romance, leaving its mythology and gothic soul just out of reach.

A vampire story that longs for eternity… but struggles to leave a lasting bite.

  • Saul Muerte

Steel, Sorcery and Splattercraft: Deathstalker (2026)

29 Sunday Mar 2026

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

In an era where digital spectacle often overwhelms texture and tactility, Deathstalker arrives like a relic unearthed from a more visceral cinematic past. Directed by Steven Kostanski, this Shudder-exclusive fantasy-horror hybrid leans unapologetically into the aesthetics of sword-and-sorcery pulp, resurrecting a subgenre that thrives on excess, grime, and the physicality of handcrafted effects.

Kostanski, whose reputation has steadily grown through cult favourites such as The Void and Psycho Goreman, has long been recognised as a modern custodian of practical effects artistry. With Deathstalker, he reasserts that position with confidence, delivering a film that feels less like a reinvention and more like a reclamation — a reminder that horror-fantasy can still breathe, bleed and rupture in tangible ways.

A Return to Practical Alchemy

The narrative itself is deliberately archetypal. When a battle-hardened warrior, played by Daniel Bernhardt, retrieves a cursed amulet from a battlefield littered with corpses, he becomes entangled in a web of dark magick, pursued by assassins and shadowed by an encroaching evil. It is a familiar framework — one that echoes the mythic simplicity of Conan-era storytelling — but Kostanski is less interested in narrative innovation than in experiential immersion.

Where Deathstalker distinguishes itself is in its commitment to the physical image. The creatures, transformations and grotesqueries that populate this world are rendered with a devotion to prosthetics, animatronics and practical ingenuity that feels increasingly rare. Flesh tears, bodies distort, and the supernatural manifests not as weightless pixels but as textured, often repulsive forms that occupy space with convincing presence.

There is a tactile pleasure in this approach — a sense that the horror exists within the frame rather than being layered atop it.

Kostanski’s Controlled Chaos

Kostanski’s direction walks a delicate line between reverence and reinvention. His work here feels informed by the splatter traditions of filmmakers like Stuart Gordon and Sam Raimi, yet it avoids slipping into mere pastiche. Instead, he channels those influences through a contemporary lens, maintaining a playful awareness of genre conventions without undermining their impact.

There is, crucially, a sense that Kostanski is enjoying himself.

That enjoyment becomes infectious. The film’s more excessive moments — of which there are many — are staged with a gleeful confidence that invites the audience to revel in the absurdity. Limbs are dispatched, creatures emerge from unlikely places, and the boundaries of taste are tested with a wink rather than a nudge.

Yet beneath the chaos lies a disciplined craftsman. Kostanski understands rhythm, allowing sequences of visceral intensity to breathe before plunging back into the grotesque. It is this balance that prevents the film from collapsing under the weight of its own indulgence.

Form Over Function

If Deathstalker falters, it does so in its narrative ambitions. The story, while serviceable, rarely transcends its archetypal foundations. Characterisation remains broad, motivations are often sketched rather than explored, and the emotional stakes never quite reach the same level of engagement as the film’s visual spectacle.

But this feels, to some extent, intentional.

Kostanski appears less concerned with crafting a deeply layered narrative than with constructing a world — one defined by its textures, its grotesqueries, and its commitment to physical effects. The result is a film that prioritises sensation over introspection, experience over exposition.

A Leader in His Field

In many ways, Deathstalker serves as a reaffirmation of Kostanski’s position within contemporary genre filmmaking. At a time when practical effects are often relegated to novelty status, he continues to push their boundaries, exploring what can be achieved through ingenuity, craftsmanship, and a willingness to embrace imperfection.

The film may not fully transcend its pulp origins, but it doesn’t need to. Its value lies in its execution — in the sheer commitment to a mode of filmmaking that refuses to disappear quietly.

The Prognosis:

Deathstalker is not a film that seeks to redefine fantasy horror. Instead, it embraces its lineage, revels in its excesses, and delivers a tactile, visceral experience that stands in stark contrast to the polished artificiality of much contemporary genre cinema.

A rough-edged but invigorating return to practical effects-driven storytelling, with Steven Kostanski once again proving himself a vital and playful force in modern horror.

  • Saul Muerte

Deathstalker will stream on Shudder from Fri 3rd April

Pedigree Meets Pulp: Cold Storage and the Limits of B-Movie Ambition

28 Saturday Mar 2026

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Movies and names.
It’s a subconscious thing with some, or sometimes, the only thing people do before considering a movie.
And that is, look at the names.
Specifically, the ones on the poster.
Actors (obvs) but “written by” and “directed by” are also big ones. And if you consider yourself a real cinephile, “produced by”.
Cold Storage has some impressive names attached to it. Also, “based on a novel” usually means there has been creative interpretation applied to the script, and most film makers usually LOVE flexing their game at such activity.
Throw in the fact that the writer is the man who wrote Carlito’s Way, the first Mission Impossible and a shit ton of Jurassic Park movies, and you have pedigree right there.
Plus, there is the cast. One made up of the cool guy from Stranger Things, the lead from (masterful) horror film Barbarian, Kevin Bacon’s daughter (the lead in the first Smile) and Liam frickin Neeson and Vanessa frickin Redgrave! Those are all decent hitters!
Plus-plus it is directed by… err someone with a lot of TV & doco credits, so we’ll see…

So, this film is a horror sci-fi set in a storage facility. And as locations go, that’s pretty cool. (Except I’ve yet to see a sci fi horror set in one be any good… 2012’s Storage 24 was one of the first and when you shoot an entire film in close up, it makes for a really shitty movie).
But I digress. Will this film be the exception?
It starts back in 1979 when Skylab fell to Earth, Western Australia (an event I actually remember, as I was both alive and on the same continent when it happened IRL). Once this happens, we soon find ourselves in Alien-bug-has-landed-on earth territory.
Fast jump to the exotic future of 2007 and said bug has been locked deep down inside a military storage facility all this time.
Except with time comes change and the facility has now become (on the surface at least) just a regular commercially-available-for-hire-by-the-general-public storage place.

And of course, 2007 is the year the deep cold vault containing the bug starts to fail…
So – what happens next – I’ll let Chris Dawes take you through.

This film hopes to answer two age old questions – Firstly, has the mold growing in my shower been conscious all along, and if so, have all the times I have smudged it with my arse driven it to vengeance?
And second! Is the reason we haven’t found aliens in Area 51 was that they hired Bazza to put up gyprock?
Cash job, of course.
The answer is yes to both, and thanks to top tier government fuckery uncolding the subterranean fridges, two down on their luck minimum-wagers are forced to do battle with a sentient sludge so profoundly roided up neither the Marines, the Hell’s Angels,
nor your butthead neighbour’s cat can knock it on its arse.
Damn your weakness, Ajax Spray and Wipe!
This film is pap. But it is pap made with a love of the genre and stars a cast of award winners who clearly enjoyed making a high budget B-Movie.
If you have two hours to switch your brain off and have a solid good time, you can do far worse than spending twenty bucks on this. Back to Ant.

So, as you can see, this is a fun popcorn romp, with some very strong ingredients.
But is it Tremors level B-grade horror/comedy par excellence?
For mine, not really. It has some very fine moments held up by an outstanding afore-mentioned cast, but its pacing is at times uneven. And certain story elements feel rushed or glossed over.
And for that I can only think to blame a director who is still finding his movie legs, as this is just his second feature. Although he has a lot of excellent TV credits, so maybe studio interference stuffed him around?
Who knows?

The Prognosis:

Worth a look, but lower the expectations the better. A good facility for some silly fun.
See what I did there?

  • Antony Yee & Chris Dawes

Blue Light Special on Mayhem: Revisiting Chopping Mall (1986)

23 Monday Mar 2026

Posted by in retrospective

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Few films capture the peculiar charm of 1980s B-movie excess quite like Chopping Mall, the gleefully silly sci-fi slasher directed by Jim Wynorski. Promising a blend of high-tech terror and consumerist satire, the film strands a group of teenagers in a shopping centre stalked by malfunctioning security robots. On paper, it’s a wonderfully ridiculous premise — Short Circuit by way of Dawn of the Dead — but the result is a somewhat uneven cult oddity that never quite lives up to its gleeful concept.

A Mall After Midnight

The setup is pure 1980s sci-fi pulp. The Park Plaza Mall installs a trio of sophisticated security robots — affectionately dubbed “Killbots” — designed to patrol the complex after hours. Naturally, the system works perfectly… until a lightning strike short-circuits the controls, turning the machines into lethal enforcers with a very loose definition of trespassing.

Meanwhile, a group of young mall employees decide to throw a secret after-hours party inside one of the stores. Predictably, their night of rebellious fun quickly transforms into a cat-and-mouse game as the robots begin hunting them through the darkened corridors.

It’s a premise that promises chaos and ingenuity, yet the film often settles for repetition. The Killbots trundle through the mall with mechanical persistence, firing lasers and delivering the occasional electrocution, while the teens scramble from store to store in search of escape.

Campy Energy, Limited Bite

To its credit, Chopping Mall embraces its B-movie identity with enthusiasm. Director Jim Wynorski, who would become a prolific figure in low-budget genre filmmaking, keeps the tone playful rather than frightening. The film operates firmly in the realm of camp rather than suspense.

Unfortunately, that playful spirit doesn’t always translate into momentum. Much of the middle section consists of characters hiding, running, or debating their next move while the robots slowly patrol the premises. The mechanical villains themselves — squat, boxy machines topped with blinking lights — look more like malfunctioning appliances than unstoppable killing machines.

The result is a film that feels more goofy than dangerous.

Barbara Crampton Brings Some Spark

One of the film’s more enjoyable elements is the presence of Barbara Crampton, who would soon become a beloved icon of 1980s horror thanks to films like Re-Animator and From Beyond. Even within the confines of a lightweight script, Crampton manages to bring charisma and a touch of sincerity to her role.

She stands out in a cast largely composed of archetypal 80s teens, providing moments of charm that briefly elevate the otherwise disposable proceedings.

Consumer Culture Meets Killer Robots

There’s also a faint whiff of satire running through the film’s premise. The idea of automated security systems turning on the very consumers they were designed to protect carries a subtle commentary about technological overreach and corporate obsession with efficiency.

Yet these ideas never develop beyond the surface level. Unlike Dawn of the Dead, which used the shopping mall as a biting critique of consumer culture, Chopping Mall seems more interested in using the setting as a convenient playground for laser blasts and exploding heads.

The film gestures toward satire but ultimately settles for spectacle.

A Mildly Amusing Cult Curio

Despite its shortcomings, Chopping Mall has endured as a minor cult favorite — and it’s easy to see why. The premise is delightfully absurd, the setting wonderfully nostalgic, and the film’s brisk runtime prevents the silliness from overstaying its welcome.

Still, nostalgia can only carry a film so far. While it offers a handful of entertaining moments and plenty of retro charm, the movie never quite capitalizes on the chaotic potential of its killer-robot-in-a-mall setup.

  • Saul Muetre

The Slow Rot of Truth: We Bury the Dead (2024)

11 Wednesday Mar 2026

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Zombie cinema has rarely been short of metaphors. From consumerism to social collapse, the living dead have long functioned as mirrors reflecting humanity’s anxieties back at itself. In We Bury the Dead, Australian filmmaker Zak Hilditch approaches the genre from a quieter, more introspective angle, delivering a film that is less concerned with apocalyptic spectacle and more invested in the emotional wreckage left behind when the world stops making sense.

Following the critical success of his Stephen King adaptation 1922, Hilditch once again demonstrates a fascination with grief, guilt and moral ambiguity. Where many zombie films focus on the chaos of the outbreak itself, We Bury the Dead situates its narrative in the uneasy aftermath — a world where the catastrophe has already occurred and society is struggling to process what comes next.

The premise is deceptively straightforward. After a military experiment goes catastrophically wrong, large portions of the population are left dead… or something close to it. The government attempts to contain the situation by declaring the reanimated victims harmless and slow-moving, encouraging volunteers to enter quarantined zones to recover bodies and offer closure to grieving families. It is an oddly bureaucratic approach to the apocalypse — one that immediately hints at deeper layers of deception.

Enter Ava, portrayed with steely determination by Daisy Ridley. Driven by the possibility that her missing husband might still be found within the restricted zone, Ava volunteers to join the clean-up effort. What begins as a mission rooted in grief soon transforms into a descent into a landscape where the official narrative begins to unravel.

Because the dead, it seems, are not as harmless as the military would like the public to believe.

Grief at the End of the World

At its heart, We Bury the Dead is not really about zombies. Instead, it is about the human inability to accept loss.

Hilditch structures the film almost like a road movie through the ruins of a broken society. Ava’s journey through quarantined territories becomes a physical manifestation of grief itself — a search for answers that may never come, fuelled by the stubborn hope that closure might still be possible.

The film repeatedly asks a troubling question: if the dead returned, even briefly, would we really want to let them go again?

This thematic focus places the film closer to reflective entries in the genre such as The Girl with All the Gifts or 28 Days Later, where the apocalypse becomes a canvas for exploring the emotional cost of survival rather than simply a playground for gore.

A Different Kind of Undead

The film’s interpretation of the undead also deserves mention. Rather than the traditional shambling hordes popularised by George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Hilditch presents a more ambiguous threat.

Initially passive, the reanimated bodies appear almost dormant — eerily calm, as if waiting. But as Ava moves deeper into the quarantine zone, something begins to shift. The dead become restless, unpredictable, increasingly aggressive.

The slow escalation works effectively because Hilditch refuses to rush it. The horror creeps in gradually, allowing the tension to build organically rather than relying on sudden bursts of violence.

This patient pacing will not satisfy viewers looking for relentless zombie carnage, but it serves the film’s more contemplative ambitions well.

Atmosphere Over Spectacle

Visually, We Bury the Dead leans heavily into desolation. The quarantined landscapes feel eerily still, drained of life and colour. Roads stretch endlessly through abandoned territories while small settlements sit frozen in time, as though the world simply stopped functioning mid-sentence.

The result is an atmosphere that feels closer to post-apocalyptic melancholy than traditional horror.

Hilditch has always shown a strong sense of visual restraint, and that restraint works largely in the film’s favour. The horror rarely comes from the monsters themselves but from the creeping realisation that the official narrative surrounding the disaster may be deliberately misleading.

In other words, the true threat may not be the dead — but the living who are trying to control the story.

A Thoughtful Entry in a Crowded Genre

While We Bury the Dead occasionally struggles with pacing — its deliberate tempo can at times feel slightly overextended — the film’s emotional depth helps it rise above many of its genre contemporaries.

Ridley anchors the story with a performance grounded in determination and vulnerability, carrying the film through its quieter moments of reflection and uncertainty. Her journey is less about survival than about acceptance — the painful process of realising that some answers simply cannot bring comfort.

In a genre often dominated by chaos and carnage, We Bury the Dead chooses a more sombre path.

It’s a zombie film about mourning.

And in that quiet, reflective approach, Zak Hilditch finds something unexpectedly powerful.

The Prognosis:

A thoughtful, grief-stricken take on the undead mythos that favours atmosphere and emotional weight over relentless action.

  • Saul Muerte

Watching the Watchers: Bodycam (2026)

11 Wednesday Mar 2026

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

The found-footage format has long been one of horror’s most effective narrative devices. When done well, it places audiences directly inside the unfolding terror, collapsing the distance between viewer and victim. Yet it’s also a subgenre littered with misfires, where shaky cameras and contrived setups often undermine the illusion of authenticity. Bodycam, the latest Shudder Original from Canadian filmmaker Brandon Christensen, sits somewhere between those two extremes — a competent genre exercise that understands the mechanics of found-footage horror, even if it doesn’t entirely reinvent them.

Christensen has quietly carved out a niche within contemporary supernatural horror. His earlier films, particularly Still/Born and Superhost, demonstrated a knack for building tension through confined spaces and psychological unease. With Bodycam, he expands that approach into a story rooted in modern surveillance culture, using the now-familiar lens of police body cameras to frame a tale where guilt, paranoia, and something far more sinister begin to blur together.

The premise is deceptively simple. Two police officers respond to what initially appears to be a routine domestic disturbance call. When the situation spirals into a tragic accident, the pair make a desperate decision to conceal the truth, fearing the consequences of public scrutiny and institutional fallout. Yet as they attempt to rewrite the narrative, they begin to realise that the technology designed to document the truth may not be the only witness present.

And perhaps something else is recording.

Christensen leans heavily into the aesthetics of surveillance — dashboard cameras, bodycam footage, and fragments of security recordings stitched together to tell the story. This multi-camera structure echoes the fragmented style seen in genre landmarks like The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, and REC, all of which demonstrated how technological mediation can heighten a sense of realism. The trick, however, lies in convincing audiences that every camera angle exists for a plausible reason — one of the classic “dos and don’ts” of found-footage filmmaking.

To Christensen’s credit, Bodycam largely understands those rules. The body camera format itself naturally justifies the constant presence of a recording device, avoiding the common genre pitfall where characters inexplicably continue filming while their lives are clearly in danger. The immediacy of the footage lends several scenes a raw intensity, particularly when the supernatural elements begin to bleed into the frame in subtle, fleeting glimpses.

Where the film falters slightly is in its reliance on familiar beats. The escalating paranoia, the creeping suggestion that unseen forces are manipulating events, and the eventual collision between guilt and supernatural consequence follow a trajectory that seasoned horror audiences will likely recognise. Christensen proves adept at staging tension, but the narrative rarely deviates far from the established playbook.

Still, the film’s thematic core gives it an added layer of intrigue. By centring the story on police officers attempting to hide a mistake, Bodycam taps into contemporary anxieties surrounding accountability, surveillance, and the uncomfortable reality that technology can both reveal and obscure the truth. The idea that the cameras designed to protect authority figures might ultimately condemn them adds an unsettling moral dimension to the proceedings.

Visually, the film embraces the claustrophobic aesthetic that Christensen has proven comfortable with throughout his career. Much like Superhost, the tension builds through confined environments and a slow tightening of psychological pressure. Darkness becomes a character in its own right, with the limited field of vision offered by the body cameras forcing viewers to search every corner of the frame for signs of what might be lurking just outside the light.

As with many entries in the found-footage canon, the film’s success ultimately depends on how much patience audiences have for the format’s limitations. Shaky visuals, fragmented storytelling, and a reliance on atmosphere over spectacle are all part of the package.

For fans of the subgenre, Bodycam offers a solid if familiar addition to the catalogue — a tense supernatural thriller that understands the rules of the game without necessarily rewriting them.

The Prognosis:

A competent found-footage chiller that proves Brandon Christensen knows how to work within the genre’s framework, even if he occasionally plays it a little too safe.

  • Saul Muerte

Bodycam streams on Shudder from Fri 13 Mar