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Abertoir · 2018

Abertoir 2018

Features

Programme

24 films · 14 reviews

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Abrakadabra

A black-gloved maniac commits a series of gruesome murders.

(Country: Argentina, New Zealand; Year: 2018; Director: Luciano Onetti, Nicolás Onetti; Writer: Carlos Goitia, Luciano Onetti; Stars: Clara Kovacic, German Baudino, Raul Gederlini)

Anna And The Apocalypse

Review preview for Anna And The Apocalypse

Any film that has both a fight director and a dance choreographer is probably doing something right.

Andrew Robertson · 4 out of 5
When the zombie apocalypse hits the sleepy town of Little Haven - at Christmas - teenager Anna and her high school friends have to fight, sing and dance to survive, with the undead horde all around them.

(Country: UK, US; Year: 2017; Director: John McPhail; Writer: Alan McDonald, Ryan McHenry; Stars: Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming, Sarah Swire, Christopher Leveaux, Ben Wiggins, Marli Siu, Mark Benton, Paul Kaye, Ella Jarvis, Calum Cormack, Euan Bennet, Sean Connor, Janet Lawson, Janet Lawson, Kirsty Strain)

Full review

Assassination Nation

Review preview for Assassination Nation

Older viewers may find it too much but it's spot on for what it's trying to achieve.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
This is a 1000 percent a true story about how the quiet, all-American town of Salem, absolutely lost its mind.

(Country: US; Year: 2018; Director: Sam Levinson; Writer: Sam Levinson; Stars: Bella Thorne, Bill Skarsgård, Suki Waterhouse, Susan Misner, Maude Apatow, Joel McHale, Cody Christian, Anika Noni Rose, Joe Chrest, Noah Galvin, Colman Domingo, Odessa Young, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Danny Ramirez, Lucy Faust)

Full review

The Black Forest (A Mata Negra)

In a forest based in the heart of Brazil, a girl sees her life change terribly when she finds the Lost Book of Cypriano, whose dark magic, besides bestowing power and wealth on its possessor, is also able to deliver a terrible evil upon the Earth.

(Country: Brazil; Year: 2018; Director: Rodrigo Aragão; Stars: Carol Aragão, Jackson Antunes, Francisco Gaspar, Markus Konká, Clarissa Pinheiro)

Blue My Mind

Review preview for Blue My Mind

An astonishing debut.

Jennie Kermode · 5 out of 5
When a teenager who has trouble with her parents moves to Zurich with them, she starts to walk on the wild side.

(Country: Switzerland; Year: 2017; Director: Lisa Brühlmann; Writer: Lisa Brühlmann; Stars: Luna Wedler, Zoë Pastelle Holthuizen, Nicola Perot)

Full review

Bloody Moon (Die Säge des Todes)

Review preview for Bloody Moon

It is notable that for every slasher trope there also seems to be a giallo one.

Keith Hennessey Brown · 2.5 out of 5
A killer targets the students at a language school.

(Country: West Germany; Year: 1981; Director: Jesus Franco; Writer: Rayo Casablanca, Rayo Casablanca; Stars: Olivia Pascal, Christoph Moosbrugger, Nadja Gerganoff, Alexander Waechter, Jasmin Losensky, Corinna Drews, Ann-Beate Engelke, Peter Exacoustos, Antonia García, Beatriz Sancho Nieto)

Full review

Cam

Review preview for Cam

Screenwriter Isa Mazzei is a former camgirl herself and it shows in the film’s focus on the business side of proceedings, but director Daniel Goldhaber extends her work in a much stranger direction.

Jennie Kermode · 3 out of 5
A sex cam worker finds that her identity has been appropriated by a mysterious doppelgänger.

(Country: US; Year: 2018; Director: Daniel Goldhaber; Writer: Isa Mazzei; Stars: Madeline Brewer, Patch Darragh, Devin Druid, Samantha Robinson, Melora Walters)

Full review

Friday the 13th

Review preview for Friday the 13th

Friday The 13th is a well made but fairly unremarkable film. What about it could so incense the white male American critic?

Donald Munro · 3 out of 5
A series of vicious murders occurs at a summer camp.

(Country: US; Year: 1980; Director: Sean S. Cunningham; Stars: Ari Lehman, Jeannine Taylor, Kevin Bacon, Robbi Morgan, Betsy Palmer, Peter Brouwer, Ronn Carroll, Ron Millkie, Walt Gorney)

Full review

Friday The 13th: Part 3 (Friday The 13th: Part III)

Review preview for Friday The 13th: Part 3

Has a lighter tone and different feel from the others.

Gator MacReady · 4 out of 5
A teenage adventure yarn, masquerading as a horror flick, with hillbilly Jason doing the honours.

(Country: US; Year: 1982; Director: Steve Miner; Writer: Carol Watson, Martin Kitrosser; Stars: Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Richard Brooker, Anne Gaybis, Nick Savage, Rachel Howard, David Katims, Larry Zerner, Tracie Savage, Jeffrey Rogers, Catherine Parks)

Full review

In Fabric

Review preview for In Fabric

You might not think you're in the mood for buying, but his extravagant sales pitch is likely to win you over by the end.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Two stories about a cursed dress and its victims.

(Country: UK; Year: 2018; Director: Peter Strickland; Writer: Peter Strickland; Stars: Gwendoline Christie, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Caroline Catz, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Leo Bill, Hayley Squires, Richard Bremmer, Steve Oram, Julian Barratt, Karl Farrer, Gavin Brocker, Susanna Cappellaro, Fatma Mohamed, Sara Dee, Pano Masti)

Full review See: Interview with Peter Strickland about In Fabric

The Last House On The Left

Review preview for The Last House On The Left

A deliberately cruel and vicious experience.

Scott Macdonald · 4 out of 5
The attackers of two teenage girls inadvertently take refuge with their parents and face a terrible revenge.

(Country: US; Year: 1972; Director: Wes Craven; Writer: Wes Craven; Stars: Sandra Cassel, Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred J. Lincoln, Jeramie Rain, Marc Sheffler, Gaylord St. James, Cynthia Carr, Ada Washington, Marshall Anker, Martin Kove)

Full review See: Interview with David Hess about The Last House On The Left and Smash Cut

The Last Man On Earth

Review preview for The Last Man On Earth

Well established as a player of scholarly roles with a hint of madness, Price fits the original character of this story better than anyone else.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
When a disease turns all of humanity into the living dead, the last man on earth becomes a reluctant vampire hunter.

(Country: US, Italy; Year: 1964; Director: Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow; Writer: William F Leicester and Richard Matheson; Stars: Vincent Price, Franca Bettoia, Emma Danieli)

Full review

My Bloody Valentine

A decades-old folk tale surrounding a deranged murderer killing those who celebrate Valentine's Day turns out to be true to legend when a group defies the killer's order and people start turning up dead.

(Country: Canada; Year: 1981; Director: George Mihalka; Writer: Stephen Miller, John Beaird; Stars: Paul Kelman, Lori Hallier, Neil Affleck, Keith Knight, Alf Humphreys, Cynthia Dale, Helene Udy)

One Cut Of The Dead (Camera wo Tomeru na!)

Review preview for One Cut Of The Dead

A film that understands its audience exceptionally well.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
Shooting a zombie movie in one take is harder than you think...

(Country: Japan; Year: 2017; Director: Shin'ichirô Ueda; Writer: Shin'ichirô Ueda; Stars: Yuzuki Akiyama, Takuya Fujimura, Ayana Gôda, Takayuki Hamatsu, Manabu Hosoi, Hiroshi Ichihara, Satoshi Iwagô, Sakina Iwaji, Mao, Kazuaki Nagaya, Harumi Shuhama, Kyôko Takahashi, Yoshiko Takehara, Tomokazu Yamaguchi, Shuntarô Yamazaki)

Full review

Party Hard, Die Young

Finally graduated and off to Croatia, it’s supposed to be the party of their lives - but for Julia and her friends their graduation trip turns into a nightmare as one by one they’re picked off by a mysterious assailant.

(Country: Austria; Year: 2018; Director: Dominik Hartl; Stars: Elisabeth Wabitsch, Michael Glantschnig, Valerie Huber, Antonia Moretti)

Piercing

Review preview for Piercing

Without a doubt, Pesce is one of the most exciting young directors to emerge in recent years.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
A man seeks out an unsuspecting stranger to help him purge the dark torments of his past. His plan goes awry when he encounters a woman with plans of her own. A playful psycho-thriller game of cat-and-mouse.

(Country: US; Year: 2018; Director: Nicolas Pesce; Writer: Nicolas Pesce, based on the novel by Ryû Murakami; Stars: Christopher Abbott, Mia Wasikowska, Laia Costa, Wendell Pierce, Marin Ireland, Maria Dizzia, Dakota Lustick, Olivia Bond)

Full review See: Interview with Nicolas Pesce about Piercing, Mia Wasikowska, Christopher Abbott, Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch

Prom Night

Kim finds it hard to get into the spirit of prom night - it's the anniversary of her sister's murder and she increasingly suspects that the killer is still out there.

(Country: Canada; Year: 1982; Director: Paul Lynch; Stars: Jamie Lee Curtis, Leslie Nielsen)

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich

The deceased Puppet Master's deadly dolls start killing on their own initiative.

(Country: US; Year: 2018; Director: Sonny Laguna, Tommy Wiklund; Writer: S Craig Zahler; Stars: Alex Beh, Barbara Crampton, Nelson Franklin, Skeeta Jenkins, Udo Kier, Thomas Lennon, Michael Paré, Jenny Pellicer, Charlyne Yi)

Sleepaway Camp (Nightmare Vacation)

Angela Baker, a traumatised and very shy young girl, is sent to summer camp with her cousin. Shortly after her arrival, anyone with sinister or less than honourable intentions gets their comeuppance.

(Country: US; Year: 1983; Director: Robert Hiltzik; Writer: Robert Hiltzik; Stars: Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, Karen Fields, Christopher Collet, Mike Kellin, Katherine Kamhi)

Slumber Party Massacre

A high school student's slumber party turns terrifying as an escaped mental patient with a drill decides to crash the evening.

(Country: US; Year: 1982; Director: Amy Holden Jones; Writer: Rita Mae Brown; Stars: Michelle Michaels, Robin Stille, Michael Villella, Debra De Liso, Andree Honore, Gina Smika Hunter)

Summer of '84

Summer, 1984: a perfect time to be a carefree 15-year-old. But when neighbourhood conspiracy theorist Davey Armstrong begins to suspect his police officer neighbour might be the serial killer all over the local news, he and his three best friends begin an investigation that soon turns dangerous.

(Country: US, Canada; Year: 2018; Director: François Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell; Writer: Matt Leslie, Stephen J Smith; Stars: Graham Verchere, Judah Lewis, Caleb Emery, Cory Gruter-Andrew, Tiera Skovbye, Rich Sommer, Shauna Johannesen, Jason Gray-Stanford, Mark Brandon, Aren Buchholz, Susie Castillo, J. Alex Brinson, Harrison Houde, William MacDonald, Patrick Lubczyk)

The Tokoloshe

A destitute young woman with dangerously repressed emotions, lands a job as a cleaner at a rundown hospital, where she meets an abandoned child who may face supernatural peril.

(Country: South Africa; Year: 2018; Director: Richard Kunzmann; Writer: Richard Kunzmann, Jerome Pikwane; Stars: Petronella Tshuma, Kwande Nkosi, Dawid Minnaar, Harriet Manamela, Manndla Shongwe, Yule Masiteng)

Tumbbad

Review preview for Tumbbad

If we have, ourselves, become greedy to know exactly what the secret is by this point, Barve certainly does not disappoint.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
A greedy boy seeks out hidden riches in the dungeon beneath an ancestral house guarded by a terrifying deity.

(Country: India; Year: 2018; Director: Rahi Anil Barve, Anand Gandhi, Adesh Prasad; Writer: Mitesh Shah, Adesh Prasad, Rahi Anil Barve, Anand Gandhi; Stars: Sohum Shah, Harish Khannaa, Anita Date, Mohd Samad, Jyoti Malshe, Deepak Damle, Dhundiraj Prabhakar Jogalekar, Sohum Shah, Harish Khannaa, Anita Date, Mohd Samad, Jyoti Malshe, Deepak Damle, Dhundiraj Prabhakar Jogalekar)

Full review

The Wind

Review preview for The Wind

Teresa Sutherland's script finds Gothic tensions in a landscape where the imaginary has as much power to harm as the real.

Jennie Kermode · 3 out of 5
On the Western frontier of the United States of America in the late 1800s, a plains-woman is driven mad by the harshness and isolation of the untamed land.

(Country: US; Year: 2018; Director: Emma Tammi; Writer: Teresa Sutherland; Stars: Caitlin Gerard, Julia Goldani Telles)

Full review