A traumatized woman looks for answers in the tense horror-thriller Knocking. Molly (Cecilia Miloccco) has spent the past year dealing with trauma. She's being discharged from the hospital's psychiatric ward and is trying to start her life again, but the loss of her partner Judith (Charlotta Åkerblom) puts a dark cloud over everything she does.... Continue Reading →
TIFF 2021: You Are Not My Mother
Image courtesy of TIFF You Are Not My Mother is a fantastic creepy yarn for Halloween frights. It’s days before Halloween and the Irish celebration Samhain in a Dublin neighbourhood. As the community prepares for the holiday, Charlotte or Char’s (Hazel Doupe) house is quiet. Char’s mom Angela (Carolyn Bracken), is lethargic and listless, sleeping... Continue Reading →
Crime Scene: The Vanishing at The Cecil Hotel and Losing Elisa Lam
The Elisa Lam case was mysterious, perplexing, and one that received a lot of attention. I'm sure I saw the news reports of her disappearance in 2013, but she resurfaced through paranormal Youtube videos I'm prone to watching late at night. Many accounts speculated that the young woman popping in and out of an elevator... Continue Reading →
The Rapture of Saint Maud
What is our purpose in life? Is it to care for others? Do good work to help humanity? And what if an already fragile psyche creates its own support system amidst this existential uncertainty? Writer and director Rose Glass presents this premise in her first feature, Saint Maud. Maud (Morfydd Clark) is a private care... Continue Reading →
Final Girls Berlin 2021: Fellwechselzeit (Time of Moulting)
I don't think the word bleak covers the amount of quiet anguish in Sabrina Mertens' riveting debut film Fellwechselzeit (Time of Moulting). Stephanie (Zelda Espenschied and Miriam Schiweck as the teenage Stephanie) lives with her parents in 1970s Germany. As a girl, she is close to her mother (Freya Kreutzkam), who is depressed and cares... Continue Reading →
The Haunting Legacy of Sator
Jordan Graham took the history of mental illness in his family and created an unsettling journey in his latest film Sator. Siblings Adam, Peter and Debra (Gabriel Nicholson, Michael Daniel, and Aurora Lowe) are part of a haunting family legacy. Their grandmother Nani (June Peterson), has lived for many years with an entity called Sator,... Continue Reading →
The Planters Take Root with Heart
It’s nice to see more female-led productions defying the odds these days. You'll find this with Alexandra Kotcheff and Hannah Leder's indie charmer The Planters, which captures loneliness and friendship in this time of isolation. Martha Plant (Kotcheff) lives by herself in her childhood home. Her parents died a year ago, and she’s a repressed,... Continue Reading →
Review: Seeds
Urges and family ties create an unnerving experience in Owen Long’s Seeds. Marcus (Trevor Long) is a man with an affliction, and when an untimely accident occurs with his lover, he retreats to his family home by the sea to lay low while his drug dealer takes care of things. His brother Michael (Chris McGarry)... Continue Reading →
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