NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2026 #3: Reviews of The Bloodline of Bathory (UK 2026), Ghost Country (UK 2026), Dracula in Space (UK 2026), Pinocchio: Unstrung (UK 2026), Miasma (UK 2025) and Lure (UK 2026)

The Bloodline of Bathory (UK 2026: Dir Bryan Norris) Many of you will have heard of the 16th Century Hungarian noblewoman Elizabeth Báthory, who allegedly tortured and killed hundreds of girls and bathed in their blood to keep her young. But what you probably don't know is that the so named 'Bloody Countess' spent part of her life in Yorkshire; at least that's what Bryan Norris would have you believe. It's also the line spun to entice AirBnBers to try something different; a holiday stay with a murderous past.

Four women have rented the accommodation for what they hope will be a relaxing holiday; what they haven't counted on is that their destination is also a museum to the memory of Bathory, a tour around which they are obliged to suffer courtesy of the enthusiastic landlord/tour guide Martin (Michael Geary), under the watchful eye of a painting of the Countess herself. Also on the tour are a bunch of already pissed lads on a stag weekend who have, supposedly, double booked the rental. While the lads agree to stay in another local house, the girls elect to remain at the Bathory residence where, left to their own devices, they inadvertently - through the death of one of their number, Ambereen (Claudia Gregory) - trigger the resurrection of Elizabeth. Their troubles multiply when they find that they're unable to leave the house; any attempt to escape finds them right back in the room they left, where they team up with the lads and get picked off.

The concept of The Bloodline of Bathory is high; everything else remains pretty low, but by no means unenjoyable. Basically played for laughs (and there's no other way of executing so hokey a setup) within a location that's almost too cramped to contain all of the cast, the first half's overall silliness gives way to a slightly more fraught second, with some pretty good makeup and VFX from the ever resourceful Lumapix Creative Studios, who've brought some icky class to several low budget productions. Many of the cast, including star and producer Natasha Tosini, are regulars of the British Fantastic Film sausage factory, and bring the usual excitable performances you expect from this kind of thing. Overall this has a little more wit than many of its genre stablemates.

Ghost Country (UK 2026: Dir Chris Shane Sanders) Sanders plays Kit Baxter, "the world's greatest paranormal investigator...at least in Rugby" who, down on his luck following his spaffing of granny's inheritance, has eschewed his usual film crew and is going it alone.

Baxter has decided to investigate the mysterious death of Marjorie Dixon, who died in a cemetery with five others, possibly as a result of summoning a demon. As part of his investigations he seeks testimony from other ghost hunters, mostly American, and meets a guy called Eddie (Jon Paul Gates, who started off screen life in TV's Eldorado and has been muddling through ever since). Eddie's late wife was...Marjorie, but the discovery doesn't get Kit any nearer the truth. He also comes across a woman pertaining to be Marjorie herself, who tells him that his real name is Vincent. Kit finds out that the entity summoned was Asmodeus the lust demon and, despite warnings to stay away from the whole thing, finds himself back at the cemetery at night, where he's not alone.

This load of old nonsense is clearly Sanders keeping his eye in between proper projects; various friends and vloggers make up the cast, and someone has chucked in some AI work in the final stages to give a sense of purpose to the whole story. To be honest this is really borderline for inclusion in the NWotBFF, but I like Chris's work, so sue me. The link's below if you fancy checking it out yourself.

You can watch Ghost Country here.

Dracula in Space (UK 2026: Dir Gregory William Randolph Jr.) Back in the day - ok the 1980s - a movie like Dracula in Space would have been made in an abandoned warehouse and included a lot of wandering around. Actually scratch that: in the UK there were, and still are, very few warehouses available for rent; and we didn't really make movies like that anyway 40 years ago. And even if such facilities were available, Louisa Warren's Champdog Films, who are behind this, couldn't have afforded the hire charge.

So what we have is the Demeter, a space vessel, departing its mission to intercept a distress signal emanating from a seemingly empty ship. Said ship contains a large coffin sized pod which, when brought aboard, disgorges the 'ruler of the damned' himself, Count Dracula (Marcus Massey). The space age crew know not of the infamous vampire, so the Count is free to feed and enslave according to tradition under cover of near darkness, until the captain of the ship, Harker (Charlotte Reidie) works out that it can be controlled by shining UV light at it.

Imagine, if you will, an ultra cheap sci fi horror movie so dark (lighting, not content) as to disguise the fact that it was filmed in an office corridor (possibly Champdog's premises?) with character names taken from Stoker's novel but with the cast having zero knowledge of the vampire myth. Imagine that movie including a 'synth' (android, not keyboard) among its crew (Felipe Chavez) whose chief skill seems to be speaking even slower and more deliberately than the rest of the cast. Imagine a cast that for over two thirds of the movie just sit around talking. Slowly. DiS is jolly hard work by anyone's standards. It's the second Champdog film this year directed by '3 time Emmy Award-winning writer, director, and producer' (it says here) Randolph Jr, although based on this bargain basement cut up of Alien and Dracula 3000 4's a while off.

Pinocchio: Unstrung (UK 2026: Dir Rhys Frake-Waterfield) According to IMDb this is the 53rd movie by Scott Jeffrey's Jagged Edge Productions in less than ten years, and one look at their projects shows considerable growth in the quality and watchability of their movies.

P:U (say it quickly) may not earn plaudits from newcomers to the JE stable, but those familiar with Scott's back catalogue may conclude that this is his company's best work yet. A fast moving but rather odd mix of comedy, horror, sentimentality and genuinely repulsive makeup effects, Frake-Waterfield (whose previous projects include the first two Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey movies; a third is planned) has appropriated the popular wooden hero of the 19th century novel (and later Walt Disney) and taken it to places that...well, you wouldn't expect.

James (Cameron Bell) is a young boy in the care of his grandfather Geppetto (Richard Brake). James's short life has been an unhappy one, losing his parents and also a friend of his own age, Zach, to cancer. So lonely James is delighted when Geppetto introduces him to Pinocchio, a little boy made out of wood, fully animated and keen to hang out with his maker's grandson. Oh and who looks a bit like Zach.

James takes his wooden friend to school where, contrary to the instructions given by Geppetto, he introduces Pinocchio to his mates. But 'Pin's' own moral and spiritual guidance comes from a witchy soul hanging on the back of a door, the Woods Mother, and a small Cricket, voiced by the Robert Englund. Both remind Pinocchio that in order to be a fully functioning boy, he needs to harvest skin and organs, presumably to replace or upgrade his wooden form. Let the rebuild commence!

The most remarkable thing about the surprisingly confident (and bonkers) P:U is the care with which the effects are rendered. Pinocchio as a creation is a combination of animatronics, puppetry and, despite protestations to the contrary, what looks like a smattering of CGI; it's an effective combination and one that obviously stretched the resources of the team (end credit behind the scenes footage attests to this). Mood wise the film oscillates slightly uneasily between light comedy, YA hi jinx (although with liberal bouts of swearing) and, when Pin gets to do his stuff, some of the most startling and realistic (for the budget) practical gore effects I've seen in quite some time; not for this movie the worn out CGI blood splatter FX common to such low budget productions. Of course the movie doesn't make a lick of sense, and Pin seems able to move around school and hospital alike without being discovered, despite basically being a three foot high ambulatory tree trunk. The somewhat redemptive ending is as tonally weird as the rest of the film, but I didn't care, because I loved it. Like a Full Moon picture realised by Guillermo del Toro, this is hugely daft and very messy fun.

Miasma (UK 2025: Dir James Head) Anyone who thinks that the spirit of good old fashioned English eccentricity is a thing of the past, let me introduce you to James Head's sophomore feature as director, following on from 2022's affectionate M R James parody Squeak and I'll Run to You.

Strap yourselves in for this one. Dr Gerald Antrobus (Tony Stansfield, returning from Squeak) is the manager of a local insane asylum, whose inmates include 120 year old Professor Rex Shepherd (William Fitzgerald, also returning from Head's first feature), a killer of 10 who blames the murders on Spotus, a mouldy demon dog he unearthed while excavating in Little Barking, a small town in Cornwall, along with a farting creature called Miasma.

Antrobus is summoned to the reading of a will belonging to his estranged, now late father, the location being the same Little Barking. Once there, via a spell at a time shifting pub called 'The Loose Stool' (you may detect a certain scatological theme here, and you wouldn't be wrong), he arrives at the home of the executor, General Lord Gordon Waverley (Jonathan Hansler, Bogieville, Frankenstein: Legacy) and his grumpy housekeeper Ms Danvers (Katherine M. Ciani). But there's a snag; the will isn't there. It's hidden in the coffin of his father on Devil's Island, a place guarded by Miasma. And Gerald has to go and retrieve it.

If this sounds to you like a rip roarer, then reader I'm here to disabuse you of that notion; at a bum numbing near two hours, Miasma never roars. Rather, for the first half of the movie at any rate, it crawls. Things aren't helped by having most of the film's first act filmed with static actors against green screen, although things liven up slightly when Cornwall is reached. There is no attempt at pacing here, and Stansfield performs his lines as if he were paid for the gaps between them (actually I'm pretty sure no one got paid). The best thing in this is Ciani as the Yugoslavian housekeeper, whose cloud of depression and much welcome physical comedy seems to have strayed in from another film altogether. Chaps, I'm sure Miasma was a blast to make, but it certainly isn't to sit through; the odd bit of invention aside, it's not as big and clever as it thinks it is.

Lure (UK 2026: Dir Oliver Cox) Cox's debut feature is Saw lite in Berkshire. Really. 

Six young men are separately invited to dinner at the impressively grand house wherein lives equally sprightly Islay (Silvia Presente); all six think that the invitation is personal, but when they arrive they're knocked out, branded, tied up and sat around a table. 

This is clearly no ordinary dinner party. Islay, assisted by her father Edward (Tom Stocker) and mother Camilla (Pippa Winslow) is keen to pick out a suitor and father to her child, and only the fittest shall survive. A prologue suggests that this is not the first time this has been attempted.

Yes this is a setup which gives way to 75 minutes of Saw type games, starting fairly mildly with a quiz (the loser suffering a knife in the leg) and a game of cards. Things swiftly escalate into more cruel eye gouging stuff, as the suitors struggle to a) stay alive and b) outwit their captors.

Lure is pretty harsh; like its inspiration, there's little attempt at (or need for?) characteristation; the chaps are all fairly mercenary sorts, who clearly thought that an invitation to a pretty woman's house meant sex. They are of course swiftly disabused of this (indeed Islay discovers that two of the suitors came armed with condoms), and any hope that the group might escape seems dashed by the fact that an unseen control voice - again Saw like - is in charge of the game. 

Cox's movie is well done but pretty inconsequential; I'm not a fan of the hard edit but it could have been useful here, as a largely static camera forces the overwrought score to do all the hard work. I didn't believe a word of it but then I don't think that Cox was aiming for realism here, perhaps more a warning to young men about the objectification of women.

The Curse (Japan 2025: Dir Kenichi Ugana)

Ugana is fast developing a reputation for injecting new blood - pun very much intended - into J Horror's slightly tired reputation. and for his latest he has knowingly plundered the 'cursed technology' theme, which stretches back nearly 30 years to Hideo Nakata's Ringu.

Riko (Yukino Kaizu) works in a hair salon and, like millions of her generation, spends a large part of her social life on phone apps, specifically Instagram. In the apartment she shares with Airi (Mimi Shao) she expresses concern about recent posts from her friend Shufen (Shih-ting Lin), now living in Taiwan, which seem uncharacteristically angry. Airi suggests that Riko contacts her ex Jiahao (Yu Teng Yang), who remains in touch with Shufen. But he has some surprising news; the girl died six months previously, her corpse found on a beach.

Thinking that their friend's account must have been hacked, Airi contacts 'Shufen' and in return receives an odd video which shows a 'paper doll' (a paper cutout of a body with the photograph of the intended victim for a head) being mysteriously hammered to a bloody pulp; and the photograph is of Riko's flatmate.

This is the jumping off point for a movie that spends its first half hour setting itself up as a familiar - perhaps overfamiliar - story of a curse being transmitted through a modern medium; there's even a suggestion of the traditional long haired yurei phantom. But whereas the films of Nakata - and his ilk - offer a restrained if creepy version of the spook story, Ugana has already shown us a very Aster-like prologue in which a previous victim of the curse, screaming their lungs out while running along a street, ends up in contact with - and decapitated by - a passing truck; he's clearly not messing about.

So Riko journeys to Taiwan, a country perhaps more steeped in tradition than modern day Japan, and of course ends up on the wrong end of a 'paper doll' video. There's a lot of coughed up blood, some rather suspect CGI manifestations, dodgy exorcists and a denouement that suggests the director has something to say about phone culture and the ageing process. 

Despite some rather untidy plot elements and it being slightly all over the place, I enjoyed Ugana's rug pull version of a familiar story; I'm guessing he was having a lot of fun delivering a movie whose real sense of humour only becomes apparent in its closing scenes, a cautionary tale not afraid of its over the topness.

The Curse is available to stream from 13 July. 

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2022 #8: Reviews of Croc! (UK 2022), Jack Frost (UK 2022), Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead (UK 2022), Amityville Scarecrow 2 (UK 2022), Dreaded Light (UK 2022) and Dinosaur Hotel 2 (UK 2022)

Croc! (UK 2022: Dir Paul W. Franklin) Although director Paul W. Franklin is a relatively new name within British Fantastic Film circles, his producers Scott Jeffrey and Rhys Waterfield definitely aren’t, and sadly the formulaic approach taken by Jeffrey’s monster movie output is present and correct in this creature feature.

After the obligatory prologue where two horny campers get despatched by a waiting crocodile, we flash forward to meet Dylan (Mark Haldor), an environmental crusader whose wife was killed in Africa, but who’s on the rebound. Dylan is the father of brittle Lisa (Sian Altman) who, with her friends, has rented a wedding venue out in the country – the same venue where the previous campers met their ends.

Lisa’s intended is Charlie (George Nettleton) who, on the evening before their wedding, decides to sow his last wild oats with Lisa’s friend Georgie (Beatrice Fletcher). Grabbing a chance for a quick one, the pair are surprised by the arrival of the croc who chows down on Georgie; a blood soaked Charlie makes his escape and covers the whole thing up, fearing the exposure of his infidelity. The following day the wedding party are assembled, minus Georgie; the rampaging croc gatecrashes the party and the rest of the guests fight to stay alive as the giant amphibian wreaks havoc.

If you’ve seen as many of Jeffrey’s films as I have you’ll recognise that he only has one creature feature template. The croc effects here are better than some of his movies and I was delighted (ok that’s a bit strong, more interested) to see that at one point the venue’s swimming pool is used for some water based croc attack scenes. Fans of low budget Brit cinema may recognise this as the same pool used in Dominic Nutter’s 2022 movie Blood in the Water, which also features a crocodile! You're gonna need a bigger pool etc etc.

Croc! can’t really decide whether to be tongue in cheek or not; a cast who mostly play it straight don’t help here (but as they’re nearly all Jeffrey veterans they’re pretty practised at this) but the second half ramps up the comedic possibilities of the ludicrous setup. Favourite line: “The Lord moves in mysterious ways” says the presiding vicar. “Oh yes. He put a killer in the middle of fucking Hampshire!” is the response. Oh please yourselves. 

Jack Frost (UK 2022: Dir Liana Failla) It's a Jagged Edge production, for ITN distribution, so it's Scott Jeffrey behind the scenes for yet another people-trapped-in-a-youth-hostel seasonal shocker. 

Taking a leaf out of the Poohniverse movies, Failla's debut feature kicks off with a slice of sketchily illustrated legend, with Jack Frost an exiled assistant to Santa Claus who goes all evil, starts a war and is dismembered for his insolence. Jack recovers his various body parts, ready to wreak destruction again, except for one hand, and regularly comes back to earth to recover it. The hand is kept hidden by a family who are the descendants of Mr and Mrs Claus (Mrs C died in the war).

In present day Blighty Pepper (Lauren Staerck) has grown up in a family that are not allowed to celebrate Christmas because of a massacre 50 years previously occasioned by Jack Frost. This year Pepper and her family, including Jagged Edge regular Nicola Wright as mum Alba, are being joined by relatives, including Laura (Sarah Cohen, another JE familiar face, in her second seasonal horror movie of the year) and the Christmas boat is being pushed out. But Jack chooses this moment to come back to earth for his hand. Meanwhile Pepper and Laura steal away for an illicit drinking session in the woods; well you can guess what happens next.

Despite the rather good Christmas atmosphere and some gore which might be more impressive if it was better lit, this is the usual combination of social drama and running around screaming that those familiar with JE productions will recognise. Jack's mask is quite impressive but doesn't allow any vocal movement; the overdubbed Jack's voice is a combination of cheeky and slightly menacing, and somehow seems too posh for the head in which it's stuck (oh and the arrival of the demon is announced via some cheesy heavy metal guitar). I'm sure none of this is meant to be taken seriously, but it's also rather humourless.

Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead (UK 2022: Dir Pat Higgins) Higgins, a talented and versatile director, took a break from filmmaking duties after this. And I'm maybe not surprised. It's his most ambitious work to date, a scrappy but loveable zombie musical with a freewheeling approach and a heart of gold.

Emily (Charlie Bond), a girl with a fear of cheerleading courtesy of her murderous pom pom wielding granny, becomes one at the encouragement of her boss. Joining a cheerleading group naming themselves Power Cheer, comprising Brianna (Carrie Thompson),  Ashley (Liz Soutar), Olivia (Megan Rose Buxton) and single parent Mackenzie (Faith Elizabeth), the girls are tutored by the icy Chloe (Dani Thompson), and as a result end up on a TV talent show called 'Spotlight Chasers'. Their competitors are a boyband, 'Starmen', fronted by Emily's sort of ex Hunter (played by James Hamer-Morton). But a powerful charm, obtained by Emily from granny and finding its way into the hands of the opposition, deploys its powers when 'Starmen' are mortally wounded in a car crash. Resurrected to a zombie state, keen now for human flesh as well as the talent show trophy, it's a fight to the death between the rotting lads and the Power Cheer team.

I had the privilege of seeing this film's premiere as part of an excited audience, including well lubricated members of the cast and crew. And it's probably the best environment to see it; viewed at home, it's scrappiness is more apparent, but it's still a wild and ambitious ride. Songwriting wise Higgins, along with Hamer-Morton, skewers the power ballad as well as the west end stage stomper, the cast enthusiastically vocalising irrespective of singing talent; it's just not that kind of movie but, viewed some years on, it finds a more contemporary analog in the knowing songs of 2023's Barbie. The cast are, of course, excellent, a virtual who's who of 2020s British fantastic film, and Higgins directs with real comic flair. This remains excellent stuff.

Amityville Scarecrow 2 (UK 2022: Dir Adam Cowie) Fans of Amityville Scarecrow - I see you at the back - will be thrilled that somebody - ok Scott Jeffrey - decided that a sequel to Jack Peter Munday's 2021 movie was needed. AS2 scores points for being faithful to all those rotten 'we-absolutely-didn't-need-them' sequels, resurrecting the thought demised Scarecrow from the first movie. 

It's two years since the events in Amityville Scarecrow. The bestrawed killer is no more; owners of the Amityville campsite, sisters Tina (Amanda-Jade Tyler) and Mary (Kate Sandison) - both still sporting blink and you'll miss 'em American accents and reprising their roles from the first flick - decide to resurrect the attraction for a new generation of glampers. Along comes Harriet, Mary's daughter (Sofia Lacey, also in the first AS) and a bunch of disposable twentysomethings, including Harriet's BF Dylan (Dan Robins), and it's not long before the Scarecrow is back, carving up the camp staff.

Jeffrey bizarrely decided in the first movie that the Amityville site would be removed from its New York state location to Kent in order to utilise the name for hapless folk looking for the latest haunted house movie. Cowie, presumably following the Jagged Edge production company requirements, continues the deception, even including a campfire storytelling sequence in which the DeFeo murder spree is recounted. The result is formulaically pitiful: domestic drama; camp counsellors getting it on (thanks Chrissie Naked Attraction Wunna for leaving the kids at home and getting nekkid again); running and screaming; mild entrails related gore. Just hopeless.

Dreaded Light (UK 2022: Dir Mark MacNicol) Dreaded Light is MacNicol's first feature, a confident, slow burn piece centred on a bereaved father and his troubled daughter. 

Duncan (Adam Robertson, simply 'Dad' in the credits) has recently lost his wife to cancer, leaving him in sole charge of the stables she used to run, and daughter Michelle (Rachel Flynn), who suffers with Heliophobia; literally an irrational fear of sunlight (perhaps unsurprisingly Michelle's choice of home viewing is Werner Herzog's Nosferatu). 

Dad has his own battles, namely an over reliance on 'jazz Woodbines' to get him through the day, and an inability to sleep upstairs because of painful memories. A chance meeting with a woman taking riding lessons, Jen (Kirsty Strain, Anna and the Apocalypse) takes an unusual turn when the woman discloses that she is a medium, a fact which sceptical Duncan dismisses.

Michelle's behaviour grows more problematic; suffering from seizures, from time to time she appears so different as to be almost possessed. Running out of options, Duncan has little choice but to consult Jen and ask for spiritual help.

Don't go running away thinking that Dreaded Light is a straightforward spook story; there are definitely 'fantastic' elements to it, but above all the film is an exploration of grief and human frailty. Essentially a three hander, MacNicol handles the more 'out there' elements of the story carefully, keeping events (and character motivations) believable. Filmed on location in Scotland and with a local cast who rarely put a foot wrong (it even has a score by one member of Scots band 'BMX Bandits'), this is one of those undiscovered movies that demands a wider audience. Gripping stuff.

Dinosaur Hotel 2 (UK 2022: Dir Jack E, Bell) In which Scott Jeffrey, of Jagged Edge Productions, creates his own franchise, spreading the love by allowing various directors from the JE stable to have a go at an instalment.

In 2021's origin movie Dinosaur Hotel we met a gamesmaster who created a scenario whereby contestants, in search of a grand prize, had to outwit and survive the attacks of dinosaurs. At the end of that movie the gamesmaster had been eaten by his own beasts while several of the contestants, including Sienna (Chrissie Wunna), had survived the ordeal.

In the sequel we're some years in the future; 2032 to be precise. The game has upped the ante; there's a new gamesmaster, already disillusioned Eddie (Marcus Massey) and the show is now broadcast on TV, with viewers placing bets on the likely winner. Behind the scenes the shadowy Morgana (Gillian Broderick), who's pulling the strings, is also doing a bit of inside betting. Oh and the dinosaurs now include the winged variety, meaning that the predation can take place outdoors. The sequel opens as the last two contestants of a game (JE regulars Samantha Cull and Julia Quayle) battle it out to the finish. But the show is losing ratings, Eddie is off his game and the series producers want to try something new.

Sienna is invited to be a contestant on a special livestreamed reunion show, where the prize fund is $10 million. Listening to the concerns of her kids she refuses, but the powers that be kidnap them to force her to participate, where she joins the winners of the other seasons in the ultimate battle, a motley and occasionally psychotic bunch, many who have also been lured there against their better judgement.

While there's a script reference to the film being set in Colorado, USA a clearly shown sign for 'Beacon Hill Fort' places the 'action' in Essex. No mind; this is a fun development of the original film. "At first we had to be scared of dinosaurs: now we have to be scared of each other," summarises Sienna, and she's right; more time is spent with contestants trying to off each other, 'Hunger Games' style, than dealing with the poorly animated raptors. Not overly demanding, but DH2 has something to say about TV audiences' demand for onscreen unpleasantness, and the cast do 'threat' pretty well.

DEoL at 2026 Raindance Festival: Reviews of Broken Beak (New Zealand/USA 2026), Child (Luxembourg 2026), Corporate Retreat (USA 2026), Modem (UK/Sweden 2026), Sacrificios (Mexico 2025), Shadows of Willow Cabin (USA 2025) and The Troll (USA 2025)

London's Raindance Festival is back this year with another strong lineup of Fantastic films. I got the chance to see seven of them.

Broken Beak aka The Burning of Broken Beak (New Zealand/USA 2026: Dir Christian Carroll) Maori descended photographer Emma (Briar Rose) is recalled from New York to her native New Zealand, accompanied by her impulsive partner Jackie (Lydia Peckham) to attend a will reading; the will in question belongs to an uncle, a ruthless property developer, who was killed in a knife attack.

Arriving at her uncle's flat in an imposing converted power station (a real location in Devonport), now occupied by his cleaner Paula (Katlyn Wong), the will reading discloses that the rest of Emma's family seem to be money grabbing horrors, and that she has inherited the apartment, provided she can stay there for thirty days. 

But as Emma works out what she wants to do, she is reminded by Paula of the history of 'Broken Bird', a mythological creature that attacked the island's first avaricious settlers. As people start dying around her, Emma has nightmare visions of the bird and feels that she may be linked to it.

"Stop being greedy" is the last line of Carroll's movie and, despite the horror elements within, this is basically a movie in support of that statement. Broken Beak opens powerfully with a recording of a bird made back in 1987, its song calling for a mate which will never arrive as its species is on the edge of extinction. Sadly nothing to follow equals that powerful opening, and indeed the film is so full of quirks and ecological messages that its whodunit story is rather lost in the other narrative chicanery. You get the feeling watching this that Carroll is pretty mad at the world, and with good reason; the anger just needs reining in a little. On occasion the film fizzes with themes and ideas which work well, but there's just too much going on. One applauds the sentiment, but sadly not (pun intended) the execution.

A version of this review was published on the Bloody Flicks website.

Child (Luxembourg 2026: Dir Cyrus Neshvad) Another first feature, a relentlessly dark drama from Neshvad, an Academy award nominated Luxembourg director of Iranian origin. 

Greg (Malik Zidi) is both a doctor and a father; his son Leo lies comatose in front of him in hospital, the result of an accident in which Greg was parentally negligent. Leo needs an organ transplant to ensure his survival, with little hope of securing the thing through normal channels. So in a move which threatens the career of both Greg and the consultant surgeon, arrangements are made to secure the organ on the black market.

Greg must travel across the Luxembourg border with his wife Marie (Anne Klein), who can barely share the same car as him, to transact the deal. But obtaining the illicit body part from shady organ farmers becomes the least of their problems when the parent of another child turns up seeking both her daughter and revenge.

When Child's third act finally tips over to horror, and the true nature of the illegal setup is made known (although even these elements are integral to the story), we have already been exposed to a series of increasingly grim tableaux, not least being the moral and ethical conundrums faced by the parents, and Greg's profession. Not much happens in the movie, but we feel everything; Greg and Marie's journey into the heart of darkness (literally; this is a dark film in more ways than one), with the car's GPS slowly counting down the kilometres, is impossibly sad, and the journey back, with the organ contained in a refrigerated glowing box, is equally moving. 

Child is a superbly rendered, bleak and at times heartbreaking film which accurately summarises parental fear (and loathing); a must see. 

Corporate Retreat (USA 2026: Dir Aaron Fisher) Movies about brutal office politics are generally a bit iffy. 2006's Severance was a patchy but enjoyable romp about an outward bound team building trip and 2016's The Belko Experiment had a group of people trapped in an office at the mercy of a control voice.

Aaron Fisher's Corporate Retreat collects together a group of workers employed by Immaculate Pond Technologies for an away weekend. Most of the usual office roles are included - Finance, HR, Operating Officer and Tech - with annoying Cliff (Elias Kacavas) heading up the group. Thinking they're actually having a romantic break, Cliff's girlfriend Ginger (Odeya Rush) is pretty non plussed when she realises the true purpose of the getaway.

The weekend is facilitated by two humourless souls, Amber (Zión Moreno) and Lola (Sasha Lane), who inform the team that they will be guided through seven stages of enlightenment via a series of team challenges. But the shadowy face behind the whole enterprise is ex company CEO Arthur (Alan Ruck), whose annoyance at being deposed focuses on the people in the room; and it looks like the team games are about to get very nasty,

Corporate Retreat starts lightly, with some 'hip' music announcing the cast in a Tarantino lite style. But it soon settles down to be a nasty, pointless 90 minutes where company members, who are unable to leave the building, have to go through things or be shot by the facilitators. It's the kind of movie where people gouge their own eyes out (with a shared spoon, natch) and experience pain for about three minutes. It's also the kind of movie that casts Rosanna Arquette and then kills her off in the first ten minutes. I kept thinking that this was all done for satirical purposes, but the point of the send up alluded me, unless it's a sideswipe at corporate culture. In which case, big fail. Not good.

Modem (UK/Sweden 2026: Dir Tim James Brown) American husband Michael (Josh Burdett) takes his family for an extended summer break to a remote rental in the Swedish countryside, this being his Swedish wife Johanna (Amanda Renberg), teenage daughter from her first marriage Nora (Nika Tallroth) and Michael and Johanna's baby son Stig (Stig Lundström).

Michael, who has a history of both drinking and being sexually inappropriate at work, is looking forward to a detoxing few months spent in nature without the distractions of the internet. Johanna too is hoping to get their life on track, but hasn't reckoned on bratty Nora, for whom summer in the wild means no parties, no guys and, crucially, no Wi-Fi. But an accidental find under the floorboards unearths a dusty old dial up modem. Despite signs forbidding it being plugged in, Nora is unable to be screenless for another night and connects it. Johanna is supportive; as the only breadwinner she needs to work while the family is on extended vacation.

In the film's prologue we've already witnessed the hiding of the modem by a previous cottage occupant, and know that no good can come of switching it on, an activity made more ominous by its connection to a sinister receiver, which acts as a kind of summoning to local spirits. As the family begins to fall apart, the tech begins to take over, manipulated by a sinister presence, culminating in the disappearance of Stig while a drunk Michael snoozes in front of the baby monitor.

Brown's debut feature wouldn't be half as good without the excellent performances of the family members, who completely convince as they try and hold things together. The supernatural elements are less convincing and, at times, plain clunky (do we really need another scary plague doctor character?) but Brown gives us a good sense of place and a real feeling of isolation as the weirdness takes hold. 

A version of this review was published on the Bloody Flicks website.

Sacraficios (Mexico 2025: Dir Mauricio Chernovetzky) The title literally translated as 'Sacrifices', Chernovetzky plunges us into a world of grief centred around Juan (Jorge A. Jimenez) and his wife Alma (Frida Astrid). Alma is pregnant with their second child, their existing son Andrés (Siddhartha Tonalli) a playful and curious boy who loves their seaside home and on whom both parents dote.

One evening, when Alma is lecturing at the local University, after putting Andrés to bed Juan accesses his laptop and a cam sex site. Alma's specialism is Mexican beliefs, and her talk cites the God of the Dead, to whom devotees provided their own blood and flesh as sacrifice to the deity (it's telling that earlier Alma left a book, with pictorial depictions of the god, open for Juan and Andrés to see, cementing the link between man, boy and god). While Juan is distracted, a sudden and violent storm glitches the tech used by Alma, and wakes Andrés who, venturing into the bathroom, falls into the tub, mistakenly left full after his bath, hits his head and drowns. 

Juan's guilt is immediate, paralysing him into inactivity (when Alma returns, he's motionless in a chair cradling their dead son; some days later he remains in the same position, still wearing the bloodstained top and unable to attend Andrés' funeral). Instead he takes a boat out on the sea with, it is assumed, the intention of taking his own life. But his boat becomes snagged in a tangle of seaweed that encloses, within its structure, a mass which contains the body of a young boy; it is Andrés, returned to his father. But changed.

Sacrifios reminded me of the films of Lucile Hadzihalilovic in its blurring of myth and reality, but the  casting of Jimenez and Tonalli, both in their own way excellent, creates a sharp focus of love and dependency at once abstract and detailed. This is a stunning film, one which resists easy interpretation, but vibrant in its intensity and beauty.

Shadows of Willow Cabin (USA 2025: Dir Joe Fria) Fria's debut feature is a haunted house movie with a difference; its occupants are as spooked as the building itself!

Shy Albert (Bryan Bellomo) is staying at his late uncle's cabin, a remote retreat with little phone coverage that presents the ideal location to invite Devon (John Brodsky), a guy he met on an app. It's a big risk for Albert, organising a weekend away with a guy he knows nothing about. 

But when he arrives, Devon seems nice enough. Well toned to Albert's slight fleshiness, he brings the wine and the smarts. Albert is hesitant, for reasons we only discover as the movie progresses; he's married, not even sure he's gay, and in Devon he meets someone comfortable in their own queerness. But Devon didn't always have it so easy; scars on his body attest to a strict religious upbringing and his early attempts to literally cut the gay away. As the weekend progresses, and the booze flows, the two become more relaxed.

But there's a third presence in the house, asserting itself gradually but eventually trapping the pair in the cabin, forcing Albert to face deadly family secrets and showing itself as a powerful entity.

Shadows of Willow Cabin is an uneasy - and overlong - mix of gay relationship drama and cabin in the woods horror. Albert and Devon aren't a great match and this unlikely pairing makes it difficult to appreciate the movie as a romantic or emotional one. The lurch into horror in the last half an hour is perhaps welcome (although not for the two cabin occupants) but the whole thing feels uneasy and rather meandering. Hats off to Fria for trying something a little different but this didn't really work for me.

The Troll (USA 2025: Dir Brianna Lee) Lee's first feature only just exceeds her string of inventive shorts lengthwise, and, like her other films, she writes, directs and stars. Here's she's musician and influencer 'Killa B' (the B stands for Bethany), doing it all for the likes and the fan approbation. But her popularity may be on the wane, judging by some of the comments received on her latest video (a song also written by Lee).

One response in particular stands out; a put down comment which no influencer wants to hear: "Nobody is looking at you." Ms B goes into herself momentarily, but decides that rather than heed the poster's other observations about her being too old and having a manly face, she's about to troll the troller to a new and murderous level.

The contemporary horror film genre has tended to take a dim view of influencer culture, with a succession of movies meting out punishment to those who are 'always on' and playing up their more irritating traits. So it's somewhat refreshing to see the tables turned; Lee is both hilarious and unhinged as a public figure whose response to online hate is meticulously cruel, whether infiltrating an AA group or manipulating a fan meet (I'm not going to give anything away except that Killa B's plan for revenge is devilishly thought through). 

The Troll may only be 67 minutes long but it's a sharply observed, hugely funny movie which looks like it was a blast to make. We definitely want to see more from Lee (and I can also recommend her work on Instagram).

A version of this review was published on the Bloody Flicks website.

Nino (France 2025: Dir Pauline Loquès)

The Nino of the title (Théodore Pellerin) is the personification of thousands of young men living in Paris. He's 28, on the cusp of 29, quiet and unassuming, currently single and working in a fairly uninspiring job. While attending a hospital one Friday, ostensibly to pick up a sick note for his employer, he gets a shock; the sore throat from which he's been suffering is actually cancerous, the result of a long dormant sexually transmitted disease.

The polite but direct doctor schedules him for immediate chemotherapy, starting the following Monday. As if that wasn't enough to take in, she also suggests that he donate his sperm as quickly as possible in that the treatment's potency will render him infertile.

Spat out onto the Paris streets, dazed and frightened, Nino returns home only to find that he's mislaid his door keys, and the building's concierge is absent. And so begins a weekend that we spend with the young man, in which the camera never takes its eye off him (Loquès places Pellerin front and centre in every scene; he's unable to escape our gaze) as he spends time with his mother (Jeanne Balibar), an ex who's in the process of moving to Montreal and to whom he may have transferred the infection, at a 'surprise' party in his honour, and finally with an old school chum (Salomé Dewaels) who he meets by chance.

The joy of Nino - if that's the right word for a movie about a man struggling to come to terms with a cancer diagnosis - is that the film resists mawkishness. We may feel immediate sympathy for the young man but his biggest battle is how to conquer the isolation in which the diagnosis has placed him, while preparing to tell his friends and loved ones.  

But Pellerin is supported by a handful of remarkable performances from the supporting cast. He and Balibar have some of the most intimate scenes in the movie; as mother and son their relationship is obviously close, and when Nino tries to explain the news from the hospital - which she mistakenly thinks is him about to confess that he's transitioning - he ends up telling her he's being treated for depression, possibly feeling guilty about how the cancer originated (later on, Balibar's ex husband Mathieu Amalric turns up in a cameo role). 

Nino is Loquès's first feature, and she's ably assisted by some superb cinematography by Lucie Baudinaud and fine editing by Clémence Diard, both resisting flashiness but effortlessly capturing Nino's fractured, distracted sense of himself and his surroundings. It's a simple but effective film, and at its centre is a casually riveting performance by Pellerin.

Nino is on release from 19 June 2026. 

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2026 #2: Reviews of Voidance (UK 2026), Rose of Nevada (UK 2025), The R.I.P Man (UK 2025), Bride of Frankenstein (UK 2025), Doctor Plague (UK 2026) and The Goodman's Croft (UK 2024/5)

Voidance (UK 2026: Dir Marianna Dean) Dean's first feature, 2023's Breaking Infinity, successfully used a 'quantum loop' idea to create an intriguing kind of low budget multiverse. And now Dean is back with a similarly high concept low cash sci fi movie. Only far less successful.

Newbie ATIC agent Alana Toro (Zoe Cunningham), who answers to the hologram direction of command chief Agent Polo (James Cosmo), is assigned her first solo mission, the final step of her training. As part of the feuding taking place between rival planets Atopia and Cho-Hacha, a terrorist group, the Marai Haria, have been attacking various targets. They have hijacked a freight ship for reasons unknown; it's Alana's mission to infiltrate the group and stop them.

And it's at this point that I have to mention the budget again, for despite the grand introduction and the opening graphics which suggest spectacle is just around the corner, Alana actually rocks up in The Forge, a dimly lit bar on a space station, where it's supposed that the terrorist group are hanging out. And here she stays for the next 80 odd minutes. For Alana has a tool at her disposal; the ability to reset the mission if she fails, enabling her to learn details about the characters she encounters with successive repeats. And if you're now thinking of movies like Source Code, Edge of Tomorrow/Live Die Repeat or even Groundhog Day, well stop now; one of the first problems with Voidance (that title! Sheesh) is that there's no clarity about what's going on, and where in those other films the 'repeat' element was a chance to learn more and have some fun along the way, both of these qualities are much missing in Dean's film.

Admittedly towards the end things tighten up a bit, by which time we've been subject to waves of histrionic full orchestra score trying and failing to convince us that something interesting is happening, and some of the flattest acting outside of the local village hall drama society; senses have been accordingly dulled. Reader, this is a slog; poorly paced, lacking in tension and, in Cunningham's Alana Toro, a mono emotional lead character that, in her wig, at times looks like Dave Hill in his 1970's Slade heyday.

Rose of Nevada (UK 2025: Dir Mark Jenkin) I try, I really try, to like Mark Jenkin's films. They're the visual equivalent of some of the earlier releases on the Ghostbox label, or maybe the 'false nostalgia' sounds of Boards of Canada.

There's no denying the care invested in his saturated images, the 16mm film stock used betraying all the glitches and pops associated with such an analogue medium, and small casts of actors giving committed, understated performances more associated with 1970s 'realist' TV plays.

And yet, for me, there's 'something' that doesn't work about his films. Rose of Nevada is his most ambitious yet, in terms of storyline. The title refers to a fishing vessel, lost at sea thirty years previously and now mysteriously returned to the harbour of a remote Cornish fishing village (almost the same location and community documented in Jenkin's 2019 debut feature Bait). 

This news is of particular concern to one of the missing men's wives (Rosalind Eleazar), who sees its re-appearance as ominous (to compound this, the words "Get off the boat now" are scratched into the vessel's woodwork). The community's economy is not good and times are hard, so it makes sense to re-use the 'Rose of Nevada' with a new crew, comprising Nick (George MacKay) and the lairy Liam (Callum Turner). The pair's first trawl is a success, the boat laden with fish. But on return the village seems to have regained a feeling of prosperity; the local pub is unusually packed, and stranger still the widow of the lost fisherman greets Liam as if they are man and wife. For the pair have returned to 1993; the vessel is not lost at sea, and Liam and Nick are welcomed back to a world that existed before they were born.

Much of the film from here on in is concerned with the young men's responses to the situation in which they find themselves, with Jenkin failing to resist some of the oft used time travel flags (a newspaper dated 1993, smoking allowed inside pubs etc). Liam is accepting, possibly relishing the stability of a new life, whereas Nick is more contemplative and, ultimately, frightened by their time imprisonment. 

As well as location (and some cast members) Jenkin here returns to the theme of Cornwall as a forgotten county, blighted by the slow collapse of the fishing industry and the rise of second-homeism; due to the time travel nature of the admittedly slender plot (which also acts as a mirror to the filmmaking process), Rose of Nevada rather rams these points home. It's an intriguing piece, but it's slightness and 'trapped in amber' mis en scene didn't really work for me.

The R.I.P Man (UK 2025: Dir Jamie Langlands) Despite its title, The R.I.P Man only just scrapes in as a 'Fantastic' film courtesy of the titular killer's modus operandi. 

In the days leading up to the 21st birthday of Clarissa (Jasmine Kheen) several of her friends wind up dead, victims of a killer who, after texting them to warn of their impending doom and then despatching them, extracts one of their teeth.

The police are initially baffled until the pieces start to be put together; a chattering teeth toy left at the scene of each crime is traced to a toymaker whose adopted son, Alden, was committed to an asylum, suffering with a rare oral disease.

You guessed it: Alden, played by Owen Llewelyn (last seen - by me at any rate - in 2022's As a Prelude to Fear), is the R.I.P Man, so named because he wears a dental plate embossed with those letters until he's completed filling his toothless gob with the teeth of his victims. At this point, I wondered whether Langlands was inspired by the eponymous creature of Louisa Warren's 'Tooth Fairy' franchise, whose lank haired monster is equally handy with the pliers (or in this case a drill).

Made for around £20,000 and filmed on the mean streets of, er, Sussex (Brighton and Worthing feature heavily), Langlands's follow up to his 2024 movie The Cellar suffers from leaden pacing, patchy performances and a police department who divide up the cliches evenly between them. It spends too long with the drama lite activities of a group of Clarissa's friends, not even stopping to give us a red herring or two; we know who the killer is pretty much from the first scene.

On the plus side it's well and consistently photographed, does not drown in an over emphatic soundtrack (and even uses a local band in a couple of club scenes) and in Llewelyn's Alden, gives us a creepy killer. Langlands is already making the sequel, fright fans.

Bride of Frankenstein (Awakens) (UK 2025: Dir Louisa Warren) Warren's 38th (!) feature as director uses Maggie Gyllenhaal's movie The Bride! as a spiritual jumping off point, but this is very much a Champdog Productions joint (Warren's in house company), meaning that it's not meant to be taken all that seriously and is a lot of fun as a result. The distributors had the foresight to add the word 'Awakens' to the title, just in case we were wondering about the named monster's dormancy.

A confusing prologue, explained not much later in the movie, has a dead man reanimated into a flesh eating zombie via a book of spells (and such a book now appears as a Champdog trademark in nearly every Warren movie). 

Newly married Santana (a game Nicola Ditter) is heading off for a new life with disgraced surgeon husband...wait for it...Frank N. Stein (Geordie actor Wayne Dobson, all impressive ink and fight-in-a-car-park charm) and away from her deeply unimpressed family. But their bliss is short lived when Santana is hit by a car and killed. Luckily she gifted Frank a book of spells as a wedding present; yes, the same one we saw in the prologue. It contains the means to resurrect the dead; the only snag is that Frank needs new body parts. Roping in his old ex surgeon pal Dr Pret (Jack Darrell) Frank's obvious destination for the required limbs is Santana's family, headed by the god fearing Arthur (Graeme Muncer). Santana, newly re-assembled, although looking exactly the same, is magicked back into life and sets about munching on the rest of the cast.

Although this is arguably Warren's most successful feature to date (it doesn't have any, or much, of the mid movie slump from which the majority of her movies suffer), the director still can't resist bogging the whole thing down with some character drama which gets in the way of the action. To be honest the whole 'Frankenstein' angle is simply an audience hook, as the Bride's shtick isn't much different to Warren's other creature features. But it's fun while it lasts and Ditter gives us a very physical - and at times nuanced - performance.

Doctor Plague (UK 2026: Dir Ben Fortune) Fortune's first stint in the director's chair is aided and abetted by genre veteran, producer Jonathan Sothcott, whose company Shogun films is behind the venture. 

Martin Kemp (yes, that Martin Kemp, and arguably the best actor in this) is troubled detective John Verney. Marriage in pieces, son getting mixed up with the wrong crowd and career facing an uncertain future - his boss, Parker (David Yip, of BBC drama The Chinese Detective fame, about which you may need to ask your parents) sees him as a couple of steps from the detective knacker's yard - Verney is down on his luck, and now has the added problem of thirty one unexplained dead or missing persons on his east London patch.

The culprit is a guy in a plague doctor outfit, with glowing green eyes and a "Repent or die!" catchphrase, as evidenced by the only person who has survived the attacks but who later mysteriously dies while in hospital. Teased for his inability to solve the crimes by an itinerant YouTuber, a desperate Verney thinks there might be a link between the killer/abductor and the Jack the Ripper murders. He consults an expert, Professor Altman (Peter James) and discovers a link to the Brethren of the Flame, a sect who flourished during the Pandemic and who deal out divine retribution to people who've been naughty. When Verney's son is also kidnapped things become personal; is this gang related, or is there something more supernatural going on?

'No-ish' is the spoilerish response; again, right up to the last ten minutes or so Doctor Plague, despite its title, risked being dropped from my 'Fantastic' films survey as it looked like it might remain a rather prosaic psycho on the loose police procedural. That it saves its spookiest moments for the last reel does not rescue the rest of the film from overall blandness. Kemp is very watchable, and Sothcott has made a career out of casting 'resting' UK TV thesp mates in his productions (not to mention his rather unusual looking wife Nerissa) but a capable bunch of actors can't save a dull script and an overall lack of pace. 

The Goodman's Croft (UK 2024/5: Dir Doug Kyle) Kyle is an independent filmmaker living in Scotland who has been producing and directing idiosyncratic movies since 2016. A man who understands the link between myth, landscape and humanity, his films aren't polished but they're warm, witty and deserve to be more widely seen.

In The Goodman's Croft, which manages to be funnier - and more action packed - than most of his projects, Kyle plays Chris Ward, an ex RAF Pastor whose travels to foreign climes have brought him face to face with the devil.

Now returned to Scotland, Ward is seeking 'The Goodman's Croft', an area of the Highlands historically reserved for Beelzebub. But his researches are fraught with menace, whether being Satanically stalked or distracted by the gruff Scorbie (a Kyle regular, his brother Andrew). And then there's the Parish Council, a group of disparate types presumably constituted to keep anyone away from the Croft. Meanwhile more secular powers worldwide are failing to hold together global peace; it comes to something when the search for the devil is less important than the prospect of World War III.

With such lofty and depressing themes at work, it's both surprising and refreshing that Kyle treats his subject so lightly; there's an amusing script here, some charming characterisation, and the extended gunplay seems to be a first for the director, who packs an awful lot into his 67 minutes. Scrappy as you like, it looks like The Goodman's Croft was made over two years (2024 and 2025) but only released this year.

You can watch all of Kyle's films via his Chaos Box YouTube channel.

Touch Me (USA 2025: Dir Addison Heimann)

If the creators of The Mighty Boosh had bonded over lunch with Frank Henenlotter (I'll leave you to work out the details of that one) Touch Me may have been the result.

"I fucked an alien, an alien named Brian", confesses anxiety filled Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) to her therapist, in the middle of recounting a bizarre and not altogether safe sexual experience. Joey encounters the track suited, impressively coiffed and potentially planet saving intergalactic visitor while on a catering gig (Lou Taylor Pucci). One touch of his glowing finger relieves her of her inner fears, and the resultant drunken sex with tentacles, although not consensual, is life changing.

Joey's description of the event as a sort of "hentai porn" experience is a pretty good description for the majority of Heimann's decidedly odd sophomore feature. To flee her weird and borderline dangerous encounter, Joey retreats to the safety of the home she shares with gay Craig (Jordan Gavaris); their slacker shtick is one of the highlights of the film.

But that safety is short lived; when their shower backs up with horseshit leaving them unable to afford the plumbing fees, 'Brian' enters the scene again when Joey accepts an invitation to his weekend retreat, bringing Craig with her. In between bouts of hip hop workouts with his assistant, Laura (Marlene Forte), 'Brian' seduces both flatmates; but his promises of a solution to earthly climate change mask a sinister, and more deadly purpose.

That Touch Me's executive producers include those purveyors of the headscratchy, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, is a thumbs up for the combination of humour and absurdity that abounds in Heimann's film, which takes a whacked out look at addiction (chemical and emotional), self help and friendship without ever becoming self consciously quirky. Dudley and Gavaris are excellent as the two vaguely millennial friends - I could have watched a movie starring just the two of them - and Pucci's Brian is splendidly polymorphously perverse. If this was filmed twenty years ago it would definitely have been more explicit (the credited Intimacy Coordinator is a sign of the times) and because of this at times I felt that Touch Me held back a little. But it's a funny, inventive movie with enough quirks and ticks to maintain interest.

Touch Me is available on digital download from 4th May.