Lost of the Flies [pullquote cite="" type="left, right"][amazon text=Amazon&template=carousel&chan=that film guy&asin=B00DHJT6WO][/pullquote] Based on a best-selling novel by James Dashner, The Maze Runner is the latest in the never-ending stream of young adult film adaptations. Fortunately as the genre evolves films like The Hunger Games and Twilight provide the … [Read more...]
Review: Gone Girl (2014)
You don't know what you've got till it's... [pullquote cite="" type="left, right"][amazon text=Amazon&template=carousel&chan=that film guy&asin=B00JLC4W0C][/pullquote] Following his mixed attempts to adapt the best-selling novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, David Fincher casts his directorial eye to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. Adapted to screen by the author … [Read more...]
Review: The Harvest (2013)
Childhood should be spent without responsibilities or restraints, to know what it is like to have friends and to laugh and play. Stephen Lancellotti has written The Harvest, a tale of stolen childhood and desperation set in suburban America. A family struggling to cope with their terminally ill son, are seen to be doing the best they can, with the resources they have whilst … [Read more...]
Review: Stage Fright (2014)
Stage Fright has to be a first of its type to be shown at Fright Fest. A festival that is known for its obscene and shocking film list, does not often mix with the likes of this. A cross between Glee, High School Musical and Halloween, Stage Fright is a whole sub-genre onto its own, Musical Horror I like to call it. The director, writer and producer Jerome Sable has reached out … [Read more...]
Review: Stand-Up Guys (2012)
Scarface has not returned for Fisher Stevens' Stand Up Guys. Al Pacino may be the star, but this time he's in no physical state to churn out the line ˜say hello to my little friend' before firing left, right and centre. … [Read more...]
Review: Detention (2011)
School's Out I love films. I think that's obvious from the fact that I write for a film website, but really, I do. Films are what keeps me going, what gets me up, what I'm passionate about. As with any passion, there needs to be something to set it off. No flame without a spark. I may go on about the genius of Before Sunrise or the tragic beauty of A Bittersweet Life, these … [Read more...]
Review: The Equalizer (2014)
Retraining day The continued and increasing popularity of the ˜geriaction' subgenre arguably started when Liam Neeson tore up the Parisian women-trafficking underworld to find his daughter. He has a lot to answer for. The latest offering in this limping subgenre is The Equaliser, directed by Antonie Fuqua (who since Training Day, has produced a ˜mixed bag' to put it politely). … [Read more...]
Review: The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013, Danish)
Scandinavia is the home of gritty crime drama these days. Crime writers seem compelled to play their parts in exposing the seedy underbellies of the apparently socially just Scandinavian countries, showing that it's not all IKEA, saunas and socialism, but murder, squalor and misery too. … [Read more...]
Review: The Den (2013)
You've got mail Never judge a book by its cover¦or a film. The Den, one of Fright Fest's last showings of the evening, plays to an empty cinema but gut instinct led me to fill one seat; an instinct I would come to appreciate. … [Read more...]
Review: As Above, So Below (2014)
Lara Croft and the Philosopher's Stone [pullquote cite="" type="left, right"][amazon text=Amazon&template=carousel&chan=that film guy&asin=B00LSW70MU][/pullquote] There is an old saying with films that it's better to start weak and finish strong than start strong and finish weak. John Erick Dowdle, the director of the latest found footage horror As Above, So Below … [Read more...]