Overlook Film Festival

Latest reviews

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  Azrael

  Review preview for Azrael

  We get demonstrations of skill, from the weaving of a bracelet to the use of herbs to treat a wound, and these elements reinforce the idea that this is a real society which has developed organically over time.

  Many years following the apocalypse, a devout cult of mute zealots hunts down a young woman who has escaped her imprisonment.
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  Things Will Be Different

  Review preview for Things Will Be Different

  Where other such tales have become overly enmeshed in their own structural entanglements, Felker has the good sense to focus on character.

  In order to escape police after a robbery, two estranged siblings lay low in a metaphysical farmhouse that hides them away in a different time. There they reckon with a mysterious force that pushes their familial bonds to unnatural breaking points.
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  Phantom Of The Paradise

  Review preview for Phantom Of The Paradise

  Again and again there are elements that will be echoed in later works, mirrors and masks and little friends, split screens and thrills and untimely ends.

  A disfigured composer sells his soul for the woman he loves so that she will perform his music - but an evil record tycoon betrays him and steals his music to open his rock palace, The Paradise.
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  Sleep

  Review preview for Sleep

  Mixing horror elements with character study and a tender portrait of a relationship in crisis, Sleep easily slides between genres and, in the process, keeps viewers guessing.

  A couple find their marriage deteriorating after a disturbing episode when the husband declares in his sleep, “Someone’s inside”.
• 
  Cuckoo

  Review preview for Cuckoo

  It’s Schafer’s performance that anchors it.

  On a trip to the German Alps with her father and stepmother, Gretchen discovers that the resort town where they’re staying hides sinister secrets, as she’s plagued by strange noises and frightening visions of a woman pursuing her.
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  Oddity

  Review preview for Oddity

  It is a rare thing to come across a tale as carefully constructed as this one.

  A blind medium uncovers the truth behind her sister's death with the help of a frightening wooden mannequin.
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  In A Violent Nature

  Review preview for In A Violent Nature

  Not necessarily successful, but nonetheless compelling, even hypnotic

  The enigmatic resurrection, rampage, and retribution of an undead monster in a remote wilderness.
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  All You Need Is Death

  Review preview for All You Need Is Death

  It’s solidly rooted in the ordinary and yet its habit of drawing out small absurdities means that ordinary things and places won’t seem so safe after you’ve seen it.

  A young couple records and collects folk songs in rural Ireland, selling them to a mysterious, rich buyer. When rumours of a song never-before-heard reach the couple, they find themselves in an uneasy alliance with a music professor to discover an ancient song.
• 
  I Saw the TV Glow

  Review preview for I Saw the TV Glow

  It tells what could be a goofy story, about awkward teenagers obsessed with a TV series called The Pink Opaque, but portrays it as an ominous, nightmarish mindfuck.

  Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show - a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.
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  Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person

  Review preview for Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person

  While Louis-Seize’s treatment of the night is atmospheric, the emphasis here is firmly on comedy rather on gore.

  Sasha is a young vampire with a serious problem: she’s too sensitive to kill. When her exasperated parents cut off her blood supply, Sasha’s life is in jeopardy. Luckily, she a lonely teenager with suicidal tendencies. But their friendly agreement soon becomes a nocturnal quest.

A–Z of Overlook Film Festival 2024 reviews →

Features

• Clocking in
  Michael Felker on how he learned to time travel and Things Will Be Different
• A dream come true
  Jason Yu on casting, chemistry and keeping it simple in Sleep
• Just trying to live
  Sébastien Vanicek on suburban life in France, spiders and Infested
• In tune with the darkness
  Paul Duane on music, monstrosities and All You Need Is Death
• Altered perspective
  John Rosman on character, tension and the music of Bob Dylan in New Life
• Everything under the moon
  Larry Fessenden on werewolves, the monsters within us and Blackout
• It's a scream
  Catriona MacColl looks back on her life as a horror heroine.