Author: Joel Fisher

At 91 years old, Sonia Warshawski is one of the last survivors of the Holocaust. Living in Kansas with her family, she still is as active as ever and uses her stories of her time at Auschwitz to inspire others to do better in their own lives. Sonia also still runs a tailor’s shop and it has been open for decades and it all seems to be due to her incredible personality and determination to carry on.

Big Sonia is a documentary about Sonia Warshawski’s co-directed by Sonia’s granddaughter, Leah who also interviews her for the film. It follows her as she recalls her life during the Holocaust and looks at her life in the present day as it shows what she does now. There are also interviews with the rest of her family, including her daughter who has vivid memories of childhood which although were happy, were overshadowed by the traumatic experiences that her parents endured.

However, Sonia and her daughter couldn’t be closer and their experiences together make Sonia’s story fleshed out into a rich life with an inspirational story showing light after such tragedy.

Sonia’s life takes her all over and her stories of the worst moments of her life are shown to connect with all kinds of people. People from students to prison inmates are all shown to have rehabilitated because of the workshops in which she participates.

The audience does also get first hand stories themselves though, told by Sonia and simply but beautifully animated, depicting her experiences as almost a dreamlike state. Stories which many audiences may find horrific, but may also bring hope due to Sonia’s world view.

There are times when it seems that the documentary may move away from Sonia in order to deal with other issues. Issues such as the trauma experienced by students or the way prisoners often reoffend. However, they’re only there to enhance and inform the audience about Sonia’s good work.

Putting it all into the space of roughly an hour doesn’t seem to do Sonia’s story justice because as much as the audience may become enthralled with her as a person, they may also want to help her when times get desperate for herself. However, Big Sonia seems to have never let anything get her down. So, the audience may feel that no matter how old you are and whatever you’ve been through, there’s always something you can do to make things better.

Kim (Francesca Xuereb) and Izzy (Viktoria Vinyarska) are best friends and they think they’ve found the perfect apartment to move in to together. Kim is studying in school while Izzy has set her sights on becoming an actress so despite their friendship, they live very different lives.

Then as Kim is hanging up a mirror on her bedroom wall, she starts to have trouble and where she put in the nail, a large hole has formed. Thinking nothing of it, the women carry on with their lives and just put it down to being an old building. However, soon Izzy starts exhibiting some strange behaviour and Kim is concerned that she may do something drastic.

Room 203 is a supernatural horror film directed by Ben Jagger from a script co written by John Poliquin and based on the novel by Nanami Kamon. Unusually for a western film that’s described as a J horror adaptation, Room 203 is not a remake.

Instead, it’s an original adaptation which firmly sets the scene in a rather typical horror film setting which audiences may expect. Fans of Nanami’s original novel may be rather delighted by the adaptation, but it’s hard to tell as everything that made it Japanese has been stripped out.

Nevertheless, Room 203’s heart is with its leading pair and that’s where its strength lies. Besides a bit of stilted fun towards the beginning, Xuereb and Vinyarska give good performances with the latter being able to go from ordinary young American woman to scary possessed maniac in the blink of an eye.

Also, the depiction of suicide is dealt with sensitively considering the subject matter and it doesn’t overwhelm the story or feel jarring when the more supernatural themes take over. It’s also refreshing to see a protagonist who sees something wrong and goes down a more grounded path rather than just assuming something more extraordinary.

However, once the final act kicks in then Room 203 becomes a little generic and although the thrills may excite some horror fans, other more astute viewers may have seen the reveal coming from a mile away. Saying that though, Room 203 manages to find its feet again and is able to tell a tale of female friendship amongst all the spooky encounters.

Sarah (Sasha Anne), Alex (Evan Adams) and Kelsey (Madison Ekstrand) couldn’t be closer and they love their lives. However, one day they’re all involved in a car crash and when Sarah and Alex regain consciousness, they notice that Kelsey has disappeared.

A year later and the disappearance of her best friend has gotten to Sarah and she’s become obsessed with folklore and the stories of the Jersey Devil which she believes may explain Kelsey’s disappearance. So, convincing Alex to come with her, they hire Hank (Anthony Jensen) to help them track down the Jersey Devil and to find out what happened to Kelsey. However, there’s more than just fictitious monsters in the woods and soon the pair find themselves in danger.

Reed’s Point is a horror movie with a premise that people may have seen many times before. They may have also seen movies that have tried to emulate the ‘so bad, it’s good’ feeling such as Sharknado and The Velocipastor.

However, in the case of Reed’s Point it’s hard to tell whether it’s trying to be that kind of movie or not because it takes itself so seriously. Unfortunately, it fails to be good and so bad it’s good simultaneously and despite some bizarrely misjudged moments, there’s just nothing all that interesting here.

It would be all well and good if the bland plot were coupled with some crazy, over the top acting or scenes which escalate the humour, but it just feels like this is the best they can do. Although it does have its moments which may raise a smile like an incredibly easily avoided accident and the predictable, if not evasive, plot. There’s also the chance of a drinking game (take a shot every time somebody gets knocked unconscious).

Despite its relatively short running time of barely seventy-five minutes, it’s impressive how much Reed’s Point can fit in. Although it’s not really sure what kind of horror it wants to be. It could be a monster movie, it could be a crazy killer cult horror or it could be a murderer in the woods film, but it attempts to be all three.

So, unless you want to watch something that may very well know how bad you like your horror then go ahead. If not, then anything else will be better.

Keira Woods (Elisha Cuthbert) and her family have moved to a new place after she has secured a lucrative job in social media management. Her children react to things very different with her son, Steven (Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady) just going along with it, but her daughter, Ellie (Abby Fitz) is a typical teenager and seems to disagree with anything her mother says.

Then one night Ellie is alone in the house and has to go down to the cellar, but she’s scared and calls her mum who talks her through it, assuring her that everything is going to be alright. However, soon Keira realises that her daughter is going down further into the house than she thought was possible and when she gets home, Ellie has completely disappeared.

The Cellar is a supernatural horror exclusive to Shudder, written and directed by Brendan Muldowney. A horror movie with a familiar premise that audiences may recognise from some other supernatural family franchise, it seems that despite its escalating events of the last half hour, it really isn’t all that original.

It also doesn’t help that the first hour moves along at a glacial speed, making it feel like Ellie’s disappearance and the investigation doesn’t really matter. It seems that despite Keira’s half-hearted investigation doesn’t even affect the rest of the family in any tangible way, so it may be hard for the audience to care.

It also doesn’t help with the characterisation that the scenes at Keira’s workplace also feel rather uninspired. With little research into what Keira’s job may actually entail, there are holes that can be easily picked into what she does by the casual social media user.

Then when the solution to Ellie’s disappearance is solved, it changes the movie entirely. Although this doesn’t necessarily mean that the elevated horror is all that better as the conclusion becomes so over the top that it makes the events leading up to it feel completely unearned.

It could be said that the end of The Cellar doesn’t resemble the beginning of the movie in the slightest and normally that may have been a good thing. However, it just seems that Muldowney ran out of story and started to throw as many cliches at the screen as he could.

In the early Nineties, Grunge was the new genre that caught the attention of teenagers everywhere. However, metal still had its place and emerging from out of nowhere came a band that redefined the genre – Life of Agony.

Their rise to fame was meteoric and their debut album ‘River Runs Red’ was a critical and commercial success. Although among the band was a past steeped in personal trauma, abuse and confused feelings about their place in the world. Also, lead singer Mina Caputo was on the verge of coming out as transgender.

The Sound of Scars is a documentary about alt rock band, Life of Agony, and charts everything from their early childhood, experiences with abuse and depression and finally finding a way out into the light. Critically acclaimed and well respected, Life of Agony broke the mould with their lyrics about dealing with mental health issues and little did she know it, but Mina’s own personal struggles would give the band a new lease of life.

Unapologetically raw and emotional like their lyrics, The Sound of Scars goes through each band member’s lives. Not only by talking about the hard times that they went through, but also showing that their music and art would lead them out of that darkness and give fans something they never even knew they needed.

Directed by Leigh Brooks, his documentary gets everything out of the band that they needed to say. This makes the documentary feel as cathartic for them as their songs do for their fans.

However, being known for being a band that has a lively audience brings tragedy, and thankfully this is dealt with as carefully as their own personal experiences. Speaking about the time where a teenager tragically died during one of their shows, the band also open up in a frank and honest way about what happened and how it still stays with them.

If you’re a big fan of Life of Agony, The Sound of Scars is a story well told of a band whose music may mean more to fans than they’ll ever truly understand. Although if you’ve never heard of them then their story will pull you in and you may find yourself wanting to know more.