Tag Archives: reviews

Dark Water (2005) – Drenched in Atmosphere, Dried of Tension

07 Monday Jul 2025

Posted by in retrospective

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Directed by The Motorcycle Diaries‘ Walter Salles and boasting a stellar cast led by Jennifer Connelly, Dark Water (2005) had all the ingredients for a compelling psychological horror. But despite its prestigious pedigree and the eerie bones of its Japanese source material, the film never quite rises above a slow, soggy trudge through grief, isolation, and leaky ceilings.

Connelly plays Dahlia, a mother in the throes of a bitter divorce who relocates with her daughter to a dilapidated apartment on Roosevelt Island. From the outset, the mood is steeped in melancholy—a constant downpour, peeling wallpaper, and a black stain that won’t stop bleeding through the ceiling. It’s all metaphor, of course, for abandonment, trauma, and emotional erosion. And while Connelly commits fully, offering a deeply felt, restrained performance, even her best efforts struggle to keep the film from sinking under its own dreariness.

There’s strong support from the likes of John C. Reilly, Tim Roth, Dougray Scott, and Pete Postlethwaite, each adding gravitas in small doses. But the ensemble feels wasted on a script that paces like a dirge and spends too long building atmosphere at the expense of real suspense. Where Hideo Nakata’s 2002 original (Honogurai mizu no soko kara) balanced its ghost story with quiet dread and a haunting emotional core, this remake feels bloated by comparison—drawn out and uncertain of where to land its final blow.

Salles, though an accomplished filmmaker, seems misaligned with the genre here. The horror elements never hit hard enough, the tension evaporates rather than builds, and even the film’s climactic revelations arrive without the sting they need. There is a tragic weight at the story’s centre—a meditation on motherhood, abandonment, and sacrifice—but it’s bogged down by the film’s sluggish rhythm and predictability.

The Prognosis:

Dark Water isn’t without merit. It’s beautifully shot and well-acted, and at its heart lies a poignant idea about the things we carry and the past we cannot rinse away. But ultimately, this is a film that, despite all the polish and pedigree, feels like a remake with little new to say—trailing in the shadow of its superior original.

Soaked in mood but lacking menace, Dark Water leaves only a damp impression.

  • Saul Muerte

The Shrouds (2024) – Cronenberg’s Grief-Laced Techno-Tomb

02 Wednesday Jul 2025

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

How dark are you willing to go? For David Cronenberg, The Shrouds marks another step into the abyss—one not of body horror, but of soul-rattling grief. This is arguably his most intimate and meditative work in decades, stitched together from threads of personal mourning, speculative technology, and the philosophical weight of death’s final curtain.

At the centre is Karsh (played with measured intensity by Vincent Cassel), a widower and tech entrepreneur who creates a radical new device: one that allows the living to peer into the graves of their deceased loved ones via digitally monitored “shrouds.” This deeply invasive (yet oddly spiritual) concept is classic Cronenberg—scientific progress colliding with deeply human frailty. But when a series of graves, including that of Karsh’s wife, are mysteriously desecrated, the film pivots into a sombre, noir-like mystery driven more by obsession than resolution.

From the turn of the century, Cronenberg’s work—Spider, A History of Violence, Cosmopolis, and Crimes of the Future—has leaned away from his earlier grotesque sensibilities and toward psychological excavation. The Shrouds is a continuation of that journey, and perhaps his most self-reflective piece since The Fly. With the recent passing of his wife, the film becomes a stark act of cinematic mourning—less a story than a eulogy.

The concept of the shroud here operates on multiple levels: biblically, as the linen of death and resurrection; metaphorically, as the veil between life and death; and narratively, as the enigma that cloaks Karsh’s unraveling. There’s also the ever-present shroud of mystery that clouds the truth—not only of the graveyard desecrations, but of Karsh himself. As the film progresses, Karsh becomes more opaque, his motives murkier, and his grief increasingly pathological. These twists are fascinating but also frustrating, leading the narrative into a fog of unanswered questions that might leave some viewers cold.

Yet Cronenberg surrounds Cassel with a stellar cast that brings warmth and depth. Diane Kruger and Guy Pearce, both enigmatic and grounded, help anchor the film in emotional reality even as it drifts into cerebral territory. Their performances are subtle yet compelling, with Pearce offering a particularly nuanced turn.

The Prognosis:

The Shrouds isn’t easy to love—but then again, grief rarely is. What it offers is a look into one man’s private hell, filtered through the lens of a director who has never shied away from uncomfortable truths. If its philosophical weight sometimes outweighs its dramatic clarity, it remains a compelling, mournful meditation from one of cinema’s most fearless auteurs.

  • Saul Muerte

The Shrouds will be screening in cinemas nationwide from Thu 3rd July.

Outbreak (2024) – A Predictable Descent into Trauma

30 Monday Jun 2025

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Directed by Jeff Wolfe, Outbreak promises psychological dread and emotional turmoil against the backdrop of a creeping viral catastrophe—but ends up delivering little more than a tepid, trauma-soaked shuffle through familiar terrain.

The film follows a State Park Ranger (Billy Burke) and his wife (Alyshia Ochse) as they navigate the emotional wreckage of their teenage son’s disappearance, only to be confronted by a mysterious outbreak that further destabilises their world. As the infection spreads, so too does the sense of despair—but unfortunately, not much tension.

Billy Burke anchors the film with an earnest and committed performance, his weathered presence lending weight to otherwise limp material. Wolfe allows plenty of room for grief to dominate the narrative, but the pacing is sluggish, and the dramatic beats soon feel repetitive. Rather than building momentum, Outbreak spirals into melodrama, with a script that too often leans on genre clichés and a plot that telegraphs its twists from miles away.

There are a few flashes of atmosphere—some moody cinematography and eerie silences—but the film’s tonal heaviness overshadows its horror ambitions. The virus metaphor is serviceable, and by the time the film reaches its climax, the emotional payoff feels muted and overly familiar.

Despite its promising premise and a solid cast including Raoul Max Trujillo, Taylor Handley, and Jessica Frances Dukes, Outbreak plays it safe when it desperately needed to take risks. Watchable, sure—but only for the curious or the committed fans of the cast. For most, this is a slow trudge through thematic terrain that’s already been better navigated by others.

Outbreak will be available to rent or buy on DVD & Digital across Apple TV, Prime Video, Google TV, YouTube, and Fetch (AU) from July 2nd.

  • Saul Muerte

“In Her Skin: The Stylist and the High Cost of Belonging”

13 Friday Jun 2025

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Streaming on Shudder and AMC+ from Monday 16 June

Beneath its softly lit salons and the hushed intimacy of late-night haircuts, The Stylist carves out something far more unsettling: a psychological portrait of aching loneliness, identity collapse, and the monstrous lengths some will go to feel like they belong. Directed with eerie precision by Jill Gevargizian, this feature-length adaptation of her acclaimed short film offers a muted but effective horror tale that leans more into sadness than shocks.

Claire (Najarra Townsend) is a woman adrift—quiet, awkward, desperate to connect—but with a hunger that’s gone grotesquely unmet. She doesn’t just cut hair. She scalps. Each kill is not about violence for its own sake, but a tragic, chilling attempt to wear someone else’s life. And that’s where The Stylist cuts deepest—not in the gore, but in its exploration of identity as a fragile performance, and what happens when someone can no longer locate their own sense of self.

Enter Olivia (Brea Grant), an affable, outgoing bride-to-be who naively invites Claire deeper into her world. From there, the spiral is slow and agonising. What starts as admiration curdles into obsession. Claire’s need to be Olivia isn’t just jealousy—it’s pathological yearning. Her scalping isn’t about trophies in the serial killer sense. It’s about transference. Taking the one thing a person can’t fake: their presence, their social ease, their confidence. Claire doesn’t want to destroy—she wants to inhabit.

Townsend delivers a superb, painfully internal performance. Her Claire is meek but never blank—each nervous twitch and downward glance revealing someone quietly screaming behind her skin. She doesn’t play the killer as a monster, but as a woman in mourning—for connection, for warmth, for identity. It’s a performance that sticks with you. Brea Grant, meanwhile, plays Olivia with a brightness that never tips into caricature, making her slow realisation all the more tragic.

Stylistically, the film is polished, with an elegant aesthetic that contrasts beautifully with its macabre subject matter. There are echoes of Maniac, May, even Single White Female, but The Stylist stands on its own, particularly in how grounded its emotional horror remains. The mood is heavy, sometimes to a fault, with pacing that occasionally feels listless rather than deliberate. Still, the thematic undercurrents—how we mask our emptiness, how we covet others’ confidence like currency—are deeply resonant.

The Prognosis:

There’s a sadness in the scissors. In the need to be seen. In the horror of invisibility. The Stylist doesn’t reinvent the horror genre, but it delivers something more haunting than expected: a quiet eulogy for those who never quite found their place, and the darkness that fills the void.

  • Saul Muerte

The Dhampir Rises Again: 40 Years of Vampire Hunter D’s Haunting Influence

28 Wednesday May 2025

Posted by in retrospective

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Premiering Exclusively on Shudder, AMC+ and HIDIVE – Friday 30 May
“In a world ruled by vampires, only a half-blood dares to hunt them.”

When Vampire Hunter D premiered in 1985, few could have predicted the cultural ripple effect it would have across manga, anime, and horror for decades to come. Now, forty years later, this gothic, genre-defying milestone returns with a long-awaited streaming premiere on Shudder, AMC+, and HIDIVE—offering a perfect moment to reflect on its enduring power.

Set in the far-flung future of 12,090 A.D., the film unfolds in a post-apocalyptic landscape where science and sorcery coexist, and humanity lives in fear under the rule of the vampire Nobility. At its centre is Doris Lang, a brave young woman marked for unholy matrimony by the ancient Count Magnus Lee. Her only hope lies in the hands of a mysterious wanderer known only as D—an enigmatic vampire hunter with a tragic secret etched into his very bloodline.

Directed by Toyoo Ashida and based on the novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi with iconic illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano, Vampire Hunter D was a revelation for its time. It merged the aesthetics of Western horror—Dracula, Frankenstein, Lovecraft—with a distinctly Japanese post-apocalyptic flair, opening a door to global audiences that had rarely encountered horror anime in this form. The film’s blend of violence, melancholy, and romanticism felt alien and refreshing—an animated Gothic western that flirted with sci-fi, body horror, and dark fantasy.

The horror in Vampire Hunter D is not just visual—it’s atmospheric. Shadowy castles, mutated creatures, and the decaying elegance of the vampire Nobility all serve to create an air of terminal beauty, where death and corruption linger in every frame. The film pulses with dread, not just from its antagonists, but from the melancholic burden D carries as a dhampir—caught between two worlds, never at home in either.

Manga, and later anime, would absorb and amplify these motifs. Vampire Hunter D helped normalise horror as a serious mode within manga storytelling, inspiring a lineage that includes Berserk, Hellsing, Claymore, and Attack on Titan. Its DNA can be traced through the decades, proving that gothic horror, when stylised with poetic nihilism and speculative world-building, could resonate far beyond Japan.

Though animation has since evolved in leaps and bounds, there’s a charm in Vampire Hunter D’s hand-drawn grit—a visual texture that feels inseparable from its era and identity. It may lack the polish of modern anime, but it makes up for it in atmosphere, tone, and mythic presence.

The Prognosis:

As it celebrates its 40th anniversary with a new generation of fans ready to rediscover it, Vampire Hunter D still holds its scythe high. Part horror, part tragedy, and wholly influential, it remains a cornerstone of horror anime—and proof that even in a world of monsters, the greatest fear often lies within the hero himself.

  • Retrospective Review by Saul Muerte

Vampire Hunter D premieres exclusively on Shudder, AMC+ and HIDIVE – Friday 30 May

Letting Go Hurts: The Surrender Cuts Deep

18 Sunday May 2025

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Grief, guilt, and resurrection collide in this modest but emotionally raw Shudder original, anchored by Colby Minifie’s compelling performance.

Shudder’s The Surrender, directed by Julia Max, delivers a slow-burn horror that uses its modest means to tell a deeply emotional—and at times unnerving—tale of grief, guilt, and letting go. While the film initially struggles under the weight of its low budget, it gradually finds its footing as it surrenders itself to the emotional and psychological turmoil at its centre.

At the heart of the story is the fraught relationship between a grieving mother and her daughter Megan (Colby Minifie), as they wrestle with the sudden death of their husband and father. Desperate and broken, the mother enlists a mysterious stranger to bring her husband back from the dead. What begins as a misguided act of love quickly spirals into something much more brutal and unnatural.

The supernatural elements are understated at first, and admittedly, the film’s visual limitations are most noticeable in its early scenes. But what The Surrender lacks in spectacle, it more than makes up for in its performances—particularly Minifie’s. As Megan, she delivers a performance grounded in realism and vulnerability, guiding the audience through the stages of grief with raw authenticity. Her arc—resisting, confronting, and eventually accepting the horror unraveling around her—anchors the film and gives its title real weight.

Director Julia Max plays with mood and silence rather than jump scares, and the atmosphere becomes more effective the longer we sit in it. The film’s title becomes a double-edged term: surrender to grief, surrender to love, and ultimately, surrender to what can’t be undone.

The Prognosis:

While it never fully transcends its genre or budget, The Surrender is a thoughtful entry in the grief-horror subgenre that lingers in the mind more than expected. For those patient enough to give in, there’s something genuinely resonant beneath the blood and shadow.

  • Movie Review by Saul Muerte

The Surrender is streaming on Shudder from Fri 23rd May.

Final Destination: Bloodlines” Sends the Franchise Out with a Bloody, Belly-Laugh Bang

14 Wednesday May 2025

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Gruesome deaths, tongue-in-cheek humour, and one last haunting turn from Tony Todd give this unexpected final chapter a shockingly fun farewell.

Okay, so what number is this? FD 14? 80? Final Destination 482?

Meh, who cares.

To be perfectly honest, I really wasn’t expecting much from this, so did it deliver?
Drum roll… well, you’ll see.

The plot is: College student, Stefani, is plagued by the same super-violent nightmare  night after night so investigates to find out what’s the deal. Then blah de blah, something, something about cheating death and it coming back to get you.

IRL SPOILER ALERT: Death catches up with everyone in the end.

Starring… well, I don’t know. Other than Tony Todd (in his final role before his passing) reprising his usual role, there’s no big ‘stars’… unless you count the Maya Hawke lookalike. This obviously makes the cast extra-expendable when they meet their bloody end. And boy oh boy, did they not scrimp on the blood and gore!!!

Every death is gratuitously gore-rific. The audience at the screening, the sick puppies they were, erupted in absolute fits of laughter every time one of the characters was killed.

Again, sick puppies… myself included of course.

But that’s it too. It most definitely plays for laughs. The writers are comedy and/or horror specialists. Between them they are responsible for: “Abigail”, “Ready or Not”, “Spider-Man: Homecoming” to name but a few. And they’ve had a great deal of fun with the script for this.

The Prognosis:

For me, “Final Destination: Bloodlines” was a great surprise. The makers have promised this is the final chapter of the long-exhausted franchise but hooly dooly, what a way to go out.

Now let the franchise die and head to its final destination.

  • Movie Review by Myles Davies

Clown in a Cornfield Juggles Gore, Heart, and Teen Angst—but Drops a Few Balls

13 Tuesday May 2025

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Eli Craig’s stylish adaptation of the Bram Stoker Award-winning novel lands some bloody punches, but struggles to balance slasher thrills, meta commentary, and character depth.

Adapted from the 2020 novel of the same name by Adam Cesare. Clown in the Cornfield won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Young Adult Novel and was a prominent addition to the new wave of horror literature. Acquired by Shudder and pushed wider than one would expect for a Canadian teen slasher, the film has high aspirations and plenty to show for it.

Still grieving the loss of her mother, Quinn (Katie Douglas) has been transplanted from Philadelphia to the corn country town of Kettle Springs by her father, the new town’s doctor (Aaron Abrams). Hoping for a new start, they find the town, still stuck in the 90s, has a strange air about it. The adults all seem to have it out for the teens of the town, in particular the group lead by the Mayor’s son, Cole (Carson MacCormac). Much to the town’s chagrin Cole and his friends make internet horror videos, starring Friendo the Clown, the Factory and the Town’s Mascot. After one of their recent after hours shoots in the corn syrup factory, a fire mysteriously started and burned the whole thing down, putting half the town out of work and the teens in the crosshairs of a very angry clown.

A slasher lives and dies (and dies and dies) on its kills and in this teen slasher comedy Director Eli Craig brings his experience from the very fun Tucker & Dale vs Evil and the Adam Scott starring, Omen parody, Little Evil. While the killing is sparse to begin with, the violence ramps up towards the end in fun and inventive ways. There is a surprising amount of heart put into the film and the teen drama between the leads is engaging and affecting. One of the film’s weak points though is the supporting cast, the performances are held well but characters are so thinly drawn which only is highlighted because the leads have such life and depth to them.

Out of the whole Canadian cast, Kevin Durand is the biggest name here and really he’s more of a “Hey, I know that guy!” Durand plays the conservative Mayor obsessed with tradition and hard on the youth. While there isn’t a whole lot for him to do for most of the film’s run, there is one scene towards the end where he gets to really chew the scenery.

Together, Craig and cinematographer Brian Pearson (Final Destination 5, I Am Legend) bring a gorgeous look to the film, it’s probably one of the best looking teen horrors in a long while. Divorced from so many of the bad habits that have plagued the lower tier horror films of the last decade. The action is clear and you are always oriented in the scenes. I know this sounds like faint praise but there are so many slashers aimed at teens that just do not try and end up edited to pieces.

Unfortunately, the film suffers in the act of adaptation, too often you can feel a novel’s pacing and story squeezed into the brisk 96 minutes of the film’s run time. The tone fights with itself throughout flitting between classic slasher, meta comedy and teen drama, doing all three well when it’s happening on screen but all three never coalesce into a singular piece. Friendo never really gets the moments to elevate anywhere near to the likes of Jason or Freddy, or even Art the Clown for that matter. His design is not terribly interesting and the reveal of what’s really going on, while surprising at first, leaves the lore pretty thin and shallow to play in

The Prognosis:

The aspirations to be Scream for this generation are here; the mixture of horror and comedy, generational commentary, teenage cast. As an entry level slasher it does plenty right and with solid direction, inventive kills and charming performances but for more seasoned slasher lovers will be left wanting from Friendo the Clown.

  • Movie Review by Oscar Jack

A Symphony in Splatter: Langley’s Butchers Trilogy Goes for the Jugular

10 Saturday May 2025

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Director Adrian Langley stays true to his blood-soaked roots in this gleefully gruesome third chapter.

In a genre that thrives on extremity, Adrian Langley’s Butchers trilogy has carved out its own brutal little niche—one not of narrative elegance or thematic innovation, but of bone-crunching, limb-lopping, nerve-shredding excess. With Butchers Book Three: Bonesaw, Langley stays the course, offering up another round of down-home horror where pain is inevitable and escape is unlikely.

Gone are the niceties of plot complexity or emotional nuance. In their place: sinew, shrieks, and gallons of the good stuff—practical effects and prosthetics that drip with a kind of DIY devotion rarely seen in modern horror. Langley doesn’t just lean into the gore; he practically does a cannonball into it. This time, his antagonist is a grotesque butcher on wheels, hacking through anyone in his way from the confines of his roving abattoir van. It’s ridiculous, yes, but it’s also grotesquely entertaining.

The story, such as it is, follows three women caught in the butcher’s path and a small-town sheriff who attempts to make sense of the carnage. There’s a familiar structure here—the cat-and-mouse setup, the slasher’s calculated chaos—but Langley’s real interest lies in the carnage itself. Heads roll. Limbs drop. The camera rarely flinches, and neither does the director.

Where the film stumbles is in its limited character development and tonal rigidity. The sheriff subplot adds some much-needed shape, but our protagonists exist mostly to scream, bleed, and be pursued. Still, in the context of a trilogy where spectacle has always trumped subtext, Bonesaw feels like a natural and—dare it be said—confident culmination of Langley’s rural carnage canon.

This isn’t horror that aims for atmosphere or metaphors. It’s red meat cinema—satisfyingly gnarly, grotesquely tactile, and proud of its splatterpunk DNA. In an era of glossy elevated horror, Butchers Book Three proudly remains low to the ground, in the dirt and the blood, where it has always belonged.

The Prognosis:

Not for the squeamish, but for gorehounds and genre loyalists, Langley delivers precisely what’s on the tin—if that tin were dented, rusted, and soaked through with blood.

  • Movie Review by Saul Muerte

Movie Review: Butchers

Movie Review: Butchers Two: Raghorn

The Island Fades into the Mist

10 Saturday May 2025

Posted by in Movie review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Fernando Trueba’s sun-drenched thriller is a lethargic drift through secrets, sensuality, and squandered potential.

The Mediterranean sun may dazzle, the waves may glitter, and the cast may smoulder with generically attractive tension—but none of it can save The Island from becoming one of the more soporific cinematic experiences. Fernando Trueba, a director with an esteemed filmography, trades narrative vitality for languid ambiance in this inert psychological drama that unfolds like a long, humid sigh.

Set against the postcard backdrop of a Greek island, the film introduces us to Alex, a new waitress at a boutique seaside restaurant. With a femme-fatale allure and an air of mystery, she quickly captures the attention of Enrico, the chef, but is drawn instead to Max, the elusive American manager hiding something in his brooding stares and clenched silences. What follows is less a thrilling triangle than a series of glances, sighs, and ultimately, a glacial unraveling of a secret that arrives with the narrative urgency of a missed ferry.

Trueba clearly intends a slow-burn approach, but what results is barely a flicker. The plot trudges along with the weight of its own self-importance, mistaking inertia for introspection. The sexual tension, which should crackle, barely hums. Conversations are riddled with cryptic hints and evasive stares, yet the payoffs are few and far between. When revelations do come, they feel both undercooked and unearned—mere embers that fail to ignite.

Visually, The Island is polished, occasionally picturesque. The camera lingers lovingly on the sea and stone, the half-lit interiors, the salt-flecked skin of its cast. But the atmosphere, no matter how finely curated, cannot compensate for narrative void. You keep waiting for the film to snap into focus, to finally tap into its thriller DNA. Instead, it drifts—first into lethargy, then into complete emotional disengagement.

The performances are competent, but the characters remain archetypes rather than people. Alex is sultry but shallowly drawn; Max, the American enigma, is more mannequin than man; and poor Enrico spends most of the runtime in a state of aimless suspicion. The film attempts to explore obsession, betrayal, and the burdens of past sins, but only gestures vaguely toward each before retreating back into the blue haze.

The Prognosis:

The Island wants to be a sun-bleached neo-noir, a slow meditation on desire and consequence, but what we’re left with is a whisper of a film—beautifully composed, but hollow and soporific. Sometimes, secrets are better left buried. In this case, the film’s own narrative might have been.

  • Movie Review by Saul Muerte