Category: REVIEWS

After a man is brutally murdered, an unemployed neighbour becomes obsessed with a horrific conspiracy he believes connects to both the case and the strange denizens of his neighbourhood. 

When approaching Murder Death Koreatown, the audience must traverse one of two scenarios. Either this is a faux documentary/ found-footage, fictional piece spun out from a real-life tragedy, or it’s a complete fiction conceived and executed by a low-budget filmmaker (and local community) on his smartphone or digital camera. If it’s the latter, then there’s potentially a heart-warming, Be Kind Rewind-style story behind its creation.

If it’s the former, it puts MDK in the ethically muddy waters that The Amityville Horror franchise has wallowed in for forty-one years. Either way, this is a poorly realised movie that inadequately juggles the format.
The amateur documentarian who we spend the entire runtime with is oddly mannered and hard to follow.

One imagines his leaps of logic, inability to read certain social cues and wild assumptions are a symptom of a poor screenplay. This is a spasmodically paced and confoundingly written horror that clearly lacked the discipline of fine-tuning the concept.

You can discount the fact that this is a low (almost no) budget indie horror. You can discount the fact it offers up a cast of unknowns and what is likely non-actors. Dialling MDK right back, there’s a faint whiff of The Blair Witch Project but without the sturdy narrative, measured pacing or competently handled conclusion. This isn’t a case of a movie having a solid narrative buried beneath the detritus.

There is no amount of editing that could excise the fact that at its core, Murder Death Koreatown is an ineptly written, morally dubious and racially questionable movie. The central focus is on a man who is channelling Neil Breen levels of performance. With that in mind, I fully understand how MDK will appeal to a very specific audience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IqcKo6vhok

In the spirit of trying to find a positive element to Murder Death Koreatown, the score and sound design are easily the most compelling element. These are otherworldly and distinctive in that they are competently produced, enveloping this woeful narrative with substantial and effective soundscapes.

In the 21^st Century, anyone with access to a smartphone or store-bought digital camera can make a film. Many of us are fortunate enough to have the means to write, record, edit, distribute and market our creative endeavours from a device that fits in our pocket. My main takeaway from Murder Death Koreatown is that just because you ‘can’ make a movie, it doesn’t necessarily mean you ‘should’.

Murder Death Koreatown is now available to rent/buy on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0867N5M16

Hunter (Haley Bennett) and Richie (Austin Stowell) are newlyweds. Hunter has married into a rich family and although she can’t quite put her finger on it, Richie’s parents, Katherine (Elizabeth Marvel) and Michael (David Rasche) have a certain way of using microaggressions to make her feel unwelcome and that their son could have done better.

On top of that Richie doesn’t seem to notice or maybe doesn’t even care about how they treat her and even he has ways to make Hunter feel unappreciated. Overall, her new family have many subtle ways to make Hunter feel worthless when all she wants to do is to make them happy. Then one day Hunter has a sudden urge to swallow a marble, just to see what happens and this makes her feel powerful, so she decides to keep going.

Swallow is a psychological horror and solo directorial debut of writer/director Carlo Mirabella-Davis and despite its initial premise which some audiences may think is put there for shock value, Mirabella-Davis’ film has a lot more to say.

As Hunter feels a release at finally being able to do something on her own terms and to have the consequences of her actions be something she can control – she becomes pregnant. However, her addiction is slowly taking hold and although she has to think about what may happen for her future and her baby, the pressure from her in-laws and her husband is greater than ever.

Bennett’s portrayal of a housewife who’s feeling the stranglehold of family life is quietly nuanced and enthralling to watch as the audience can sense the bubbling rage under her demure persona as she desperately tries to make other people happy.

The need for Hunter to break out and find herself when her life is quite literally choking her is captivating, heart-breaking and at times difficult to watch as the audience wills Hunter to escape her impossible situation. Yet Bennett still manages to keep the composure of somebody who has always felt a little damaged and whose life is at breaking point even if she doesn’t realise it herself.

Swallow talks about so many different things that it’s hard to unpack here, but there are themes of mental health, pregnancy and the pressures of what are put upon women by society to keep calm and carry on when all they want to do is scream.

Swallow is indeed a terrifying horror movie, but one that says more about everyday life reminding the audience that the scariest things can be in our own minds.

Determined to find her missing daughter, a desperate woman named Mari Gilbert (Amy Ryan) launches a personal investigation that leads police to the unsolved cases of murdered sex workers.

Based on the novel Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker, this feature film adaptation directed by Liz Garbus is an admirable effort and can be hard-hitting when it comes to its subject matter and some of its intense sequences, even if the storytelling was quite uneven.

Throughout the course of the film, we transition from multiple different points of time and we do so incredibly rapidly. There aren’t a lot of scenes in which we, as an audience, can sit back and contemplate what we just watched. It’s definitely the biggest problem with Lost Girls and makes for unintentionally jarring moments.

Within the first thirty minutes of the film, Mari is seen frequently interrogating several people that could possibly know information regarding the whereabouts of her missing daughter. Once she confronts the person, they always tell her to talk to this other person that she may have known. Then, she goes on over to the next person to interrogate them about information, and it got extremely stale fast.

Thankfully, this movie is accompanied by stellar cinematography throughout by director of photography Igor Martinovic. All of the frames on display are truly astounding. There are tons of wide shots here that are greatly impressive and will most certainly stick with you long after the credits roll.

Another element that saves this movie from being a failure is namely the performances from everybody, but especially Amy Ryan. I haven’t seen her in a ton of her work in the past, but the role of hers that I am the most familiar with is that of Holly Flax on the hit mockumentary American television comedy series The Office.

On that show, she portrays a highly goofy, fun-loving and hilarious character that quickly bonds with regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Michael Scott. In Lost Girls, she plays the exact opposite, and it works with chilling intensity. Mari has no time to waste. She will do whatever it takes to find out what happened to her daughter. There’s never a moment where she loses track of her mission. I truly did not expect her to give the emotionally raw and oftentimes devastating performance that she ended up giving.

But aside from her, a large portion of the other actors did fantastic things in their roles too. Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit, The King) portrays one of Mari’s daughters, Sherre. Her character goes to places that were definitely unexpected but welcomed. The story that plays out with her was incredibly interesting.

In case you do not know the real-life story behind this movie, I won’t go into too much detail regarding another one of Mari’s daughters, Sarra, but I have to mention how great Oona Laurence (Big Time Adolescence, Southpaw) was in the role. Watching her arc unfold was deeply intriguing.

All of these actors come together as one and deliver remarkable performances that further boost the heartwrenching and disturbing story on display. Although a lot of it is definitely uneven and extremely rushed, whenever the filmmakers’ pause on certain plot points and choose to explore them further, they hit hard. This all leads to a third act that was surprisingly emotional yet immensely rewarding and is an exceptional tale of how far one will go to uncover the answers behind where their loved ones are.

Lost Girls‘ storytelling may be a bit rocky at times, but its emotionally heartwrenching plot elements and terrific performances save the film from being forgettable.

By Heidi Sharpley.

Its official – the world’s gone crazy. Novel Coronavirus or Covid19, or whatever you are calling it, has us all unnerved and anxious.   Self-isolating is uncomfortable and quarantining is frightening. Fear abounds in these unprecedented times.  Not knowing what to expect has many trying to effect some control by hoarding toilet paper and tinned tomatoes. 

Everyone just needs to keep calm and have a laugh.   So my advice is grab your favourite snack, grab a friend (not literally, keep a safe distance which I believe is 1.5 meters) and quarantine yourself with the movie Extra Ordinary. 

This absurdly ridiculous story is perfect for now. It’s a frenzy of the unexpected and these straight faced characters deal with extraordinary situations without flinching.  They roll with it, head-on, in a relatively calm yet pro-active way. Taking everything in their stride. Take note society, we can all learn from this movie. 

The plot? Where do I start?  Let’s just say this is an Irish paranormal romcom.  Not a category you see often.  There’s the widow raising his teenage daughter while the spirit of his dead wife helps him around the house by letting him know the dog has worms with a message on the toast. 

There’s the washed up rock star who believes a satanic ritual can help restore his career.  Then there’s the lovely Rose Dooley the psychic whose just trying to lead a normal life, running her driving instructor business and looking for love on the way. Her heavily pregnant sister never far when Rose needs support.

Writing parters Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman must have had so much fun directing this movie.  It starts a little slowly and you wonder where this could possibly be heading but surrender your need to predict and just enjoy the silliness and stupidity.  You’ll find yourself smiling (perhaps for the first time in weeks).

The credits list both Mike and Enda as the bin man and belly flop man respectively, confirming for me these guys don’t take life seriously.  Shout out to George Brennan’s music and Martin Pavey’s clever sound.  

“Turns out taking a ghost into your body and puking up his ecto plasm when your daughter is under a satanic elevation spell, can take it out of you,”  Martin Martin.

The last ten minutes of this film are more hectic than the times we are currently living through.  Check your stresses at the door and just lose yourself in 1 1/2 hours of good quality stupidity.  And share this with your friends.  Extra ordinary, it is not. Make sure you see Extra Ordinary.

Chip Gutchell (Tyler Cornack) is bored with his job. He works in I.T. and feels underappreciated and the enforced fun at work is driving him insane. Life at home isn’t much better as his wife has seemed to have lost interest in him and he’s starting to feel like he has nothing to look forward to anymore.

Then one day during a rectal examination, Chip gets a feeling like nothing else he has ever felt before and it changes him inside. He asks his wife to do the things that he’s developed a kink for but she refuses and so with Chip feeling that his life is completely unsatisfied, he turns to alcohol.

Nine years later and Chip’s kink has turned into an obsession and his drinking has turned into an addiction so he decides to go an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where he is partnered up with Detective Russel Fox (Tyler Rice) as his sponsor. Detective Fox has too turned to alcohol after his son went missing not so long ago and as he’s never solved the case, he blames himself.

However, as Chip and Russel start to get to know each other, the detective starts to realise that his sponsor may be responsible as he starts to speculate that he took his son and hid him in a very deep, dark and cavernous orifice. The only problem is that Detective Fox has to prove it first.

Butt Boy is written, directed by and stars Tyler Cornack, co-written by Tyler Rice and adapted from their comedy sketch performed in their comedy series Tiny Cinema. Playing the premise of the sketch in as serious a tone as possible, Cornack’s unusual indie comedy turns into a cat and mouse thriller and plays out pretty much as anyone would expect who has seen a few detective thrillers before.

The problem is that once the premise has been introduced then the filmmakers go all the way in and by the end it starts to become uncomfortable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdj0aYVpD8c

If Butt Boy has been played entirely seriously and the premise had been changed (and the title) then it would have been an enjoyable albeit cliched detective story that gives its audience just enough tension to keep them interested.

However, Butt Boy’s premise spreads itself too wide and to the point where it’s not funny anymore and the audience may just want to pull out before it’s over.