My time in the Steel City - a youthful 1980 sojourn in Sheffield

May 1980: somewhere in Sheffield. "It's Fry, like my name", said Martin, pointing to an old tin sign propped up against the wall of his bedsit, advertising Fry's Chocolates; he was inviting me to see the inherent humour, which I did, but probably not as enthusiastically as he would have liked. The 'Martin' in question is Martin Fry; the same Martin Fry that two years later would be catapulted to stardom as the lead singer of ABC, a million miles away from the confines of this tiny south Yorkshire room. But why was I here? Under false pretenses, basically. Correction: I was there for the right reasons, but I wasn't holding out much hope that what I thought I was there for would come to pass.

Let's backtrack a bit. As a massive fan of independent music in the late 1970s, the more difficult the better, a chance purchase of the first Cabaret Voltaire EP in 1978 opened up new aural doors for me. Difficult, alien DIY machine music, never far from a tune but awkward as hell; a sort of grungier version of The Human League's more polished electronic sound (a group who also released their first single the same year). Both bands lived and worked in Sheffield, a fact I filed away for later use. 

Over the next year I started to read articles about and hear other bands based in that city: Clock DVA; I'm So Hollow; and Vice Versa, the latter whose first EP, 'Music 4', had emerged in 1979. More synths, more strangely catchy tunes, more strident male vocals. I had just published the first edition of my own short lived fanzine, 'DoA', and a friend encouraged me to channel my nascent journalistic enthusiasms further. 

So I wrote to Zigzag, the London based independent music magazine who regularly accepted - and printed - submissions from unknown correspondents, and told them that I was planning on writing a piece covering 'the Sheffield scene'. In early 1980 I then wrote to Vice Versa and Clock DVA and told them I was writing a piece on 'the Sheffield scene' for Zigzag magazine and that I'd like to come up and interview them.

Except Zigzag magazine didn't actually reply to confirm that the piece was a goer.

Fast forward to the spring of that year. A member of Vice Versa, a guy called Stephen Singleton, wrote back confirming that they would love to host me for a week, show me around the sights of Sheffield and introduce me to the other bands there. With his letter he included a cassette of eight songs by his group named, rather appropriately, '8 Aspects'. A date was arranged for the trip; Friday 2nd of May. 

Every morning I awaited the post; nothing from Zigzag. Singleton was the co-creator of Neutron Records, who had not only released 'Music 4' but also, in early 1980, a double ep called '1980:The First Fifteen Minutes' featuring tracks from DVA, I'm So Hollow, local punk legends The Stunt Kites and, of course, VV. It certainly sounded like things were happening in the 'Steel City'.

44 Bowood Road, Sheffield, the address given on the back of the cassette and the first stop on my trip, was Neutron Records HQ. Any ideas I held that Neutron would be a suite of modern offices, staffed by entrepreneurial execs all looking to sign the next big act, were swiftly dashed; it was Stephen's parents' house and I'd been invited for tea. The Singletons, and in fact everyone I met that week, were nothing short of lovely; including Martin Fry, in whose flat it was arranged I would be staying for the duration of the visit. 

I can't remember Martin's address but, like a lot of Sheffield at the time, the rather grotty multiple occupation house in which he lived is likely no more; probably the whole street has been demolished. Martin had a biggish room on the top floor; everyone shared a ground floor bathroom. It wasn't long before I discovered Martin's neighbour on the first floor, an enigmatic chap by the name of Stephen James Turner, known to everybody as 'Judd'. He was a bass player in a band.

And the name of that band was Clock DVA.

Coming from the affluent south, the first thing I noticed was that very few people seemed to have jobs. Various band members mentioned casual employment in local factories or food processing facilities, but those occupations seemed vague and spoken about in the past tense. Subsistence mainly came from the Unemployment Exchange, fueling the real work; the music. That and hanging out together in pubs, establishing the social glue (and occasional rivalry) of diverse bands operating in the same location.

Vice Versa had no planned gigs scheduled the week I was in the city. They looked on themselves as 'attaché case futurists', able to turn up at a moment's notice when a promoter required a low maintenance, no fuss fill in group. I would later witness this happening.

Clock DVA

Clock DVA on the other hand were a 'proper' band, who regularly got together in one of Sheffield's numerous ex industrial units. Their space was on West Street, premises once used by master craftsmen in the cutlery industry; I'd been invited to see them rehearse. Standing at the appointed hour outside a building that looked in serious danger of collapsing, I met the first band member, drummer Roger Quail, who seemed refreshingly 'normal' (whatever that means. Quail, a chap seemingly blessed with an eidetic memory and/or a collection of diaries - which helped a little with the writing of this piece - now maintains an excellent blog/podcast My Life in the Mosh of Ghosts which is well worth checking out). At the time of meeting I wasn't really aware quite how extreme the band's history was (later I read stories of violent confrontations between group and audiences, and one anecdote told of a previous band member taking a machete to gigs to deal with any overly physical reactions to their live set, a not uncommon problem): perhaps it was just as well.

Looking back now, I couldn't have realised at the time how important this moment was for me. There I was, 200 miles from home, a naive kid from comfortable suburban surroundings, sitting on the floor of an old, disused building that, miraculously, had a power supply, watching Clock DVA set up and run through their set, complete with strobe light show. I had previously been given a band tape, 'Group Fragments', which included a (gulp, catchy) song called 'Your (sic) Without Sound'; this 1979 artefact, recorded at Cabaret Voltaire's Western Works studio, represented the last recordings of a group in transition. 'Group Fragments' was all electronics, treated tape and muttered vocals. In the period since its release DVA were in the process of discarding a guitarist, David Hammond, and picking up another, Paul Widger, although he wouldn't start playing with them until later the following month; they'd also acquired a new drummer (Quail) in June the previous year and a sax and woodwind player, Charlie Collins, transforming the sound into something...funkier. Their set was blistering and 'live ready', which was handy as they were due to play in London on the following Friday, supporting Cabaret Voltaire.

To get some idea of what this sounded like, listen to DVA's recordings for Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records label, 'White Souls in Dark Suits' (which were being finalised for release at the time of my visit; you can hear them here): shut your eyes and listen to the first track, 'Consent'. That was pretty much what I heard that afternoon and reader, it blew my mind. While there was a continuity of sound from the first DVA iteration, in many ways it couldn't have been a more different group. This was almost certainly down to the the (relatively) new additions, particularly multi instrumentalist Collins who had joined late the previous year, a mercurial fellow steeped in difficult jazz, both slightly wild and taciturn, inscrutable behind his bushy beard.

Quail seemed young, a gifted drummer perhaps slightly in awe of his fellow band members. The remaining two chaps were the aforementioned Stephen 'Judd' Turner and the equally enigmatic singer Adi Newton, the centre of the band from its 1977 formation onwards; I was to become well acquainted with most of these people in the days to come.

Vice Versa

Vice Versa were three young men, Stephen Singleton, Martin Fry and singer Mark White, two of whom remained pretty serious throughout the week; Singleton was more excitable and ready to laugh. White was a couple of years younger than the band's stated '21 age bracket', reserved and somewhat of an enigma throughout my stay. Fry was avuncular, accommodating and curious; his bedsit was scrupulously tidy with a collection of the sort of books that you would expect to find in a young English Literature graduate's room, and a row of cassettes that included some rare DVA recordings (these would much later be released on the excellent first volume of the band's archival 'Horology' series). What I didn't realise at the time was that VV had also been through some lineup changes, and Fry was a relative newcomer to the band.

VV interviews all took place in Bowood Road mainly because, like a lot of houses in Sheffield, it had a basement which the band used for rehearsals, a tiny space but, because there were only three of them, adequate for their needs. By this point the band had been functioning in various incarnations since 1977 around the White/Singleton nucleus. Several months after my first visit VV would begin their transformation into ABC after discovering Fry's sonorous tonsils; it may be hindsight but I thought I detected a slight weariness among the band members, but as I hadn't seen them play live, my reference points were the recorded output and our own conversations. It was also 45 years ago, and I must be careful not to create memories. 

VV were, I recall, uneasy interviewees (although to be fair I've never been a great interviewer); they were the first to voice a common concern among some of the (smaller) Sheffield outfits, namely the need to remain separate from and more than slightly mistrustful of that London, although both they and DVA had played there. This clarion call of northern independence was underlined by the 1980 release of two compilation albums, 'Bouquet of Steel', comprising 15 tracks from unsigned Sheffield artists which celebrated the diversity of the local music scene, and 'Hicks from the Sticks', with a wider regional remit and which included three Sheffield bands.

At some point during the week Singleton and White played me some rather formless instrumental recordings which were very different to what I'd heard to date; I can't be sure but I think that these tracks surfaced much later  - with titles - on the also excellent Singleton and White curated 'Electrogenesis 1978 - 1980' VV box set. Later I found out that these recordings were made by the pair before the arrival of Fry; they asked me what I thought of them. I think I was quite diplomatic but I also recall this may have been the first time that the ABC side project was mentioned. Of which more later.

It's at this point that I should mention the spectre of two groups which were active, not only in Sheffield but nationally, while these interviews took place; one, Cabaret Voltaire, have already been referenced, a successful outfit in themselves but also a benevolent force in encouraging new musical projects across the city. The other was The Human League, still with their original lineup. I use the word 'spectre' because both groups weren't really mentioned during the week (despite being well known by the majority of my interviewees), except by a couple of people I met who thought that, because I was 'up from London', I would of course be pointing my microphone in their faces. 

I actually had no intention of talking to either the Cabs or the League, even if they had given me tape time; I was far more interested in the smaller, more independent outfits. But the musical and thematic comparisons between Vice Versa and early Human League were apparent, and the historic interconnection between band members of CV, DVA and The Human League could not be ignored (also, the Cabs were responsible for producing demos for most of the outfits I met during the week). Other contemporaneous interviews with band members have shown nothing but support and admiration for both groups so it's strange that they didn't crop up more in our conversations. Maybe it was because both bands had been happy to connect with (or 'sell out' to) London; as mentioned, a thorny subject.

I'm So Hollow

One band who appeared on both '1980: The First Fifteen Minutes' and 'Bouquet of Steel' were I'm So Hollow, a group who borrowed liberally from the Roxy Music songbook and adopted various post punk stylings but managed to create a sound uniquely their own. Band members were Jane Wilson - vocals and keyboards, Rod Leigh - guitar, vocals, Gary Marsden - bass and Yosef "Joe" Sawicki - drums. I was fortunate to witness the band rehearse in another, this time much bigger basement of the house owned by one of the band's parents, at an address in one of the city's leafier suburbs. As I recall they didn't have a lot to say in interview, letting the music speak for itself, and were a good example of a band doing it only for as long as they wanted to.

So my week wore on; interviews, pubs, more interviews (sometimes comprising a seemingly endless list of cultural reference points), cups of tea in people's houses; more walking. After a few days life seemed to centre around Martin's flat and trips out with Judd, who emerged as quite the character, reckless, funny, fidgety and always armed with a smoke, cheaper than alcohol and as readily available. On one occasion he espied, from the top of a bus on which we were travelling, a skinhead, on foot, wearing flared trousers. Judd goaded him through the open window 'just to see what would happen'. I very much hoped that what would happen was that the skinhead and Judd would not get to meet face to face; my bus companion very much looked like he could handle himself in these situations, but I definitely didn't. In fact it was hard to reconcile 'jack-the-lad' Judd with the rather more sensitive bass playing member of DVA. On a trip to Judd's mum's house she turned out to be an equally warm and funny person who doted on her son (although she and Judd looked about the same age, which was a little confusing).

Prior to Intercourse

The history of the Sheffield post punk scene is inexorably linked with the city's academic establishments, such as the now legendary Now Society ('Nowsoc') gigs at the University, or events put on at Psalter Lane Arts College. I'm taken to one of these places, ostensibly to interview DVA, and where there's a distinct end of term feel; packets of white powder are being freely traded over refectory tables, while in the background I witness students throwing up extensively during a yard of ale competition. I'm also there to meet a chap, who may be a student, called Robert Baker, founder of a dance/happening collective named Prior to Intercourse - or PTI to you - who had links with the 'Clocks' (as nobody referred to them). Baker's dressed in black, pale with a bowl haircut; imagine a slightly more trendy Gareth Keenan from the BBC comedy The Office. He tells me, in a matter of fact way, some of the things he gets up in his spare time which I'm pretty sure are illegal in this country, and certainly unlikely to be found within any University syllabus.

Anyway, there's news! The Fatales, the band scheduled to play at the regular Blitz Club night, held at the legendary George IV pub on Infirmary Road, have pulled out (another account reckoned that the no shows were Dutch band Minny Pops). And the 'attaché case futurists' aka Vice Versa are about to step in. VV had played there just a few days earlier; this and their unpublicised appearance may have explained the sparse audience, but it's my chance to see the chaps in action. They're clearly a tight unit; synths get hammered, the tape machine whirrs and Mark White is a watchable front person. At times the three almost achieve syncopation in their dance moves, but mostly it's just lively twitching, a far cry from the cool allure of the League, even if they both sing about discos and mad scientists. All very exciting.

As my week comes to an end, there's a problem; as mentioned, DVA are playing in London on the Friday, the day I leave Sheffield; I'm also planning to be at the gig. Vice Versa want to go but their Friday night accommodation plans have fallen through and they can't afford hotels. An approach is made to me; could they stay at my place? So let's clarify things here; I'm 18, and it's my parents' house. To complicate things further, my father was recovering from an episode of poor mental health and had just retired, so it was a big - and very cheeky - ask of the folks for the chaps to bed down at our home in west London. But agree they did. 

Now here's the other thing; VV had arranged to travel down separately on the Thursday evening, meaning that I'd be alone in Martin's bedsit overnight; Martin really had no idea if I was legit or not, and I recall that there was a lot of rumination before he gave in and left the keys to his flat with me. Of course I was to be trusted; nothing wilder than a few cans of Skol, a visit to the local chippie and an episode of The Outer Limits on TV occurred. It was only later that I found out from the man himself that Judd and a visiting friend (remember he was in the next room) were planning to play surprise visit and, in his words, 'mess me up a bit', but decided against it and went down the pub instead. Praise the Lord for the gift of common sense!

After arriving back in west London and checking - in vain - for that Zigzag letter, I later met up with Vice Versa at the University of London, and finally got a chance to see Clock DVA in full gig mode, just days after watching them rehearse. And reader, I fell hard. The five piece were nothing short of electrifying. Newton, a not particularly tall chap, towered on stage in floor length cassock and vertical, Henry-Spencer-from-Eraserhead hair. Many of the songs played during the set would find their way into recorded form, not as expected on the wildly improvised 'White Souls in Black Suits' album, released later that year on Industrial Records, but on 'Thirst', the band's second classic album, recorded later in 1980 and released by Fetish Records in January of 1981.

Clock DVA at ULU 9/5/80

I didn't see much of VV during the evening, although I do recall Fry being distinctly and rather vocally non plussed with Cabaret Voltaire, the headliners, for reasons lost in time (a couple of years later I recall hearing some of that same disappointment when Fry laid into the new Donna Summer album in a cassette album review slot for SFX's 'The Talking Magazine' - he was passionate about music and didn't hide his feelings). A note about the sleeping arrangements at my parents' place, which may hint at future dynamics; Stephen and Mark slept on the living room floor; Martin took one of the spare bedrooms. I'll leave that one with you. Oh and in terms of what happened to the band next, my dad, despite being opposed to the idea of putting up a bunch of strangers, would dine out on the story for years that his overnight lodgers were to be better known as ABC.

So it was mid May; I was back in London, employed by day at the local Council and spending evenings after work gradually pulling the cassette interviews into some kind of order on the office typewriter, for an extended article which nobody had asked for. And as I worked, the piece morphed from a survey of the Sheffield scene to an article on Clock DVA alone; forgive me, but they just seemed more interesting. Was this a disservice to the other bands who gave me their time (and flat space)? Yes, but I didn't make anybody any promises; well that's how I justified things. Plus I was 18; just a kid really.

So with the article finished and sent to Zigzag (and a couple of music papers - I hadn't heard about exclusivity, obviously, and for some reason hadn't thought to self publish in my own very short lived 'zine) and with the prospect of pissing off a number of musicians if it ever went to print, what do you think I did next? I arranged to go back to Sheffield. I had the DVA bug bad.

Clock DVA and Vice Versa were playing a 'historic' homecoming gig on 25 June the same year, the venue being Sheffield City Hall. I asked, once again, if I could stay at Martin's. I don't recall how long I stayed for, but I was still in London on my birthday (22 June) as I went to the ICA to see Clock DVA and was back on the 27th to see them in London at the long gone Clarendon Hotel in Hammersmith (where they were supported by VV). 

On arrival in Sheffield, my reception from Vice Versa was rather chilly; word was out that I was only there to see Clock DVA, and it was clear I wasn't welcome. This visit is a bit more blurry in the memory banks. I do recall the 25 June gig mainly because of the audience, full of Sheffield A listers like the Cabs, and also Mark White ripping up his regulation overcoat onstage during the VV set as if to make a 'that was then but this is now' statement.

My other memory from that brief trip is lacking in context but did actually happen; Fry - who let's not forget was still a backing singer in VV - standing in front of a mirror, singing into something (please memory let it be a hairbrush), being the star of his own show. It was a private moment, witnessed only be me and his girlfriend at the time; but in hindsight an important one.

And that was it! I came home, tail slightly between my legs, with no sign of a published article and a pissed off band, who'd extended nothing but kindness to me. 

The Detonators, 1980 (your author seated centre)

But a seed had been sown. I went out and purchased a Korg MS-10 synthesizer, started recording songs at home on a reel to reel bought at a local junk shop, and set about finding my own band, in the shape of The Detonators, an existing group from Hounslow who'd recently parted company with their keyboard player. A couple more personnel changes later and, in December 1980, we played our first proper gig at the iconic London Filmmaker's Co-op, then headed off on a brief career playing the smaller clubs of west and south west London. Oh yeah and we used two strobes for lighting; can't think where I got that idea?

But that's enough about my musical endeavours; let's do a bit of 'what happened next'. In August 1980 Vice Versa went to play a gig in Holland, and recorded a single while there. During the recording sessions, a swap round of musical duties disclosed that Fry was indeed a singer to equal or even exceed Mark White, with arguably better stage presence; the story is that White immediately quit his role as front person and passed the mic (no longer a hairbrush) to Martin. The remaining handful of gigs played as Vice Versa - and not witnessed by me -  saw Fry front and centre, with White now the backing singer.

The rest is (sort of) history; and it rather depends on who's telling the story. At its simplest, Fry, White and Singleton wound up Vice Versa, formed the concept ABC and took a step back to learn their craft and listen to a lot of disco records. The first recorded fruits of this reshaping came in October 1981, with the release of the single 'Tears Are Not Enough', written and performed, as the label states 'by ABC', which is perhaps not entirely the case. In terms of band members, the cover features Fry alone, standing on a staircase, wearing charity shop clothes and looking every bit like an indie lad from Sheffield who'd got da funk. For this release, produced by the late Steve Brown (of 'She Sells Sanctuary' and many others fame) the trio are augmented by bassist Mark Lickley and drummer David Robinson, the former also playing on the band's 1982 debut album 'Lexicon of Love'. There's also clearly a number of session musicians on horns and lead guitars, the assumption being that White played the choppy rhythm guitar that underpins the song. Although Singleton is credited as sax player, his total contribution to the single seems to be a couple of honks a few minutes in. Without Fry's fabulous vocals, let's be honest, the single sounds like generic, rather pedestrian wine bar funk and is, in my opinion, the weakest song on their first album 'Lexicon on Love', despite it being souped up by Anne Dudley for the LP; unpopular opinion, maybe, but I think you'll find I'm right.

ABC - Mark 1

While there's no denying the excellence of 'Lexicon of Love' it's worth pausing to consider that the album was released in June 1982, just two years after I'd seen them in action as Vice Versa. Call me cynical, but aside from Fry's voice and White's recently learned rhythm guitar (and maybe some keyboards) it was hard to believe that the three chaps had created this pop classic; most of the music on the album seems to be performed by session musicians; in particular Singleton's contribution seems to be minimal. I also have a suspicion that at least some of the songwriting (not the lyrics, they are classic Fry) can be attributed to producer Trevor Horn. The album credit, again 'written and performed by ABC', strains credulity even further.

In interview Horn seems to back this up, concluding in a rather codified way that White was “a wonderful guitar player who also wrote music and worked out most of the arrangements on the album”, but that Singleton, showed “a deep understanding of the context of the music on the album, and played very sparingly”. Martin Fry has since gone on record with his version of the story; that it was his arrival which triggered the dissolving of VV and the creation of his ABC baby. In another interview Mark White stated that "Martin did NOT come along and change everything as I think he would be the first to say, it was a process of metamorphosis already in progression." 

We'll never know. But what is known is that Singleton didn't last past the second album, 'Beauty Stab'. Some years later a VH1 TV special, attempting to reunite ABC for a one off event, includes an interview with Stephen citing big egos as the reason that he left the group; in the same programme Fry suggests, slightly cagily, that Singleton was "ousted" (the only members that turn up for the eventual reunion are Fry and drummer David Sydenham; Singleton agreed in principle but then failed to show at the appointed hour). My own take is that Stephen was wasn't a great musician (check out any 'live' footage of ABC online, not that there is much, and Singleton often appears onstage with a sax draped round his neck, more as decoration than an instrument). However, I suspect that as co-creator of Neutron Records along with Mark White (who were the ABC rights holding company at this point), he was bought out, probably for a large amount of money. Mark White would also leave ABC some years later in 1991, and is now a fully qualified Reiki healing master with a practice in north London. From 1991 onwards, ABC has been Fry's business.

Adi Newton, Clock DVA, Berlin, 2014

Clock DVA kept gigging in their first incarnation until 1981 following Stephen Turner's sudden death in September 1981 due to an accidental drug overdose; he was 26. Following their disbanding Quail, Collins and Widger formed a band called The Box, eventually fronted by Peter Hope, and were active until 1985. Newton still continues to record and play under the Clock DVA name today, song wise still very much adhering to DVA's obsessional counterculture/magick/technology/conspiracy theory template.

The Human League's original incarnation came to an end late in 1980. I won't recite their subsequent history, but they, along with Heaven 17 (briefly) were the unwritten success story of this piece.

I'm So Hollow never did venture to gig in London, although they recorded a John Peel session there in August 1980, a couple of months after I saw them rehearse. They disbanded a year later, just before the release of their one and only album, the very fine if scratchily recorded 'Emotion/Sound/Emotion', and a fab single 'Dreams to Fill the Vacuum', which still deservedly crops up on compilation albums. ISH's keyboard player/vocalist Jane Wilson, who I recall came across in interview as disinterested but also rather shy, subsequently moved into animal welfare and, as Jane Antcliff-Wilson, wrote a pro vegan animal activism book. You can hear a demo they recorded at Western Works in 1979 here. Rod Leigh went on to join Workforce, a wonky funk band very much in the Fon/Chakk vein, although their only single, 1985's 'Skin Scraped Back' was released on the Cabs' Doublevision label to little acclaim.

And there you have it. My article never did find its way into print, so this account will have to serve as a record of my brief time in the Steel City. Some of the conclusions I've reached in the article may be entirely my own take on events, but it was my experience; I hope no one is offended. I feel very privileged to have met the cast of musicians and creatives about whom I've written, albeit relatively briefly, and the fact that I've been able to recall many of these events over 45 years later is testament to the importance that this very brief time had on my life. It is, indeed, a funny old world.

Tinsman Road (USA 2025: Dir Robbie Banfitch)

While Banfitch is no stranger to the 'found footage' approach to movie making, as evidenced by his 2022 film The Outwaters, here he offers something rather different and elegiac using the same format.

It's October. Filmmaker/photographer Robbie Lyle (Banfitch) has returned home from Los Angeles to the New Jersey house in which he grew up, now only occupied by his mother, Leslie (Leslie Ann Banfitch, the director's own mother). She's pleased to see him, but an overarching grief lies across the home; Robbie's sister Noelle disappeared in the woods some time previously, and despite extensive searching, remains lost.

It's clear that for Robbie, there are hidden emotions, complicated by the fact that his mother failed to tell him of the disappearance for some time after it happened. Leslie attempts to keep herself busy baking and keeping the home running on the off chance that Noelle will return; her missing daughter's bedroom remains exactly as it was when she left. 

But Robbie's mother also holds supernatural beliefs, consulting a local medium and regularly talking about spirits and fairies; Noelle's music box, which mysteriously plays at night, and flickering room lights suggest to Leslie an attempt at contact. His instinct is to film his mother, to document her grief and her increasingly erratic behaviour. 

Robbie's presence at home stirs memories of Noelle in the hand coloured cassette tapes and her own recorded music left behind in her room. Perhaps frustrated by the lack of curiosity shown by the police, and the friendship of two local girls, Heather and Nancy (Heather Middleton and Nancy Bujnowski) whose presence triggers memories of his missing sister, Robbie sets out into the woods to try and find Noelle, whether alive or dead.

There's an intimacy to Tinsman Road, unexpected in a film which plays with the audience a little; the movie's introduction, dedicated to the Lyle family, suggests we're about to see a documentary, which is not the case. Reality and unreality are tied together through montages of Banfitch family home movies, featuring the director as a young boy with Leslie as a younger woman, while at the same time the director creates a clever construction of a fictional family setup. And it's a slow construction, Banfitch breaking one of the first 'rules' of found footage (keep it at 75 minutes or less) by his film running nearly two hours, and daring at times to be prosaic, even boring.

Frustratingly Robbie is rarely glimpsed in front of the camera, but his own grief permeates the footage and his desire for the truth - albeit fictional - is palpable. Tinsman Road won't be for everyone - it's lack of action and pace, right up until the film's jolting final few minutes, can test the patience. But it's beautifully done and often surprisingly affecting bearing in mind how little we know about the characters on screen. Recommended.

Tinsman Road is on UK, Ireland, US, Australia and New Zealand digital platforms from 3 August 2026

NEW WAVE OF THE BRITISH FANTASTIC FILM 2026 #3: Reviews of The Bloodline of Bathory (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.

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.