A Mother's Embrace aka Abraço de Mãe (Brazil 2024: Dir Cristian Ponce)

It's 1996. Ana (Marjorie Estiano) is a firefighter in Rio de Janeiro, returning to duty after a period in which she was given a leave of absence following the death of her mother, which affected her performance at work. To put it mildly.

Still clearly traumatised and experiencing fleeting visions of a mother from which she was estranged (following an abusive incident in her childhood, alluded to in the film's 1973 prologue), Ana is welcomed back into the ranks, but the fire service is too overwhelmed for a slow reintegration. 

The crisis facing the team isn't fire, but its elemental opposite; water. Successive rainy seasons in Rio de Janeiro have killed and displaced thousands. Ana and her fellow firefighters are summoned to a call at a nursing home on the outskirts of town, São Cristóvão, where Ana grew up. When they attend, they find an old, crumbling house full of residents in a poor state of health and hygiene, most almost catatonic. 

Outside a new storm begins to assert itself, necessitating the evacuation of the residents from the already leaking building. But none of the staff, headed up by the wheelchair bound Drika (Ângela Rabello) and younger manager Ulisses (Javier Drolas) seem in any hurry to leave. The team's attempts to rescue the old folk (and a small child, played Maria Volpe) results in their being trapped in the house, while Ana discovers the truth of what's happening, which links back to her mother.

Ponce's stylish and creepy feature, his first since 2020's History of the Occult, is an exercise in confusion and claustrophobia. Estiano's performance is the standout here; convincing in her trauma, her commitment to her job in the face of natural (and supernatural) danger consistent and believable.

There is a refreshing lack of clarity in what's happening, even when events are taking a distinctly Lovecraftian turn towards the end of the movie. It's best to revel in the nightmarish atmosphere of the thing (which reminded me of Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's 2007 movie REC), particularly the crumbling, waterlogged nursing home set; locating the movie within the very real natural disasters of the Rio de Janiero floods adds a frisson of authenticity. A Mother's Embrace is very much its own film and its own world, and that can only be a good thing. Excellent stuff.

A Mother's Embrace is on UK and Ireland digital platforms from 10 November.

The Session Man (UK 2023/4: Dir Michael Treen)

The 'session man' of this documentary's title is - or rather was - Nicky Hopkins. Born in Sheffield in 1944, Hopkins was a keyboard child prodigy who went on to be a pivotal figure on the 1960s/70s UK music scene, albeit one that you're more likely to have heard than heard of.

Treen's debut feature length movie, planned back in 2021 and originally released to the festival circuit in 2023, traces Hopkins's career from his own band, 'The Savages', to his emergence on the 1960s music scene as the go to session pianist (the piano just starting to be used on the recordings of beat groups). It documents his almost Zelig like appearances with a large number of key 1970s bands, including 'The Who', 'The Kinks', and 'The Beatles', even sharing the stage with 'Jefferson Airplane' at Woodstock (it would have been with Jeff Beck, but apparently Mr Beck got the hump and flew home).

Hopkins, who died at the young age of 50 in 1994 (as a result of complications following a lifelong existence with Crohn's Disease) is therefore not present to offer his side of the story, beyond some archive interviews in which he appears modest and unassuming in conversation. Even rarer here are live performances; it's a distinct limitation to the enjoyment of Session Man, clearly a documentary of limited budget, that very little of the man's work is shown played by Hopkins himself. Indeed even his recorded work is sparse in the movie; we are left to experience Hopkins's mercurial talent via session musicians.

The musician's world is brought to life by a variety of interviews, some archive, some specifically for the documentary, including some insightful contributions from his second wife, Moira (other surviving family members aren't interviewed) ; as you'd expect from a group of talking heads who are mostly in their late 70s and 80s, recollection is not always great (ironically it's 'The Rolling Stones' 81 year old Keith Richards who offers the most impassioned support of Hopkins). Hopkins is made out to be a rather private man (possibly because of the paucity of biographical footage) who didn't know his true talent, which doesn't reconcile with his 1970s excesses, which saw him keeping up with the hard drinking and drugging Hollywood Vampires (to the point where he had to fill in for a 'refreshed' Harry Nilsson during the recording of one of his solo albums) and requiring a spell in rehab.

But it's the revelations of Hopkins's contributions to key bands and albums that is the film's biggest delight. If you've ever marvelled at the piano work on The Stones's 'She's a Rainbow' or 'Sympathy for the Devil', that's Nicky; what isn't disclosed is whether his work, which often transformed such songs from 'ok' to 'classic' status, was truly acknowledged at the time, or whether his status remained as 'session player'. Certainly there's no shortage of musicians queuing up to eulogise the late Hopkins in Treen's patchy but heartfelt documentary, but one can't help feel that if he was recognised as an essential talent back then he may still have been with us today.

The Session Man will be released to cinemas from 21 November.

Remember, Remember, the 5th of November etc etc.

So this morning I woke up and thought ‘Ah, another day of podcast writing, checking I have ingredients for dinner and…’ Hang on. It’s November 5th! How did this become just another day? The slow erosion of bonfire night, or fireworks night, or – more specifically – Guy Fawkes’ night, in the memory and public consciousness has entirely happened during my time on earth; actually more accurately the first fifty or so years of that span.

I can only write from personal experience – and I was a bit of an odd boy – but as a child this date was the second in the ‘holy trinity’ of autumn/winter excitement. First was 31st October – Halloween – and the third was of course 25th December. 5th November marked a sort of mid-point; a date I looked forward to for weeks. 

While the deregulation of the fireworks industry in the early 1980s (thank you, Mrs Thatch) really opened the field of choice for the firework hunter, back in the 1960s there were five firework companies all offering pretty much the same thing: Brock’s, Paines, Wessex, Astra and Standard. Fireworks were sold individually or in different sized, affordable mixed boxes. You could gaze at the goods via glass fronted wooden display cabinets in most toy shops (although my own local shop, Holloway’s in Hounslow, chose not to stock them).

My parents didn’t have much money at the time, so we would only have been able to afford a small box of fireworks, which was fine. Once bought – sometime in advance of bonfire night – it would be stored under the sofa in the ‘best room’ of the house (ie the front room, only used for guests/parties and closed off at all other times to avoid having to heat it, via the creaky back boiler behind the main fireplace).

I would sneak into the front room pretty much nightly in the days leading up to 5th November, open the box and smell the gunpowder which stuffed each of the fireworks; sometimes there was a powdery residue in the box, and I wondered what mischief I could cause with that. There was always a roman candle, a jumping jack, a catherine wheel (which, when nailed to a fence post, hardly ever seemed to rotate), and a rocket. Touching these talismans was arguably as much, if not more fun than setting them off; there was always something a bit sad about the brief life of a firework, as if the potential of the thing was never matched by its momentary kinetic release. Rockets were slightly different. Fired from a milk bottle, half submerged in earth for stability (the bottle always smelled pretty disgusting the morning after) each one rose skyward to join its friends, as if being alone was not a natural state.

And then there was the now extinct practice of ‘penny for the guy’. My mother came from the poorer side of a rather well to do family in north London and always felt more connected to them than her own mother. I realised, some years after her death, that mum had retained some of the snobbery from that side of the family too, which rubbed off on me; this was probably why I looked on the ‘penny for the guy’ merchants as a bit common. Certainly I never undertook, or was asked to undertake, the custom of wheeling a badly made ‘guy’ to a street corner and begging for money. But in the late 1960s such groups were common. When did this die out?

I learned the origins of Guy Fawkes quite early. I attended a Church of England primary school, and on one particular November 5th, when we were all excited and raring to leave school for our respective back gardens (this would have been sometime towards the end of the 1960s) our headmaster called a kind of impromptu end of school assembly, giving us a very Protestant skewed account of evil Guy Fawkes and his treasonous acts, seeking to instill in us the reason we were celebrating and, arguably, warning of the perceived dangers of popery; how very 17th Century (although until relatively recently shops sold Guy Fawkes masks too, a tradition dating back  - in different forms - to the early 1600s). At the time this account seemed to conflict with the often jolly figure of Mr Fawkes found on the front of the fireworks boxes. But even then it cast a slight pall of gloom over bonfire night. How many of the households in Hounslow, all setting off fireworks at the same time in their back gardens, associated what they were doing with the slice of history imparted to us? Who knows.

Obviously we still have fireworks now; their use is no longer restricted to one day of the year (Diwali celebrations and bonfire night are often very close to each other date wise), and fireworks outlets can be found on high streets all year round. What’s missing, I suppose, is Guy himself. One look at the Wiki page for the event reminds the reader that for nearly four hundred years after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot the 5th November was one of the most important, and significant, dates in the UK calendar (enshrined in law to ensure its continued observance), only to be largely snuffed out as the 20th century drew to a close. Even the famous Lewes and Sussex bonfires, which take place on or around November 5 annually, have moved the focus of their fiery celebrations from religious martyrs to prominent unpopular political figures. 

As an adult, and owner of two vulnerable rescue cats, I confess to maintaining a slight dread at the cacophony experienced at this time of year; but only on their behalf. Inside, I’m still that child, excited, anticipating the first of the night’s showers of sparks. Now where’s my Guy Fawkes mask?

DEoL at the 2025 London Film Festival - Part 2

Part 2 - the last four films seen at this year's LFF:

Below the Clouds aka Sotto le nuvole (Italy 2025: Dir Gianfranco Rosi) This is my first encounter with the works of Rosi, an Italian documentary maker much revered in critical circles. 

Below the Clouds is the result of the director's near four year sojourn in and around Naples so, as you'd expect, it spreads out in a number of directions, rather like the contents of Vesuvius, which dominates the city's skyline and its history. 

Shot in spectacular black and white, the film is a meditation on the cultural impact of Vesuvius - it hasn't erupted since 1944 - in contrast to the lesser known but more active Campi Flegrei - or Phlegrean Fields - volcano. Its more famous relative is perhaps best known for the destruction of Pompeii in AD79, and visitors to the local museum are seen regarding the tragic victims, their bodies encased in and preserved by lava.

Tourists are led underground to see the antiquities grouped around the structure of the famous Amphitheatre, while others witness the results of the raiding of the tombs and palatial houses for profit. Japanese scientists visit the site to continue the painstaking process of digging through hitherto unexplored layers, fully expecting to uncover further important archeological finds.

Rosi interweaves this activity with the day to day life of the area. A ship imports massive amounts of grain from Ukraine, the mounds themselves resembling volcanoes. The vessel's crew, including a Syrian, are not happy to have to return to the war torn country after unloading. Despatches from a local emergency services department show familiar problems with bored youths setting off fires, domestic abuse and isolated voices expressing the very real fears about tremors experienced from Campi Flegrei; the locals generally don't seem too concerned with their area's history.

A huge cloak of sadness descends over this documentary (the title is taken from a quote by Cocteau; “Vesuvius makes all the clouds in the world”). Naples is shown as a shadow city, all night time train rides, empty cinemas and antiquities picked out by torchlight; we're far from the Italy of Rossellini or even Fellini here. Its near two hour running time, soporific pace and repetitive sequencing make Below the Clouds a far from an easy watch, but a beautiful and elegiac one.

Cover Up (USA 2025: Dir Mark Obenhaus, Laura Poitras) The rather sensationalist title for this penetrating documentary on American political journalist and author Seymour Hersch may be explained by the familiar Netflix logo which appears at the start.

Don't get me wrong; it's great that Obenhaus and Poitras's movie has been picked up for streaming, the more views the better, but I can't help feeling that the object of the documentary may have been less than pleased with the method of distribution.

Hersch, or Sy as he's known throughout, is an uncompromising writer whose refusal to back down has, over the years, made him a hated figure for Presidents, the CIA and just about anybody in power in the US involved in the suppression of truth.

A bright and gifted student whose talents were recognised at an early age, after a spell on crime reporting Sy's first major work was an expose of the 1969 My Lai massacre in Vietnam. A long forgotten atrocity in which up to 500 innocent men, women and children were murdered by American troops during the war, Hersch looked into the initial verdict on the atrocity, which sought to place the blame on one infantryman, and discovered a massive cover up by the U.S. army and the then government, who had initially tried to explain the killings as a move against the Viet Cong army. 

(l-r) Laure Bonville (BFI), Laura Poitras,
Sy Hersch and Mark Obenhaus at LFF

Although Sy won a Pulitzer Prize for the work, Cover Up shows that even now Hersch is haunted by the details of the massacre and the infinite capacity of humans to enact terrible things. In 2004 Hersch was also responsible for exposing the U.S. military's torture and abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad during the Iraq war. Photographs obtained, showing the extent of the brutality, shocked the world when published in the press. 

Cover Up shows, mainly through archive footage and some often tense face to face interviews with the documentary makers, the extent of Hersch's reach and his inability to take the path of least resistance. Uncomfortable with being front and centre - he'd rather other voices speak through his journalism - his surprise appearance at a Q&A following the LFF screening demonstrated his unshifting pessimism about world leaders and events. The documentary shows Sy, still working at 88, receiving intel on activity in Gaza and strongly protecting his sources in the course of his work. Cover Up cannot hope to cover the extent of Hersch's often messy career even over two hours, but makes the case that we should all be a bit more Sy in terms of how we receive information provided to us by Governments.

 

The Ice Tower aka La tour de glace(France, Germany, Italy 2025: Dir Lucile Hadzihalilovic) Hadzihalilovic's previous features have all been located in hermetically sealed worlds, set in unspecified time periods.

Her latest certainly ticks the first box, but is set in the early 1970s, although anyone hoping for period accuracy clearly hasn't seen any of her previous movies. Clara Pacini, in her first feature role, plays Jeanne, a young girl keen to escape the orphanage where she lives after the death of her mother.

Jeanne's wanderings see her missing the last bus home, escaping a lecherous man who gives her a lift, and finding another girl's discarded handbag, which contains identity documents. Seizing on this, Jeanne renames herself Bianca and, seeking shelter, steals into an abandoned facility that turns out to be a film studio.

The production in progress is an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, with the divaish Cristina (Marion Cotillard) in the central role. Bianca quickly becomes enamoured with the mercurial star, spying on her as she creeps around the studio; in turn Cristina notices Bianca and a friendship of sorts begins, until events quickly escalate.

Beneath the stunning wintry design lies a rather disturbing tale about age and vulnerability. The characters of Jeanne/Bianca and Cristina are kept consciously unfocused; in the former's case, the tragic death of her mother has clearly traumatised the young girl, who possibly sees in Cristina a substitute maternal figure. Cristina is a flawed soul, addicted to narcotics (administered by Max, a sinister doctor figure played by August Diehl) and as a result capricious and venal. The fairytale in which both characters feature - the 'Snow Queen' project acts as a film within a film - is also a springboard for some time shifts; as a result something which could be perceived as whimsical and peripheral is given a dark, disturbing heart, germane to all the best fairy tales. 

Two Prosecutors aka  Zwei Staatsanwälte (France, Germany, Netherlands, Latvia, Romania, Lithuania, Ukraine 2025: Dir Sergey Loznitsa) Ukrainian born Loznitsa has in the past oscillated between fact and semi fact in his short works, features and documentaries. His latest movie locates itself in truth, set in the Soviet Union of 1937 during Stalin’s Great Terror, and adapted from a novella by gulag survivor Georgy Demidov.

Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) is a young, principled investigator/prosecutor, his role to investigate potential miscarriages of justice. A letter from a prisoner, Stepniak (Aleksandr Filippenko) has found its way into Kornyev's hands; it shouldn't have, as an opening scene shows many such letters, written by other prisoners complaining about the trumped up circumstances of their incarcerations, being swept up and burned. This particular letter suggests authenticity in that it was written in the prisoner's own blood.

Kornyev travels to meet the prisoner and agrees to take the case. But this means dealing with the Kafkaesque nightmare of Stalinist Russia and the administrative legerdemain encountered in seeking justice.

Loznitsa's film is superb in its recreation of a world entirely constructed to obfuscate and wear down any opposition. No voices are raised but there's violence in the enforced indolence of the systems at work. At one point Kornyev, seeking approval for the investigation, is kept waiting for an excruciatingly long time; the camera stays on him while others in the waiting room are seen first. It is only the audience's knowledge that there is a case to answer that stops us willing the lawyer to drop his investigation, because the film carries such a weight of inevitability as to the end point of the whole thing.

The banality of evil at work in the film recalled Jonathan Glazer's 2023 The Zone of Interest, and Loznitsa creates a similarly hermetically sealed world whose violence and oppression is present but barely glimpsed. It's a draining piece and won't be for everybody, but is a stunning, and impeccably styled exercise.

DEoL at the 2025 London Film Festival - Part 1

This year I had the opportunity to watch more than the usual small handful of films at the London Film Festival. Here's the first five films I saw: 

Romería (Spain, Germany 2025: Dir Carla Simón) Marina (Llúcia Garcia) is eighteen years old and planning to study cinema at university. However, she's unable to secure a grant because she cannot provide legal proof of her existence - her biological father's birth certificate lists no children, and both mum and dad are now dead.

The only people able to establish her identity - on paper anyway - are her natural grandparents, part of a network of family with whom Marina has not been in contact for some years. So she travels back to Vigo to reconnect and legally change her father's birth certificate.

Romería (which means 'pilgrimage') charts Marina's journey into the heart of a complicated extended family whose interconnections initially seem to freeze her out; she is known to them (all but her fairly awful grandmother comment how much Marina looks like her birth mother) but they remain distant and confusing to her. Only a cousin, Suso (Mitch Martin) appears interested. But this family are the key to Marina's gradual understanding of why her name has been kept off the records; for both her mother and father were drug addicts and dealers, the former contracting AIDS from a shared needle, bringing shame to the family.

Anyone expecting a traditional epiphanic moment when Marina uncovers the truth will be disappointed; throughout her romeria Marina looks bemused but not unamused, and her discovery of the truth actually brings her closer to the memory of her parents than expected (a nice touch is having Garcia and Martin play her biological parents in the movie's flashback scenes).

Hélène Louvart's camera remains impressive throughout, weaving between the characters, scouting the horizon and always returning to Marina's face as she observes others. Hers is a quest that is imbued with sadness but never hopelessness; Marina's extended family are messy and fractious, but her determination to get what she wants - a change on a piece of paper - never falters.

The Love that Remains aka Ástin sem eftir er (Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, France 2025: Dir Hlynur Pálmason) Anna (Saga Garðarsdóttir) is a struggling artist, her preferred medium a series of large canvases onto which geometric shapes are laid, with the works exposed to the elements to weather and degrade. The awkwardness of her art, and of the unequipped studio in which she forges her pieces, matches that of her personal life. For Anna is in the process of separating from her husband, Magnús (Sverrir Gudnason), a deep sea fisherman whose life is divided between his work, trapped on a boat with his rough and ready colleagues, and trying to salvage his relationship and manage the parenting of their three children, daughter Ída (Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir) and sons Grimur (Grímur Hlynsson) and Þorgils (Þorgils Hlynsson). 

The Love that Remains follows the family for a year, over which time their relationships and routines change, with Magnús slowly being eased out of the unit, seemingly not accepting that the marriage is over; in fact he seems to be more in lust than in love with his ex, seeing her at one point as a suspended upskirt image. 

As well as this extrication, Anna also experiences continued difficulty in selling her art, or even getting it accepted; one self absorbed gallery owner visits her, leads her on and then lets her down just before he flies home. 

The bleakness of both landscape and situation is leavened by the natural behaviour of the children, whose wisdom sometimes exceeds that of their parents. Puzzlingly there are also some surreal moments, possibly inspired by Anna's mindset, which inject an awkward humour into the proceedings; the plane occupied by the gallery owner for example, who has stolen a goose egg despite being told not to, crashes after flying into a flock of birds. Is this Anna's wishes ideated, or the goose's revenge? 

Pálmason's movie is sometimes willfully obscure, and its visual codes tricky to decipher. But it's a beautifully shot piece, and the performances are uniformly confident, if occasionally unedifying. The opening shot of the film, in which a roof is craned off the top of an empty building, parallels the metaphoric roof removed from Anna's house, allowing us a dispassionate look at what happens within.

Honey Bunch (Canada/UK 2025: Dir Dusty Mancinelli, Madeleine Sims-Fewer) Diana (Grace Glowicki) is being treated at a specialist clinic following a period in a coma as a result of a car accident. The aim of the treatment is both a physical recuperation and a programme to restore her memory, using a number of sensory, associative and dietary experiments. Her husband Homer (Ben Petrie) also lives in to provide support and a connection to her past life.

Day to day supervision of Diana's treatment is provided by head nurse Farah (Kate Dickie), a brusque but caring figure in thrall to the (still living but rarely glimpsed) clinic founder, Dr Frances Tréphine (Patricia Tulasne) and his dead wife Joan, whose portraits occupy the walls in every room.

But as Diana's recovery slowly progresses, she's plagued by horrific visions, and spies Homer, who often vanishes overnight, mysteriously conspiring with Farah. And it's Diana's growing feeling of paranoia, that all may not be what it seems in the clinic, and doubts about her husband's integrity, that drives the core of Mancinelli and Sims-Fewer's second feature.

The directors mentioned in interview that they wanted to evoke the spirit of the 1970s British horror film, even going so far as to use vintage lenses to establish the correct look. The result gives Honey Bunch a slight Peter Strickland feel, creating a world at once both recognisable and off kilter; the muted colour scheme, deliberately slow pace and country house setting (although filmed in Canada) is perfect, providing even more power to the moments of shock and grotesquerie.

But lest this be written off simply as a well done pastiche, Honey Bunch has much more to offer. With no disrespect to their performances, it is perhaps the fact that Glowicki and Petrie are a real life couple that provides the depth of their onscreen relationship, the pieces of the narrative gradually falling into place as Diana struggles to understand what is happening to her. By the end of Honey Bunch Mancinelli and Sims-Fewer have pulled off an extraordinary feat; to bring forth from the bones of a mystery film a stunning portrayal of love and what it means to be in love. A truly special film.

Roofman (USA 2025: Dir Derek Cianfrance) Cianfrance scored heavily with a trio of movies back in the 2010s, namely that year's Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) and The Light Between Oceans (2016). His focus on blue collar lives resurfaces in Roofman, the true story of Jeffrey Manchester, a criminal genius (by others' assessments).

Channing Tatum plays Manchester who, when we first meet him, has established his modus operandum by breaking into remote stores via the roof (hence his moniker), in this case a McDonald's. All he needs is some money for his family, and his good guy credentials are quickly established by donating his own jacket to a coatless employee he's about to shut in the freezer while he makes his escape.

Despite being caught, the enterprising Manchester ingeniously busts out of prison and evades capture by entering and hiding in a Toys "R" Us outlet, his presence masked by creating a kind of dugout behind a bike rack. It's clear that the guy's intentions are ultimately to take some money, but it's also important to establish a home and and to integrate himself into the day to day running of the store, walking around the premises at night and even going so far as to hang his washed laundry in the aisles. He hooks up some CCTV and it's here that he sees shop worker Leigh Wainscott (Kirsten Dunst), a single mum with two daughters, for the first time. His subsequent double life relationship with her, and the sadness of his estrangement from his own biological family, make up the heart of the film, ably supported by Peter Dinklage as the horrendous store manager and Tony Revolori as Jeffrey's single male friend.

Tatum is the perfect blank canvas on which to build the Manchester character, his 'lovable hunk' persona perfect for creating the 'crim with a heart' figure. While, despite being based on a true story, this occasionally veers into mawkishness, Tatum is never less than affecting. His foil here, and the real star of the show, is Dunst. When she's on screen the camera can't tear itself away from her ever changing face, veering from happiness to a mask of pain in seconds; a churchgoing woman with two daughters who slowly accept Manchester - under a different name - into their lives. The scenes of the shopbreaker being unknowingly accepted by the parishioners is particularly affecting.

This might be a true life story by the numbers, right down to the the end credit photos of the real Manchester - and footage of an unbelieving Wainscott - but Cianfrance knows what he's doing here, creating an often funny, captivating story about a character who refuses categorisation but seems universally liked (even by his captors), while also saying something about the obvious distance between Manchester's emotional and creative intelligence.

The President's Cake aka Mamlaket al-qasab (Iraq/USA 2025: Dir Hasan Hadi) It's 1990, and Saddam Hussein is Iraqi president. He presides over a country economically on its knees; its citizens place the blame for this crisis directly on George Bush and the withdrawal of food and resources by the UN, so entrenched are they in the country's cult of Saddamism.

So it's seen as an honour rather than an outrage that Hussein demands that every class in every school bake a cake to mark his birthday, irrespective of the difficulties involved in assembling the ingredients because of scarcity. In one school, 9 year old Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef) is picked by ballot to make the cake; failure is not an option. Lamia lives with her grandmother, Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat) in a riverside hut; she is confident to travel by water to school on her own, but is elsewhere a wide eyed child with only a basic understanding of her circumstances. It is assumed that Lamia's parents have perished in the conflict (there are signs of the struggle all around, although it's rarely explicit) and the weight of responsibility on the old woman's back forces her to make a decision which impacts directly on the little girl. 

On the one hand, and despite the challenging conditions in which Lamia lives, there is a certain innocence to her separation from Bibi, with only her pet rooster Hindi and off/on contact with schoolfriend Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem) accompanying her continued quest for cake ingredients. Her travels highlight the effects on a populace of a country where survival is dependent on trade, barter and favour.

The President's Cake is not without its humour - the military disciplined schoolteacher who fires off instructions to his pupils is like a character from Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, a comparison that also applies to Lamia's exploits; Nayyef is a revelation as the little girl who is exposed to so much and almost grows up in front of us. That this is Hadi's debut feature is astounding; he manages to balance a deftness of storytelling with a light directorial touch which doesn't shy away from the more monstrous aspects of the regime, not least the newsreel which closes the film. A very very fine movie.

The Severed Sun (UK New Wave of the British Fantastic Film 2025: Dir Dean Puckett)

Puckett's debut feature has been compared to Blood on Satan's Claw, The Handmaid's Tale, The VVitch and even Fanny Lye Deliver'd, which places it in some honorable company.

In a time period which suggests the past but, from some subtle design and narrative hints may in fact be the future, an isolated community eke out the most meagre of livings under the supervision of The Pastor (Toby Stephens). His daughter, the mercurial Magpie (Emma Appleton) is young and married to a human monster, in the shape of Howard (Eoin Slattery); but not for long. Magpie poisons Howard and chops off his hand (presumably the one that beat her).

The act unleashes a Beast (James Swanton) who, like the creature in Blood on Satan's Claw, remains in the background, potentially responsible for the heightening of tension and paranoia that grips the village. The Pastor's community is a prime example of the patriarchy in action; the men lay down the law while exercising the power in spite of it, while the women remain submissive and without agency.

But Magpie's actions rupture any stability within the village; she is shunned but unrepentant (her story is that Howard met his death through the misuse of an axe), hated both by the men and women because of her unwillingness to conform to the role of "dutiful wife", and thus suspected of being in league with the supernatural and widely accused of "heresy".

The paucity of budget available to Puckett has worked in the film's favour; the community in The Severed Sun is small in number, their resources even smaller; the religious panic therefore grips more intensely.  The Pastor tells his flock that they are living in a "fallen world", suggesting a medieval creed; but he also references nature which has "had her revenge", suggesting a past environmental collapse.

Explanations ultimately aren't necessary; the suggestion here is that the controlling dominance of The Pastor, and his negative and violent impact on his congregation, has a more universal application. The film is short (80 minutes), controlled and occasionally very nasty. It's not perfect (the lack of narrative explanation will doubtless annoy some) but the film is blessed with some superb natural cinematography by Ian Forbes and a creepy, immersive (and, apparently, improvised) soundtrack by a trio of musicians calling themselves 'Unknown Horrors'. Library of the Occult records, let me introduce you.

The Severed Sun is on UK and Ireland digital platforms from 6 October. The soundtrack by 'Unknown Horrors' is available to stream/download here.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2025 #1 Reviews of Bogieville (UK 2024), The Drowned (UK 2025), Bambi The Reckoning (UK 2025), The Haunting at Jack the Ripper's House (UK 2025), Get Away (UK 2024) and Leprechaun: The Beginning (UK 2025)

Bogieville (UK 2024: Dir Sean Cronin) Sean Cronin is no stranger to the vampire. As an actor he played the titular Count in last year’s Wrath of Dracula directed by Steve Lawson, and as well as helming this undead drama also finds time to cast himself as head vampire Madison. If nothing else Bogieville is a fascinating recreation of a 1980s US vamp movie, despite being filmed in the UK (on Cronin's own farm), and featuring a British cast.

Ham (Arifin Putra) and his girlfriend Jody (Eloise Lovell Anderson) skip town after Ham loses his job at the local garage and they can’t afford to pay their rent. Driving across country they come across a rather empty trailer park, named ‘Bogieville’, to recognise the owner’s obsession with the famous US actor.

Caretaker Crawford (Jonathan Hansler) looks after things, but after a bit of argy bargy offers Ham a job as a handyman, with the specific instructions that the pair should not leave the camp at night, or let anyone into the accommodation provided for them. But Bogieville is less deserted than originally made out; the site owner, Madison, is one of the undead, and with his acquired ‘family’ rises at night to feast on the living.

The vaguely sleazy setup recalls classic Rob Zombie movies, and the ‘all teeth and angst’ nature of the vampires is reminiscent of the undead characters in 2007’s 30 Days of Night; there’s also something of 1987’s Near Dark in the clandestine nature of the vampires’ existence. And it’s in these examples that is found the biggest problem with Bogieville; outside of the ‘homage to the US’ look of the film, credible for the most part (although some of the UK cast American accents are more successful than others), this film has very little to offer that is original. At 105 minutes it’s also overlong, particularly as the whole middle section drags before we get to the final reel vamp action. 

Cronin is to be congratulated for his attention to detail but he could have paid a little more attention to the story and rather lacklustre script.

(A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site).

The Drowned (UK 2025: Dir Samuel Clemens) Best known as the director of a number of Doctor Who podcast spinoffs, Clemens's debut feature was actually made in 2023, and toured festivals under its original title 'The Waterhouse'. 

It's one of those movies which slowly morphs from a fairly prosaic piece into mythological abstraction. Three crims, Eric (Alan Calton), his boyfriend Matt (Dominic Vulliamy) and Paul (Michelangelo Fortuzzi) have pulled off a valuable art theft, and have agreed to meet at an isolated coastal location prior to jetting off for a new life, complete with new identities. A fourth member of their team, Matt’s mother Denice (Corinne Wicks), fails to materialise; disturbingly Eric finds what looks like blood and matter at the water's edge, together with a single earring; maybe Denice's?

Understandably revved up and distraught at Denice's continued absence, their evening gets more problematic when, thinking they are alone, three women enter their world. Pixie (Lily Catalifo), Opal (Lara Lemon) and Noé (Sandrine Salyères) maintain that they have been shipwrecked, and before you can say 'Dionysius' (ok it's the women who mention the mythological figure) they have inserted themselves into the lives of the criminals. But as the shipwreckees begin playing mind games with the three men, there's a more sinister, and deadly, fate in store for the art thieves.

Clemens's movie remains tense throughout, from its opening scenes of a stern, focused Eric driving through country lanes with a gun at his feet, to the arrival of the three strange women and the dynamic of six people - three of whom are possibly supernatural - trapped in a small cottage. It's considerably helped by Edward White's often Philip Glass like score, which builds choral voices and an impending sense of doom, and a spare but effective script, which twists the narrative as the men realise that they're out of their depth. And while The Drowned does finally fall into abstraction (the original title makes sense in the movie's final reveal) it's a taut 90 minutes and well worth a look.

The Drowned will be available on Digital Download from 6th October in the UK, 7th October in the US & 8th October in ANZ

Bambi The Reckoning (UK 2025: Dir Dan Allen) The fourth entry in Jagged Edge’s ‘Twisted Child Universe’ (TCU) sees another dark reimagining of a beloved children’s classic text. In this instance JE house director Allen has plundered the 1923 novel ‘Bambi, A Life in the Woods’, written by Felix Salten and famously adapted, albeit in a modified form, for the big screen by Walt Disney in 1942.

TCU creator Rhys Frake-Waterfield, in response to criticisms that earlier Universe entries had been weak, promised to up his game; Bambi The Reckoning is the result. And compared with early JE productions, and indeed Allen’s previous output, BTR is definitely a step in the right direction.

Opening with an animated sequence which tells of the woods as being both a magical and dangerous place, we see a stag drinking from chemically contaminated water, the driver for Bambi’s murderous impulses. We meet mum Xana (Roxanne McKee), about to ferry her and young son Benji (Tom Mulheron) off to the relatives of absent dad Simon (Alex Cooke). The family are the usual feuding types, whose domestic squabbles move the movie along until mutated Bambi turns up, which to be fair doesn’t take long.

Most of the rest of the film pits the chemically altered deer against the local populace, with some baffling psychic bond existing between beast and Xana’s dementia ridden mother-in-law Mary (Nicola Wright). The setup may be familiar JE territory, and the Bambi references tangential at best, but if you don’t think about the silliness of the whole setup there’s a lot of fun (and gore) to be had, some better than average CGI and impressive nighttime photography by JE regular Vince Knight. The man behind this of course is the company’s head honcho Scott Chambers aka Jeffrey, who once again gets to lever in some Jurassic Park homages. The credits are littered with postproduction VFX crews and there’s a slickness at work here which all suggest a slightly higher budget than the usual fare.

(A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site).

The Haunting at Jack the Ripper's House (UK 2025: Dir Stephen Staley, Natasha Tosini) Separately Staley and Tosini have enjoyed diverse roles in many of Scott Jeffrey’s previous productions (including several entries in the Twisted Child Universe ‘franchise’), but this is their first joint directing gig.

Perhaps taking a leaf out of the Steven M. Smith playbook – ie an obsession with ‘live’ paranormal shows (a no longer au courant idea) - The Haunting at Jack the Ripper’s House focuses on a group of YouTubing ghost hunters. Their show, ‘The Haunt Hunters’, devised by friends Richard (Jack Hyde) and Jake (Jack Hoy), involves a group of influencers travelling to supposedly haunted locations and staging materialisations; the more hits they get, the wilder the hoaxes.

A creative bust up between the creators sends Richard packing, just about the same time as Jake secures the show’s biggest set up yet; Jack the Ripper’s house. OK this needs a bit of explaining; Aaron Kosminski was one of the key suspects in the initial Ripper murder investigations. Ripperolgists have tracked down Kosminski’s UK hideout, the delightfully named ‘Ripper Manor’ (in reality I think it’s a youth hostel, judging by the fire doors), currently owned by a creepy guy called Victor (Robert Hedley). Despite the proprietor’s objections, Jake’s people have managed to secure the property for a night of spook hunting. But they’re about to find out that this is one house that doesn’t need its ghostly activity to be faked.

Apart from the modern social media trappings, this is basically a rerun of the 1969 movie The Haunted House of Horror, where swinging teenagers are picked off one by one by a mysterious presence in a supposedly haunted house.

For most of the film, the ‘Ripper’ element looks tacked on as an audience pull (the title is total crowd bait) but happily things do get rather strange in the movie’s last third. But before we get there we have to go through buckets of indifferent acting, shots filmed in near darkness and, well, lots of wandering around. I was initially thinking that Staley and Tosini may have rushed to finish the film to get it Festival ready (there are some line fluffs and clumsy edits), but no, it was actually made last year. Frankly people it’s just not that good; all power to the director/producers for trying something a little different, but even so…

(A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site).

Get Away (UK 2024: Dir Steffen Haars) Richard (Nick Frost), ‘daddy’ to ‘mummy’ Susan (Aisling Bea) has decided to rent a cottage on the remote Swedish island of Svälta; also along for the holidays, somewhat begrudgingly, are their kids Jessie (Maisie Ayers) and Sam (Sebastian Croft).

They’re a funny bunch; Richard and Susan spend the time bickering – couples counselling is mentioned – and Svälta appears a rather inhospitable place, with locals to match, who when they’re not ignoring the family are imploring them to leave. 

The Airbnb is looked after by the creepy Mats (Eero Milonof, last seen in the very weird 2018 movie Border) whose unctuousness and unwillingness to allow the family personal space adds a gritty edge to an already deeply odd setup.

Of course the real reason (well not the real real reason but I can’t explain that because of, well, spoilers) that the family have travelled is to witness the islanders’ annual celebrations, Karantan, all masks, flaming torches and drumbeats; a very The Wicker Man set up. 

Nick Frost, who wrote Get Away, reportedly came up with the idea for the film after experiencing a cold reception from locals when visiting the home of his Swedish ex wife Cristina. All I can deduce from the incredibly bloody final reel of the movie was that his rejection must have run very deep. The whole thing is a bit of an uneven mix; there’s some fun working out why the family seem so weird together, and the islanders are an archly abrasive bunch. But Get Away is a one gag movie which relies on its big plot twist to deliver, and spends quite a lot of time getting to it. Frost and Bea have both been funnier; ultimately although I didn't totally dislike it, this was a bit of a misfire.

(A version of this review was originally published on the Bloody Flicks site).

Leprechaun: The Beginning (UK 2024: Dir Rahul Gandhi) This is the third 'Leprechaun' outing for Champdog Films, Louisa Warren's production company and, sadly, by far the worst. It looks like freelancer Gandhi was hired for this film and heavily guided by producer Warren; whatever happened, even for Champdog, who have offered a fair few cinematic turkeys in recent years, this is a real low.

Dave and Mary (Mark Collier and Mary Eva Sharp) are journeying to the home of Mary's late father where they will be met by Mary's sister Judy (Amanda Jane York) and her bluff husband Colin (Ben Keenan). As a child Mary's dad would regale the family with tales of a gold hoarding Leprechaun who lived near the house; this piques the interest of one of Mary's children, Sky (Julia Quayle) who undertakes a search of the house when they arrive. Her other daughters, Faith (Grace Cundy) and Lisa (French actor Julie Ghallab, whose Gallicness is never explained; chalk it up to blind casting) are less excited.

Once there it's clear that Judy is hell bent on selling the house, which clashes with Mary's sentimentality. But whatever differences must be put aside once the Leprechaun makes itself known and starts despatching those members of the family nosy enough to delve into the house's secrets and go after the creature's gold.

The Leprechaun here is, as in Warren's other films, not height restricted; in fact in this one he seems to be modelling himself on Art the Clown (the actor's name is not disclosed in the credits and therefore is unlikely to be Leprechaun passim Bao Tieu). Alas the excesses of the Terrifier films are conspicuous by their absence here (Warren's films always remain resolutely PG, possibly aiming themselves at a YA audience) and any gore is more of the 'mild peril' type.

Performances range from the adequate to the, well, inadequate, and Alessandro Di Giuseppe's script is the usual Champdog mix of myth and soap opera (Warren's liking for found scrapbooks sees a number of hastily assembled documents paraded here as ancient tomes c/o Rymans). Warren has been better than this; Leprechaun The Beginning is, sadly, a crock.

Piglet (NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM UK 2025: Dir Andrea M. Catinella)

On first glance you'd be mistaken for thinking that Piglet was yet another entry in those 'Poohniverse' - or 'Twisted Childhood' movies (you know the ones that take fictional kiddie characters in the public domain and stick them into run of the mill horror films), particularly as the director, Mr Catinella, has some form here.

Well I suppose it is in that, like other movies in that most ridiculous of sub genres, this is little more than someone in a mask chasing frightened 'teens' around a field or youth hostel (delete as necessary).

But Piglet has a little more going for it than many movies of its ilk, with a genuinely grindhouse feel, even if location wise it occupies a bit of a liminal space between the UK countryside and the backwoods of the US of A.

Five girls have motored out to a remote cabin to celebrate the 21st birthday of their friend Katie (Alina Desmond), who's had a bit of a rum time courtesy of her abusive ex. Still traumatised by the whole thing, Katie's tolerance for booze and her general demeanour place her firmly in the party pooper category. But no matter - the rest of the gals are determined to make the weekend swing, despite the presence of creepy cabin owner Mr Hogarth (a rather ripe turn from Jeremy Vinogradov) who spends a little too much time looking the ladies up and down and, later, ogling lesbian partners Diane (Alina Varakuta) and Alex (Lauren Staerck) when they try out the rather unappetising looking outdoor jacuzzi.

But there's trouble afoot; a security detail transporting a hooded prisoner - by van - end up dead when their charge escapes his bonds and mashes up his guards. Apparently this reprobate had been experimented on while in prison and turned into a kind of human/pig hybrid with superhuman strength. Once away from the van the demented convict swaps the bag on his head (we don't see his face) for a handy pig mask - which is sort of overegging the 'Piglet' idea - and lo, a killer is born. The porcine psychopath immediately gets to work, despatching a car full of people en route to joining the birthday get together; first to go are Bruce (Jack Monahan) and his girlfriend Riley (Eva Ray, who seems to have come to the set directly from a Babestation shift). The other passenger, artistic and autistic Courtney (Tais Sholvie) is dragged away and imprisoned for Piglet's later amusement. Happy with his work, Piglet closes in on the camp and the bickering party girls; and it turns out that he's about to get some assistance as well.

Ok so mood and photography are major plus points here; it really does look good and conjures up a backwoods feel. Everything else is, unfortunately, on the other side of the scorecard. Even for low budget fright flicks, the amount of non acting going on here is egregious. Lines are fluffed, stresses are constantly in the wrong place and at times it's impossible to hear what's being said (not that it really matters, even when Catinella jazzes things up by having one of the girls tell a folk horror story that may be about Piglet but also referencing Katie's violent ex Spencer). Some of the cast seem to think they're American (references to 'cellphone coverage' and 'a town five miles north') which just makes things more confusing. It may have been better to have kept dialogue to an absolute minimum as, when the action gets going, it's all quite effective and nasty.

And yet I didn't dislike Piglet - the Texas Chain Saw Massacre messed up family elements work quite well and the gore is rather grungy - but elsewhere there's just too much that gets in the way of enjoyment. Shame.

Piglet is available on Digital Download from 2nd June.

Birdeater (Australia 2023: Dir Jack Clark, Jim Weir)

The mission of some Australian filmmakers, to show the uglier side of the Antipodean male, continues unabated; the Wake in Fright style 'ocker' movie gets a bit of a makeover with a young cast of characters whose surface cultivation soon exposes the same dark heart as their forebears.

Louie (Mackenzie Fearnley) and his British fiancee Irene (Shabana Azeez) are heading towards marriage, but the path is anything but smooth. While there's nothing easily identifiable as a rift, Louie spends a lot of time out at night, ostensibly at work but in reality at the golf range. A nightly ritual involves him providing Irene with a mysterious pill and a glass of water before he makes his excuses. He's clearly up to something.

Louie's stag night (called a 'buck's night' in Australia) is approaching; feeling guilty for his constant absences - at least that's what we think - he invites Irene too, in a real break with tradition. He also asks Grace (Clementine Anderson, the film's co-producer), the girlfriend of his close mate Charlie (Jack Bannister) to join the gang for female support.

The night itself takes place in the outback - where else? Among Louie's rather interchangeable friends, the borderline psychotic Dylan (Ben Hunter) stands out. We've all met a Dylan, the guy who always takes it one step further in the name of fun. Unfazed by the presence of women at the celebration, Dylan wants to keep it old school - if 'old school' also includes ketamine.

This rather awkward setup is the springboard for a night of drug fuelled paranoia, in which secrets are divulged, Louie's ill judged plan is unveiled and nearly everyone shows a side they'd previously kept hidden. Dylan's faux best man speech is a masterclass in cringe, and the wilderness backdrop accentuates the feral behaviour as the tension ratchets up.

The problem is that the film becomes the behaviour - maleness stripped bare - rather than having any narrative arc; the flashbacks have to do the storytelling job, and they're not really enough. Far better is the opening montage between Louie and Irene; the mystery between the two is explained as the film progresses, but the unsettling relationship between the pair is far more beguiling than anything which follows. A scene in which Louie catches a swallow inside the house and releases it into the wild, whether or not knowing that the bird's has nested and the babies will surely die without their mother, is perhaps the most chilling in the movie.

Birdeater is, however, brilliantly edited, and the cast are all believable, if slightly anonymous. The action revolves around Irene for much of the film, and it's her calm and resilience, amidst the male maelstrom, that you remember after the movie's over.

Birdeater is in select cinemas from 9 May and on digital platforms from 26 May.

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2024 #4 Witches special! Reviews of Witches of God (UK 2024), Witch (UK 2024), Salem Witch Doll (UK 2024), Inherit the Witch (UK 2024), The House on Mansfield Street: Evil Next Door (UK 2024) and The Whisper Within the Woods (UK 2023)

Witches of God (UK 2024: Dir Daya Dodds) In an unspecified period of history the country has succumbed to a plague named the 'blue sickness', which has decimated the population. Two nuns, Sister Agnes (Amelie Leroy) and Magda (Pippa Caddick) have occupied an abandoned church after having to burn down their abbey, the other nuns having been infected by the plague.

A knock at the church door announces the arrival of Joan (Zoe Carroll), a woman accused of witchcraft and seeking shelter. Magda is reluctant but Agnes is more welcoming, immediately sensing a bond between the two women. The sisters disguise Joan in a nun's habit, despite learning that the escapee is sought in the town, the accuser being Joan's husband who, we learn, did so to distract from his affair with Joan's sister.

The trio's peaceful existence is eventually disrupted to the point that they are forced to leave the church for safety; but the solution to their sanctuary comes, not from external sources, but in the bond discovered between Agnes and Joan.

Exquisitely photographed in black and white (by the director), Witches of God, as the title suggests, is a plea for acceptance; that women can be both healers, forces of power, and yet next to God. It's a quiet film, located in nature and mysticism, with strong performances from Leroy, Caddick and Carroll. Nothing is really explained, which adds to the film's potency; it's a slow burn movie, the director's first feature, but an involving one which does a lot on a very small budget. Dodds' next film, Under the Cover of Darkness, will be worth seeking out.

Witch (UK 2024: Dir Craig Hinde/Mark Zammit) It's England, in 1585; Twyla (Sarah Alexandra Marks) is the wife of Dawnbrook village's blacksmith, William (Ryan Spong), and their quiet lives are about to be turned upside down. Dawnbrook has seen its fair share of witch trials in the past, but is now 'clean', courtesy of Judge Hopkins (Daniel Jordan). But the reign of peace is abruptly shattered when, one night, a girl enters Dawnbrook's market square, covered in blood and carrying the severed heads of her parents. She is Johanna Fletcher (Mims Burton) a girl with no previous crimes to her name.

Fletcher is incarcerated, pending trial. But a local man, Thomas (Russell Shaw), accosts William, accurately predicting the events to follow; at Johanna's trial, the convicted woman will also accuse Twyla of being a witch, events which indeed come to pass. William and Twyla, now also imprisoned, are offered a means of escape by Thomas, but as the three make their way into the woods, evading their captors, he has a story to tell them that will implicate all three in a quest through time.

Witch's big reveal is a mid point lurch into something far less prosaic than the film's first 45 minutes, and for a while, when the timey wimey stuff starts happening, the viewer feels that the first section was constructed rather plainly to contrast with the fantastical second part. The problem here is that, despite the cleverness of the concept, nothing really happens in the second half of the film either; there's a lot of talk and some running around, a few nicely mounted CGI bits and then a modern day end coda suggesting a sequel. I applaud Hinde and Zammit's attempt to do something different, and the 'authentic' (Hungarian) village set looks good; but honestly, it's a bit of a slog despite the narrative sleight of hand.

Salem Witch Doll (UK 2024: Dir Daniel Yates) I'll say something for Louisa Warren's Champdog Films productions (churned out at an alarming rate at the behest of the worldwide ITN Distribution company): they share the love in terms of allowing new directors to take the helm, even if the results are, well, recognisably Champdog films. The rumour that these new talents are merely pseudonyms for Champdog's small but perfectly formed roster of technical staff did not start with me.

For those who haven't seen one of these offerings yet, here's the setup: an opening shot in which someone gets murdered; a series of establishing scenes where the characters are introduced and domestic squabbles aired, normally in a house - or youth hostel - hired for the film; a section where not much happens but the soundtrack suggests impending doom; the final 'reel' where all the exposition occurs, the creature turns up, and the final girl (and it is usually a girl) gets away.

The success of this formula can vary from film to film; in this case it's a misfire. Sarah (Tash Chant) returns from the American university where she's been studying, to attend a family reunion; the student is on medication following mum's death and an incident in which she received unwanted attentions from a tutor. So the last thing she wants to hear is that her father Paul (Mark Collier) is remarrying; the lucky woman is Ariel (Amanda Jane York). Also at the dinner table is Paul's horrible brother Martin (Robin Kirwan), his wife Vicky (Lynne O'Sullivan) and their three kids.

Sarah is prone to nightmares featuring her late mum, a noose and a strange light emanating from the shed in the garden. In fact the action in the last third of the movie takes place almost entirely outside - at night to boot - and, confusingly, includes a sort of life sized wooden animated doll (Jodie Bagnell in a suit). You have to wait until about ten minutes before the end to understand how the elements all tie together (although they don't). As usual with movies made for ITN Productions the acting is a really mixed bag; here Tash Chant is rather bland and can't really pull it off when under duress. It's always good to see older actors in horror films, but they're all pretty wasted in this one, resorting in some cases to pantomimic gurning when things switch up a gear. And in terms of photography, you'll all have heard of 'day for night' as a term - this one does 'night for even more night', such is its impenetrability.

Inherit the Witch (UK 2024: Dir Cradeaux Alexander) Move over (the late) Norman J. Warren, there's a new kid in town! Mr Alexander's first feature drinks deep from the Satan-in-suburbia flick genre, popular in the 1970s, but adds an eccentric twist or two of his own.

Cory (Alexander) is having a bit of a tough time. He's been summoned home following the death of his father, but is uneasy at returning to the family dwelling, mainly because of Pamela (Imogen Smith), a woman who had been living with dad until his death and who now looks likely to inherit his estate.

A flashback to 1985, shot on faux camcorder, shows Cory as a youth in a rather tense family setup, with a younger Pamela (played by Elizabeth Arends) casting spells and generally being a bit witchy.

Cory's rather awkward sister Fiona (Heather Cairns) arrives on her bike for the same reason. She's been undergoing therapy and has been advised to keep a video diary as part of her healing. She's not that welcome, particularly as Cory is back together with old flame Lars following a messy breakup with another guy. 

But back at the house, things are getting weird. An ageing Pamela is dying; she's served by a Grand Witch (Graham Putney) and Cory's half brother Rex (Rohan Quine, who looks a lot like a young David Bailey, only with nail polish). Her only chance of returning to rude health is to ensure that she is reunited with Cory, the last of the line; and she'll use all her power to achieve this.

Many reviewers have been unnecessarily savage when writing about this one; to use the line from 1989's The Abyss, "you have to look with better eyes than that". I may be wrong, but I think this is a perfect homage to 1970s British horror, updated with overtly gay characters but without the gratuitous nudity favoured by those movies. The photography is generally sumptuous, although the split screen effects are a bit random (again an acknowledgement of 1960s/70s cinema?), and veteran composer François Pervirella Evans's score is so brilliantly eccentric it should be formally released now. 

I would have liked Inherit the Witch to be much more full on; it's a bit hesitant, almost afraid to offend, but I loved the central characters (Alexander, almost constantly mildly fucked off, is good value) and the down-in-the-basement end, much as it's telegraphed from way off, is pure Alan Ormsby. Awkward then, but not crap - don't believe the others.

The House on Mansfield Street: Evil Next Door (UK 2024: Dir Richard Mansfield) Mansfield's 'cycle' of found footage movies filmed in Sherwood, Nottingham (the town to which he relocated from London some years ago) continues and, with each instalment, improves. There's little connectivity between this one and Mansfield's previous films, but a growing feeling that Sherwood is the focus of random supernatural activity.

James (David John Field) has moved into the attic room of the house of landlord - and friend - Anthony (Jonathan Cleaver), who was a character in Mansfield's 2023 film 13 Sherwood Avenue. James's parents are abroad and, we assume, a little worried about him; hence the young chap records a video diary of his new accommodations to assure them that he's ok. The area seems friendly; a neighbour, Emma (Kathryn Redwood) introduces herself, as does Laura (Chloe McKiernan) who, Anthony notes, takes a shine to his new lodger.

However the peaceful setup is rather ruined by the sounds of arguments, and possibly violence, coming from the people living next door in the early hours of the morning. Anthony, a deep sleeper, hears nothing, but feels that his lodger must be mistaken, as the adjoining house is empty. James continues to record the disturbances but they remain inaudible to anyone else. After Anthony leaves on business for a few days, alone in the house James concludes that the increasingly malevolent sounds may be supernatural in nature. Laura discloses that she is a witch, and recommends a spell that might help ward off the evil. But is she all that she seems?

Micro budget considerations aside, THoMS: END is a solid addition to the expanding Mansfield universe (hell the local pub even has a cocktail - the Mansfield Martini - named after it). Confidently shot, and with credible reasons why events might be being filmed (including at one point a police bodycam) the film leads to a satisfying conclusion, while all the time remaining within the single house location. It remains to be seen whether there will be some hideous conclusion to the whole Sherwood franchise, but reader I'm here for it.

The Whisper Within the Woods (UK 2023: Dir Mark Adlington) "I know you're in Upminster. Don't do anything stupid." Although this line is lifted from Adlington's debut feature, it must have been uttered on more than one occasion in the Essex border town where his movie is set.

In the film's prologue we meet two foster children, Sarah (Lyla Tolan) and Daniel (George Conway, literally reciting his lines, possibly direct from a script). Daniel's been reading a history of the area, including the story of a 16th century witch, Ann Brown, who was hanged in the vicinity; every 12 years a series of murders occurs locally, the victims all connected by blood to those who killed Brown back in the day. Daniel and Sarah decide to go witch hunting, but instead come across two school bullies. The foster children emerge from the altercation covered in blood, with no memory as to what happened; the bullies are dead.

Twelve years later a grown up Sarah has done her spell in a juvenile centre, accused of the murders but all the time protesting her innocence. She's been released and given a new identity, separated from Daniel; as Sam (Katie Ford) she is now married to Darren (Tim Cummins), a successful artist and step mum to Darren's son Jesse (Alfie Walters). Darren has no idea of Sam/Sarah's dark history until a TV true crime documentary exposes the truth. The revelations lead to Sam's increasingly psychotic behaviour, the breakdown of her marriage and a reunion with her estranged foster brother (Will Conway), and the realisation of her connection with Ann Brown.

TWWtW is a mix of domestic drama, faux local history and perfunctory supernatural elements. It's let down by its overall pedestrian pacing and some truly woeful acting (even by the standards of low budget fantastic films). Story wise it's a laudable effort, and Katie Ford rescues things somewhat with a credible performance, but this is really hard going. A mention should be made of Paul Finney's rather eccentric soundtrack in which he provides not only the music for the film but (I think) the characters' mobile phone ring tones.

It Feeds (Canada 2025: Dir Chad Archibald)

I like Chad Archibald's movies. His last two features, 2017's The Heretics and the following year's I'll Take Your Dead mixed scares and drama increasingly successfully.

Like these films, his latest, It Feeds, is also a movie predicated on trauma. Cynthia Winstone (Ashley Greene) is every regular therapist's worst nightmare. Whereas most shrinks have to work with their clients for years to root out the reason/s for their poor mental health, Cynthia, faux shrink, actual clairvoyant, can simply enter her subject's mind and find out what the problem is. As the movie opens Cynthia is wandering around in the subconscious of a troubled patient, A Nightmare on Elm Street style, correctly identifying the source of his psychiatric woes to be an abusive sports coach from his past. Having cleared that little problem up, with the clues she has, Cynthia tips off the local police to investigate the likely suspect; she's right of course.

Cynthia's gifts are both a blessing and a curse; she lives opulently with 17 year old daughter Jordan (Ellie O'Brien), who acts as a kind of PA/triage for her mother's waiting list, so business is obviously blooming. But Cynthia's talents have come at a huge cost; not only is there the constant danger, again Elm Street style, of the psychic world leaking into the real one, but she also fears that Jordan may inherit the same abilities.

The unannounced arrival of a troubled teen, 14-year-old Riley Harris (Shayelin Martin) ruffles the organised life of mum and daughter. Riley, in significant distress and with scars covering both arms, begs for Cynthia's help, but when the psychic glimpses an entity with its sinewy arms around the girl, she feels unable to treat her; a tense situation that's temporarily resolved when Riley's father, Randall (Shawn Ashmore) arrives to take his daughter home. Jordan feels differently to her mother and is determined to track down the girl and offer support, but when she finds Riley she's drawn into a world of demonic possession in which she becomes enmeshed.

On the plus side this is a tensely mounted film with some excellent, if rather draining performances, particularly from Greene, O'Brien and Martin. Family friend Agatha (Juno Rinaldi) is there for some lighter relief but her ditziness feels somewhat out of place here. Top marks for the creature effects too; the entity is genuinely scary and threatening, and Archibald is wise to resist the overuse of jump scares.

However, 'trauma' as a driving force in contemporary horror films - and there are many recent examples - can be a bit of a polarising experience. While I realise that audiences may enjoy the cathartic effects of watching movies which may reflect their own traumas, and are thus keen to engage with stories like this, there's a danger of such films becoming increasingly homogenous. It Feeds spends most of its time in near darkness and there's very little happiness on display from any of the movie's characters. I'm not denying Archibald's ability to create a mood but I do feel that the tendency for the depiction of horror as psychiatry porn is rather reductive.

It Feeds is available on Digital Platforms from 12 May. Distributed by Signature Entertainment.