Brock Bodell’s Hellcat is a claustrophobic horror tale that takes place in a moving RV for most of its running time. Lena wakes up in a trailer with an infection that is visibly spreading while being towed by a truck. The driver communicates via an intercom and claims to be taking her to see a […]
Every Heavy Thing – Fantasia 2025
If it wasn’t for the modern setting and the familiar actors, you could possibly be convinced that certain scenes in Mickey Reece’s Every Heavy Thing were from a super-low budget, never released serial killer film De Palma made right around the same time as Blow Out. In it, a newspaper ad salesman witnesses a murder […]
The Virgin of the Quarry Lake – Fantasia 2025
Move over When Evil Lurks, there’s a new Argentinian horror movie in town. Set in the time of Internet cafés, Laura Casabé‘s THE VIRGIN OF THE QUARRY LAKE, based on two short stories by a Mariana Enríquez, looks at teenage desire and obsession and turns it into female rage. It starts out with a bang, […]
Life After
After winning the Directing Award in U.S. Documentary section of Sundance 2022 with his self-portrait I Didn’t See You There, Reid Davenport was back at the festival this year with the eye-opening LIFE AFTER, which explores the right to die laws for people with disabilities in Canada and U.S. Davenport starts the film with a […]
Sweetness – Fantasia 2025
Awkward high schooler Rylee has a huge crush on rocker Payton, who is struggling with addiction, in Emma Higgins’ SWEETNESS. After meeting him by chance on her way home from one of his concerts, she decides that she can make him go cold turkey. It is the second film this year that brings Rob Reiner’s […]
Death Does Not Exist – Fantasia 2025
Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s dreamlike hand-drawn animated film DEATH DOES NOT EXIST makes fascinating use of colors and is visually captivating. It starts with a brutal, bloody armed attack scene that startles without having any red in it. We later get a different version of the same scene, this time with red blood, when the main character […]
Hold the Fort – Fantasia 2025
It’s hard to find a great, affordable home to buy these days. Would it be OK if you found one, but all kinds of monsters came out of a portal once a year? William Bagley’s horror comedy Hold the Fort answers that question. The action, set to a high-energy synth score straight from the 80s, […]
Love Letters – Cannes 2025
Alice Douard’s wonderful Cannes 2025 drama Love Letters captures the ups and downs of an expecting lesbian couple during the months leading up to the birth of their daughter. Douard was inspired by her own experiences and depicts the bureaucracy Céline and Nadia have to endure and their familial interactions with a lot of heart […]
A Second Life – Tribeca 2025
Laurent Slama’s A SECOND LIFE starring Titane’s Agathe Rousselle and Alex Lawther is my favorite watch of Tribeca 2025. The brief encounter film with exquisite wide-angle shots of crowded Paris streets during the 2024 Olympics portrays the connection between two troubled souls who are trying to bounce back from the emotional lows they experienced. Rousselle […]
Birthright – Tribeca 2025
What if you were down on your luck, expecting a child soon, and had to ask for help from your rich parents, who might be the two worst people on earth? Zoe Pepper’s BIRTHRIGHT answers that question in a dark comedic thriller that has Quentin Dupieux and Yorgos Lanthimos influences. (The leather jacket with fringes […]