Review: The Descent: Part II

Although the premise of these films involves groups of people going very much in a downwards direction, this sequel has one hell of an upward journey if it is to match the sheer tension and claustrophobia of Neil Marshall's 2005 original.

Whatever happened to the humble monster movie?

It seems for a good few years now we've been stuck in a rut when it comes to contemporary horror. That rut has earned itself the label of "torture porn," a genre of horror films whose storylines revolve around sadistic killers torturing helpless victims while the camera swoops, pans around and zooms in, capturing every severed artery and globule of blood in almost loving detail.

Review: Drag Me To Hell

Firstly, the spider-shaped elephant in the room. Spider-Man 3 kinda blew. There, we said it – our 3-star review be damned. Frankly it could have been made by any studio hack – the fact that it was made by Sam Raimi, a man who regularly used to work outside and around studio boundaries to great effect, made it an overblown advent...

Review: Star Trek

Let's play a little game of word association. If I said 'majestic', 'enjoyable' and 'meaningful', you wouldn't think Star Trek, right? No. But if I said 'lazy', 'predictable' and 'dull'.... well, that's Star Trek down to a tee – at least, that's how it's been for the past decade and a half. Of late, Star Trek has been a poten...

Review: Let The Right One In

The world hasn’t come down yet from the whole Twilight extravaganza: not only is the sequel in production, it seems that they are getting ready to prepare parts three and four of the franchise. But before Twilight fever sinks its fangs in us again, along comes a vampire movie cut from a different cloth entirely. Let the Right...

Review: Monsters Vs Aliens

Like so many brides to be, Susan Murphy’s wedding day consisted of getting up early to be faffed and fluffed over; sneaking off to see her groom before the ceremony; being squished by a quantonium-laden meteorite and subsequently transformed into a 49-and-a-half-foot government secret codenamed Ginormica. It's a timeless tale. ...

Review: The Unborn

Can we get a moratorium on horror films featuring scary children? Pale-faced kids are ten-a-penny and ceased being scary around about the time The Grudge started to get old (that's about eight years ago for anyone still counting). The Unborn is the latest chiller to put faith in a pint-sized spook, but it's a film so desperately...

Review: Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans

"Oh Lucian, Lucian, wherefore art thou, a stinky bloody-thirsty werewolf?" You know the story: boy meets girl, boy is werewolf, girl is vampire, boy loves girl, everybody dies. That’s essentially the plot for Underworld’s third outing, whose tagline could have read: "Romeo and Juliet for the Dark Ages." Vampires and werewolve...

Review: Twilight

A cynic may read Twilight as a piece of conservative, middle-American propaganda worthy of Joseph Goebbels. It's a shot of abstinence into the pulsating veins of every randy teenager that crosses the cinema threshold. There are the Freudian implications about the exchange of bodily fluids for a start. Twilight practically scream...

Review: The Mist

First of all, forget any lingering thoughts you might have of the recent remake of John Carpenter’s The Fog: the only thing it has in common with The Mist is shitty weather. Adapted from the Stephen King novel and released in November in the US, it’s been awaiting a UK release for months – countries like Estonia, Latvia and even...