TheRetroCritic

A Netflix-distributed release, The Ritual is a British horror film about a group of friends who decide to go hiking in Sweden (and soon find more than they bargained for) following the shocking death of one of their friends when a liquor store robbery goes off the rails. The lost-in-the-woods subgenre of horror movies is one that tends to either surprise (for better or for worse) or fall completely flat. The Ritual aims to be a modern take on The Blair Witch Project crossed with Deliverance  as the protagonists encounter strange twig-made structures in the woods then get picked off one by one by an unknown element. The film mercifully doesn't attempt a hand-held shaky-cam style of storytelling: this is a well paced and acted movie with some excellent cinematography throughout, especially near the climax. Some dream sequences give certain scenes a surreal quality but, unfortunately, they fail to add much in the way of substance. And this is probably the film's biggest sho

Based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer and directed by Alex Garland, Annihilation is a science fiction film about a team of researchers who are sent into the mysterious Area X: a gradually expanding coastal area surrounded by an inexplicable shimmer. Unlike the book, the film slowly builds to the team's entry into Area X, instead of throwing you into the unknown right off the bat. Natalie Portman is Lena, a biology professor and ex-US Army soldier whose husband (played by Oscar Isaac), who was believed to be dead, comes back to her one day after going into the "shimmer" himself. Lena and four others, including Jennifer Jason Leigh's psychologist, are sent in to explore as increasingly unexpected events start to occur. Adapting this story was never going to be easy as there's a myriad ways you could approach it. This could have been a very arty, impenetrably abstract affair or an Alien -style straight-up horror movie or even something else entirely. Garland ma

It's not exactly breaking news that fans were generally disappointed with DC's animated film adaptation of The Killing Joke  so this new attempt at taking on one of the most popular Batman graphic novels seemed like a perfect opportunity to get something right. Batman takes on Jack The Ripper himself in this steampunk story loosely based on Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola's one-shot  Gotham By Gaslight set in the late 1800's. When an exotic dancer (Poison Ivy) is brutally killed by The Ripper and the latter's victims keep piling up, the people of Gotham City start to suspect Batman. With the help of James Gordon and the police, Batman (voiced by Bruce Greenwood) attempts to stop further killings but Bruce Wayne is eventually jailed on suspicion of being The Ripper, which delays the Dark Knight's investigation somewhat. The film makes decent enough use of the familiar characters it does have including a trio of Robins as orphans, Hugo Strange, Selina Kyle (w

Few films from 2017 made quite as much noise as Get Out in terms of starting a conversation about social issues. Directed by Jordan Peele, this was a horror film satirising more subtle forms of racism through a full-on psychological thriller with gory elements and a twisted sense of humour. Get Out sees Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) drive to the latter's parents' house so Chris can meet her family for the first time. Chris is somewhat reluctant at first because the parents haven't been informed that he his an African-American but he goes along with it eventually. This leads to thoroughly awkward encounters with Rose's parents and other family and friends who seem friendly enough at first but are also kind of creepy. When Rose's mother Missy (Catherine Keener) hypnotises Chris and, later, a guest loses it, warning Chris to "get out", the film descends into madness and this family turns out to not be at all what they

I talk a bit about Netflix's The Cloverfield Paradox .

Released in 1981, Modern Problems is an off-beat comedy starring Chevy Chase as a loser air traffic controller who is dumped by his girlfriend then somehow gets covered in nuclear waste which leads to him acquiring telekinetic powers, for some reason. Chevy Chase is a comedian who could easily elevate silly or potentially bland roles to something special. While his movie career has stumbled since the late 90's, probably at least partly due to him having a bad rep with his peers and being apparently difficult to work with, he remains one of the most reliable comedy actors out there. It's a shame, then, that Modern Problems is not a better film. Made when Chase was near the peak of his career, it not only failed to capture the actor's comedic talents but failed to tell a funny, or at least entertaining, story. The concept, while random, could have translated into a really fun movie: Chevy Chase has superpowers, he uses them in silly ways, goes too far, has to redeem him

Review of the Chevy Chase comedy Modern Problems .

Directed by Darren Aronofsky, mother! is a psychological thriller from 2017 about a couple living in the countryside who get a strange visit from another couple before things get truly out of hand, to say the least. Jennifer Lawrence is the titular mother who lives in an unfinished house with her rather intense husband, a writer (played by the ever-intimidating Javier Bardem) suffering from writer's block until he is visited by a fan and his wife. The latter couple, played by Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer, show up randomly one day as Lawrence's character becomes increasingly suspicious of their bizarre behaviour and nervous about their influence on her husband. "mother" isn't all that normal herself as she appears to be obsessed with fixing her house and spends pretty much all her time walking around looking confused by everything. You're never quite sure what this awkward dynamic between her and her much older husband is all about since they're r

One horror movie that stood out in 2017, mostly thanks to its silly title, is The Bye Bye Man . Based on a chapter from Robert Damon Schneck's book "The President's Vampire", the film received negative reviews despite its relative box-office success. The Bye Bye Man follows Elliot (Douglas Smith), his girlfriend Sasha (Cressida Bonas) and best friend John (Lucien Laviscount) as they move into a house near their college. Soon enough, a lot of strange things start happening with Elliot having hallucinations and all three of them becoming increasingly paranoid of each other. The opening sequence, in which a man snaps and starts killing friends and family in an American suburb in the 60's, is genuinely chilling but, sadly, it doesn't set the tone for the rest of the film. The build-up to the titular monster is slow but rather effective as every creak inside the house and something as trivial as a coat hanging on the wall appears spooky. Then Elliot starts to

I finally pick my 10 favourite films from last year!

We review IT on episode 77 of The Big Rewind .

Some thoughts on the new Flatliners .

A convenient 27 years after the memorable miniseries, we are finally treated to a movie adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel IT with Bill Skarsgård taking on the role of creepy killer clown Pennywise made iconic by Tim Curry back in the day. The film focuses on the child characters, a group of seven friends who are each terrorised by random sightings of Pennywise years after the latter abducted a child called Georgie by luring him into the sewers. Georgie's older brother Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) has been trying to find him ever since and this becomes his and his friends' main goal. Unfortunately, particularly dangerous bullies, crappy lives at home and specific fears brought up by Pennywise get in the way of their mission. Like an ingenuous mix of Stand By Me and The Goonies with some  Stranger Things thrown in, IT is both an effective coming-of-age story with a group of very different but equally likeable kids at its heart and a supernatural horror film every

I talk about... IT . The movie, that is.

The fourth part of my Blood Let's Play.

I talk a bit about new Stephen King movie adaptation The Dark Tower .

Short compilation of some of my best fails when playing the game Ecstatica . Playing that game comes at a price...

I reviewed MS-DOS game Ecstatica for Review A Bad Game Day . But is it really a bad game?

Based on the 2004 The Batman  series, this feature-length animated movie sees the Dark Knight come face to face with Dracula himself in a potentially really fun, if probably quite silly, crossover. When The Penguin and The Joker get a tip from a fellow patient in Arkham Asylum that there is a hidden treasure beneath a specific grave in the cemetery, they both escape and compete to recover it. Batman soon shows up to fight The Joker and the latter, surprisingly, falls to his death as he electrocutes himself with his own weapon. The death of The Joker could have been its own film, to be honest, as Bruce Wayne's reaction to this event clearly affects him but this is only used to set the darker tone and give us a vampire Joker later on in the film. Meanwhile, The Penguin accidentally revives Dracula who promptly starts to feast on random people in order to regain his strength. Batman is not very smart in this as he struggles to guess that creepy-looking Dr Alucard is in fact Dracu

The third part of my Blood Let's Play. Get off. My. Train!