The Amusement Park is a remarkable work and profound reminder of Romero’s facility with pointed critique. Long recognized as one of the absolute masters of horror, the subsumption of George A. Romero’s zombie iconography into the popular lexicon has, perhaps inevitably, gradually sanded off…
Awake is more likely to put viewers to sleep than scratch any genre film itch. In Awake, Netflix’s latest high-concept thriller, Gina Rodriguez stars as Jill, an ex-military widow and recovering addict whose already precarious grasp on the world is upended by an inexplicable global…
If you love your action flicks stuffed full of nonsense exposition and explanation, Infinite is the film for you. You know you’re in trouble when a high-concept sci-fi or fantasy action flick opens with a voiceover that explains the premise and defines a bunch…
In a stronger film, Tragic Jungle‘s metaphor and opacity would have a more elaborate, complex mythos to match. Yulene Olaizola’s elemental fifth feature, Tragic Jungle, is a willfully beguiling work. Set in the 1920s, in the inhospitable heart of a jungle bordering a river between…
Caveat teases potential and boasts an impressive setup, but ultimately loses its thread after this initial stretch. One of the challenges of the modern horror film is creating a plausible enough reason for placing characters in potentially outlandish scenarios. When done successfully, it’s the…
Kala azar is an obvious, stultifying, and facile lecture masquerading as art cinema. Kala-azar is the Indian name for Black Fever, a potentially fatal parasitic disease, and according to the official synopsis for the new Greco-Dutch co-production Kala azar, the feature debut of writer-director Janis…
Ghost Lab works as a bit of weirdo fun for a while, but the film’s playful tone is obliterated halfway through and never recovers. At first glance, and indeed for about half of the film’s runtime, Ghost Lab appears to be a rather light…
Plan B has its heart and messaging in the right place, but frequently undercuts its intent with one-step-forward-two-steps-back developments. At first glance, director Natalie Morales’s Plan B appears to follow the beaten track trod by so many coming-of-age films before it, as two hormone-addled best…
Skull: The Mask indulges in unnecessary table-setting, but once it gets to the good stuff, it’s a throwback, labor-of-love gore fest. There’s a charmingly roughshod, handmade quality to the low budget Skull: The Mask that goes a long way toward papering over its myriad flaws.…
Still Processing is a work of profound emotional catharsis that suggests even greater formal heights on Romvari’s horizon. Occupying a well-deserved place on TIFF’s Short Cuts Programme 01 roster is Still Processing, one of three shorts Canadian director Sophy Romvari has released this year, each…
