After years of slapdash sequels and waning fandom, the Camp Miasma slasher franchise is handed over to an enthusiastic young director for resurrection. But when she visits the original movie’s star, a now-reclusive actress shrouded in mystery, the two women fall into a blood-soaked world of desire, fear, and delirium.
Here is another one to place on your radar, an upcoming possession thriller called Izzi. Deadline is reporting that sales have launched at EFM for the flick that is set to star Isabelle Fuhrman, from the Orphan franchise, and Michael Rooker (Guardians Of The Galaxy). Fuhrman is to star in a dual role in the film, whose synopsis reads: “After years of separation, Jenny returns home to discover that her twin sister Izzi has been possessed by a malevolent force and has disappeared into the surrounding woods. As a long-buried generational curse resurfaces, Jenny joins forces with her father John and local sheriff Blackstone (Rooker) to venture into the cursed forest in a desperate attempt to save her sister.” First-time directors Jamie and…
Also in theaters: ‘Wuthering Heights,’ ‘Cold Storage,’ ‘The Mortuary Assistant.’ Plus, on VOD: ‘Broken Bird’ and ‘Sweetness.’
Featuring neither flowers nor the desert state of America, Rose of Nevada is a deeply authentic, and thoroughly strange time-travel fishing movie that is mainly drama, but, as the red typesetting suggests, with elements of dread and horror. The credits in this design are nearly illegible, but given the opaque and unsettling nature of the film, this is perfectly appropriate. It’s designed by musician, sound designer, and frequent collaborator of director Mark Jenkin, Dion Star, from a an on set photograph by Steve Tanner, and done in the classic British Quad style. On a cream-ochre background, Callum Turner and George MacKay sit on the edge of a boat in their work gear, and stare perplexed out of frame. As it was shot on 16mm film,…
There are oh so many, singular, memorable images in Luke Gleeson’s Wədzįh Nəne’ (aka Caribou Country). The film is so beautiful, and meditative in its execution, that it is almost possible to forget that it is a call to action against the Canadian government handing out oil and gas extraction licenses like candy. If an activist-documentary could be described as Malick-ian, then this is that doc. Gleeson narrates the film along with his grandfather, from their property on the Tsay Keh Dene First Nation. The 90-year-old man watches vintage black & white Muhammad Ali boxing matches on his tiny television, as he considers how much things have changed in his lifetime, even up in the North. The world-famous prizefighter floats like a butterfly in the…
Mexico has a rich tradition of genre films, both serious and outrageous, and that shouldn’t be a surprise because the country has an incredible selection of mythologies and histories to pull inspiration from. Back in 2020, the Mexican director Carlos Matienzo Serment made a short film called Tekenchu, featuring the mythical half-bird-half-man creature called the “Nahual”, which can be found in stories from all over Mexico. That short won awards at several festivals, so Matienzo Serment decided to re-tell his story in extended form, as a full-length feature. He just finished it, it’s called Tekenchu: The Rite of the Nahuales and it had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam last week. And it is very much worth checking out. In the film,…
For filmmakers stuck in a creative lull or stall, there’s nothing better than taking a dip into the public domain, pulling out a work of fiction long past its copyright expiration, and adapting, revising, or reinterpreting it accordingly to match contemporary tastes and their own preoccupations. That’s not to say — or necessarily suggest — that writer-director Emerald Fennell, fresh off a Best Screenplay Academy Award for Promising Young Woman and its divisive, controversy-courting follow-up, Saltburn, ran out of creative juice or fell into a precarious, idea-free slump, and found herself leafing through one of her bookcases for inspiration, eventually settling on one of her favorite novels as a teen, Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë’s 1847 Gothic novel, but it’s certainly well within the realm of…
Juliette Lewis stars, supported by Mamoudou Athie, Samantha Mathis, Robin Tunney, Alisa Torres, Clifton Collins Jr., Keir Gilchrist, with Udo Kier and Betty Buckley. Narrated by Melanie Griffith. Amanda Kramer directed.
Director Joanne Mitchell’s psychological character study stars Rebecca Calder, Jay Taylor, and Sacharissa Claxton. It feels like a provocation.
