FrightFest — A–Z of films

On the one level, 68 Kill is pure pulp trash, harking back to director Trent Haaga's Troma roots. On the other, it's brilliantly done.

There's a joyousness about this kind of filmmaking, unrestricted as it is by any concern for convention.

As the tension between them escalates, it becomes apparent that somebody has seriously overstepped the mark, and that an initially awkward situation is headed for tragedy.

Leon's formidable presence is a match for any of Hammer's celebrated male leads.

It's hard to demand too much finesse from a film centred on characters who lack all traces of it, and who are great fun to be with anyway.

In the best tradition of the Gothic, the plot is overwhelmed by the themes and the finer points of the acting frequently lost beneath exuberant displays of emotion.

For the first hour or so of its runtime, Devil's Gate smoulders with tension, piling on one horror after another as its spins out its central mystery.

If some suspension of disbelief is required to accept the premise of Michael Mongillo's film, it's earned by Smith, whose troubled character is more sympathetic because he makes no effort to be liked.

You'll laugh, and wince, and laugh again.

An ambitious film that suffers from a visibly stretched budget, Eat Locals fails to live up to the promise of its wonderful title but does have some great moments.

Fuller is absorbing in the central role, really giving it her all.

These are lashings of gore, some deliberately feeble jokes, some good character-based comedy and predictable but nonetheless entertaining twists towards the end.

Schäfer is excellent in the central role.

Director Dominic Bridges and co-writer Rae Brunton strike a delicate balance between the comedic and the sinister.

As with most of the best games, the concept is simple; the genius is in the execution.

There's strong work here in places but as was to be expected, the film struggles when it comes to providing a wider framework for events.

Carter is superb in the dual role.

What Power does differently is to deny us the usual sources of comfort.

There is never much sense of hope in the film, only a brash defiance that sometimes, for all its ugliness, verges on the heroic.

Where the film gets interesting is in its exploration of the act, of the way Mansfield turned her life into a performance.

The scenes of conflict are well handled; it's actually hard to depict completely untrained, inexperienced people attacking each other in a realistic way, and director Joe Lynch achieves this without ever compromising on the fun of it all.

Bleakly realistic and shorn of romance of all kinds, Mountain Fever may be set in desperate times but many of the dangers it depicts are mundane realities in harsh environments.

The characters almost seem aware that they're performing.

Writer Caroline Labrèche and co-director Steeve Léonard use science fiction framing to invite viewers along on a journey that will take them somewhere very different.

Tim Peter Kuhn's cinematography and Franco Tortora and Tom Batoy’s dramatic score combine to create a sense of disorientation, of psychological disintegration.

Moments of reflection are balanced by playful scenes structured around the clichés of horror filmmaking.

The incursion of something otherworldly into our hero's life takes place slowly, making it all the more unsettling.

Burke's performance would be riveting even on an empty sound stage.

Loud, colourful, facetious and painstakingly shallow, Tragedy Girls perfectly captures the high school movie vibe.

Celebrity docu-portraits like this are ten a penny; what makes this one different is the extraordinary story and the intensity with which it's delivered.

A must-see film for action fans.

Voice From The Stone is an accomplished piece of work.

A well-handled slice of classic horror.