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Overlook Film Festival · 2025

Overlook Film Festival 2025

Features

Programme

33 films · 17 reviews

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40 Acres

A ferocious matriarch and former soldier is hellbent on protecting her family and their farmland from a band of marauding cannibals in a world ravaged by plague and famine.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2024; Director: RT Thorne; Stars: Danielle Deadwyler, Michael Greyeyes, Kataem O'Connor, Leenah Robinson)

Abraham's Boys

Abraham van Helsing moves his two sons, Max and Rudy, to the US in an attempt to escape their past. It does not work.

(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: Natasha Kermani; Stars: Titus Welliver, Jocelin Donahue, Judah Mackey, Aurora Perineau, Brady Hepner.)

Ash

Review preview for Ash

Lotus may love pretty things, but he doesn’t hold back on the gore.

Jennie Kermode · 3 out of 5
A woman wakes up on a distant planet and finds the crew of her space station viciously killed. Her investigation into what happened sets in motion a terrifying chain of events.

(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: Flying Lotus; Writer: Jonni Remmler; Stars: Eiza González, Aaron Paul, Flying Lotus, Iko Uwais, Kate Elliott, Beulah Koale)

Full review

Best Wishes To All

A young nursing student gets an unexpectedly twisted dose of reality when she visits her grandparents in the countryside, only to uncover the secrets to their exceedingly happy life.

(Country: Japan; Year: 2024; Director: Yûta Shimotsu; Stars: Kotone Furukawa)

Chain Reactions

Exploration of the impact of Texas Chain Saw Massacre 50 years after it was made.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Alexandre O Philippe; Writer: Alexandre O Philippe; Stars: Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, Karyn Kusama)

Cloud (Kuraudo)

Review preview for Cloud

Even though we’re essentially talking about a basic shot-reverse shot exchange, framed in creeping wide angles, juxtaposed with close-ups, the feeling is comparable to watching a getaway heist.

Nikola Jovic · 4 out of 5
An online scammer, reselling faulty products at preposterously high rates, is on the run after some of his customers decide to hit back.

(Country: Japan; Year: 2024; Director: Kurosawa Kiyoshi; Writer: Kurosawa Kiyoshi; Stars: Masaki Suda, Kotone Furukawa, Masataka Kubota)

Full review

Clown In A Cornfield

Review preview for Clown In A Cornfield

Clown in A Cornfield has a lot of heart, and not just of the bloody variety.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
A teenager and her father move to a fading midwestern town in which Frendo the clown, a symbol of bygone success, reemerges as a terrifying scourge.

(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: Eli Craig; Writer: Carter Blanchard, Eli Craig, Adam Cesare; Stars: Katie Douglas, Carson MacCormac, Aaron Abrams, Cassandra Potenza, Verity Marks, Vincent Muller)

Full review

Dead Lover

Review preview for Dead Lover

The expressionist feeling of early 20th century cinema is further enhanced by the specific colour scheme, resembling a very early version of Technicolor, while the sound recalls that of the early sound films.

Marko Stojiljkovic · 3.5 out of 5
A lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap scientific experiments, resulting in grave consequences and unlikely love.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2025; Director: Grace Glowicki; Writer: Grace Glowicki, Ben Petrie; Stars: Grace Glowicki, Leah Doz, Ben Petrie, Lowen Morrow)

Full review

Death Becomes Her

Review preview for Death Becomes Her

Both female stars are on fine form here, relishing the chance to let go and unleash the full force of their personalities.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
The rivalry between two ageing actresses only becomes more bitter when they acquire the gift of eternal youth.

(Country: US; Year: 1992; Director: Robert Zemeckis; Writer: Martin Donovan, David Koepp; Stars: Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis, Goldie Hawn, Isabella Rossellini, Ian Ogilvy, Adam Storke)

Full review

The Descent

Review preview for The Descent

Effective and brilliantly crafted...

Scott Macdonald · 5 out of 5
Six girls on a caving expedition find they are not alone in the dark.

(Country: UK; Year: 2005; Director: Neil Marshall; Writer: Neil Marshall; Stars: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Jackson Mendoza, MyAnna Buring, Nora-Jane Noone, Molly Kayll, Alex Reid, Craig Conway, Saskia Mulder, Oliver Milburn, Stephen Lamb)

Full review

Drop

A widowed mother, on her first date in years, arrives at an upscale restaurant where she meets her handsome date. But their chemistry curdles as she begins being irritated and then terrorised by a series of anonymous drops to her phone,

(Year: 2025; Director: Christopher Landon; Writer: Jillian Jacobs, Chris Roach; Stars: Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane, Jacob Robinson, Ed Weeks)

Fréwaka

Review preview for Fréwaka

Clarke’s utilisation of eerie Irish lore and the supernatural to explore very real horror, and the lifelong lingering aftermath of a single, damning moment, is a potent and unsettling brew.

James Gracey · 4.5 out of 5
A troubled home carer finds her grip on reality starts to slip after she goes to help an elderly agoraphobic.

(Country: Ireland; Year: 2024; Director: Aislinn Clarke; Writer: Aislinn Clarke; Stars: Clare Monnelly, Bríd Ní Neachtain, Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya)

Full review See: Interview with Aislinn Clarke about Fréwaka

Good Boy

Review preview for Good Boy

In Good Boy, Indy the dog delivers not only a great animal performance, but one of the best performances by anyone this year.

Jennie Kermode · 5 out of 5
Indy is a good boy; a faithful dog, he is always by his human Todd’s side. When Todd seeks quiet in an empty family home in the countryside, Indy finds there is a strange, malevolent presence lurking in the shadows — an evil that only he can sense.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Ben Leonberg; Stars: Indy, Shane Jensen, Larry Fessenden, Arielle Friedman, Stuart Rudin, Anya Krawcheck, Hunter Goetz, Max)

Full review

Hallow Road

Review preview for Hallow Road

Hallow Road is an Irish co-production, and it shows both in theme and in quality.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
Two parents enter a race against time when they receive a distressing late-night phone call from their daughter after she caused a tragic car accident.

(Country: UK, Ireland; Year: 2025; Director: Babak Anvari; Writer: William Gillies; Stars: Rosamund Pike, Matthew Rhys, Paul Tylak, Megan McDonnell, Stephen Jones)

Full review

The Home (Hemmet)

Review preview for The Home

The real candy is the omnipresent densely uncomfortable atmosphere that comes on top of the richly detailed observations and conclusions in the film's lower layers.

Marko Stojiljkovic · 4 out of 5
Many years after leaving, Joel returns home to move his mother Monika to a care facility for the elderly struggling with dementia. But as she starts to have terrifying visions, he begins to suspect something supernatural is at work.

(Country: Sweden, Iceland, Estonia; Year: 2025; Director: Mattias Johansson Skoglund; Writer: Mattias Johansson Skoglund, Mats Strandberg; Stars: Gizem Erdogan, Anki Lidén, Philip Oros, Malin Levanon, Lottie Ejebrant, Lily Wahlsteen, Ayan Ahmed, Bengt C.W. Carlsson, Caisa Ankarsparre, Emil Brulin, Janna Granström, Peter Jankert)

Full review

Ick

Science teacher Hank's life changes when he reconnects with his first love and suspects a new student is his daughter, all while facing an alien threat in their town.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Joseph Kahn; Writer: Joseph Kahn, Dan Koontz, Samuel Laskey; Stars: Mena Suvari, Brandon Routh, Malina Pauli Weissman, Mariann Gvelo, Taia Sophia, April Clark, Harrison Cone, Cory Hart)

Illusion-O!

13 times the thrills! 13 times the screams! 13 times the fun! See the ghosts in ectoplasmic colour.

(Country: US; Year: 1960; Director: William Castle; Stars: Charles Herbert, Jo Morrow, Rosemary DeCamp, Margaret Hamilton, Donald Woods)

It Ends

Four friends' post-college plans are derailed when a wrong turn traps them on a never-ending backroad.

(Year: 2025; Director: Alexander Ullom; Writer: Alexander Ullom; Stars: Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, Mitchell Cole)

Lifehack

Four slacker teens descend into the darkest corners of the internet to plan one of the greatest cyberheists of all time.

(Country: UK; Year: 2025; Director: Ronan Corrigan; Stars: Georgie Farmer, Yasmin Finney, Roman Hayeck-Green, James Scholz, Jessica Reynolds, Charlie Creed-Milesa)

Lost Highway

Review preview for Lost Highway

Lynch is a master of space and sound and the world of Lost Highway is at once beautiful and downright evil.

Gator MacReady · 5 out of 5
A mysterious murder is only the beginning of the strangest story ever told.

(Country: France/US; Year: 1997; Director: David Lynch; Writer: David Lynch, Barry Gifford; Stars: Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Blake, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Richard Pryor, Lucy Butler)

Full review

Monster Island

In 1942 — deep in the Pacific theater of World War II — a Japanese soldier and British prisoner-of-war find themselves washed ashore on a dangerous deserted island. As these sworn enemies soon discover…they are not alone, as a fanged amphibious creature called the Orang Ikan wishes to kill them even more than they wish to kill each other.

(Country: Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, UK; Year: 2024; Director: Mike Wiluan; Stars: Dean Fujioka, Callum Woodhouse)

The Phantom Of The Opera

Known as ‘The Man of a Thousand Faces’, Lon Chaney was the undisputed master of horror in the 1920s and one of the biggest box-office stars in the history of Universal Pictures. This stunning silent version of the Gaston Leroux classic remains one of his creepiest productions. Lovingly restored, it features a groundbreaking use of two-strip technicolor in the notorious Bal Masque sequence and hand tinting elsewhere. Chaney finds the pathos in the scarred composer, haunting the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera house, obsessed with a beautiful young soprano whom he kidnaps to ensure she will only ever sing for him. This screening is accompanied by live music on the Wurlitzer Cinema Organ played by organist David Gray.

(Country: USA; Year: 1925; Director: Rupert Julian; Writer: Gaston Leroux, Walter Anthony, Elliott J Clawson, Bernard McConville, Frank M McCormack, Tom Reed, Raymond L. Schrock, Jasper Spearing, Richard Wallace; Stars: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry)

Predators

To Catch A Predator was a popular television show designed to hunt down child predators and lure them to a film set, where they would be interviewed and eventually arrested. An exploration of the scintillating rise and staggering fall of the show and the world it helped create.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: David Osit)

Re-Animator

Review preview for Re-Animator

If Re-Animator doesn't get your blood pumping, you're already dead.

David Graham · 4.5 out of 5
Students decide to resurrect the dead in this much-loved comedic take on the work of HP Lovecraft.

(Country: US; Year: 1985; Director: Stuart Gordon; Writer: Dennis Paoli, William Norris, Stuart Gordon, based on the story by HP Lovecraft; Stars: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale, Robert Sampson, Gerry Black, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Peter Kent, Barbara Pieters, Ian Patrick Williams, Bunny Summers, Al Berry, Derek Pendleton, Gene Scherer, James Ellis)

Full review

Redux Redux

Review preview for Redux Redux

It’s refreshing to encounter a multiverse film that doesn’t mess about.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
Irene Kelly travels through parallel universes, repeatedly killing her daughter's murderer. As she becomes consumed by vengeance, her humanity hangs in the balance.

(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus; Writer: Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus; Stars: Derick Alexander, Raphael Chestang, Debra Christofferson, Jim Cummings, Minita Gandhi, London Garcia, Jeremy Holm)

Full review See: Interview with Matthew McManus and Kevin McManus about Redux Redux

Rosario

Review preview for Rosario

A lot can happen in one night in a place like this, and most of it does.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
When the grief-stricken young Rosario is forced to wait overnight with the body of her deceased grandmother until an ambulance can get to her through a severe snowfall, she falls prey to ghoulish attacks from supernatural possessors determined to wreak havoc on her.

(Country: Colombia, US; Year: 2025; Director: Felipe Vargas; Writer: Alan Trezza; Stars: Emeraude Toubia, David Dastmalchian, Paul Ben-Victor, José Zúñiga, Diana Lein)

Full review

The Shrouds

A widower invents a gadget that lets the bereaved connect with their loved ones inside a burial shroud... as they decompose.

(Country: France, Canada; Year: 2024; Director: David Cronenberg; Writer: David Cronenberg; Stars: Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce, Sandrine Holt, Al Sapienza, Elizabeth Saunders, Jennifer Dale, Ingvar Sigurdsson, Jeff Yung, Matt Willis, Eric Weinthal, Steve Switzman, Paddington)

The Spirit Of Halloweentown

A documentary about the residents of the small town whose residents decided to capitalise on spooky tourism after Disney used it as the setting for Halloweentown.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Bradford Thomason, Brett Whitcomb)

Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight

High-level demons collect low-level demons as warriors in attempt to obtain a key containing the blood of Christ. The key is guarded by immortal warriors called Demon Knights.

(Country: US; Year: 1995; Director: Ernest R Dickerson; Writer: Ethan Reiff, Cyrus Voris, Mark Bishop; Stars: Billy Zane, William Sadler, Jada Pinkett Smith, Brenda Bakke, CCH Pounder, Dick Miller, Thomas Haden Church)

Touch Me

Review preview for Touch Me

It’s the situation that delivers the strangeness – and charm – mediated by Dudley’s performance as a woman who is self-deprecating and messy but lively enough to root for.

Jennie Kermode · 3.5 out of 5
Two codependent best friends become addicted to the heroin-like touch of an alien narcissist who may or may not be trying to take over the world.

(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: Addison Heimann; Writer: Addison Heimann; Stars: Olivia Taylor Dudley, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jordan Gavaris, Marlene Forte, Paget Brewster)

Full review

The True Beauty Of Being Bitten By A Tick

A woman reeling from a tragedy takes some much needed time away with a group of friends at their home in the countryside. After a walk through the woods, what seems like an innocuous tick bite has grotesquely unexpected consequences.

(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: Pete Ohs; Writer: Zoë Chao, James Cusati-Moyer, Jeremy O Harris; Stars: Zoë Chao, Callie Hernandez, Jeremy O Harris, James Cusati-Moyer)

The Ugly Stepsister (Den Stygge Stesøsteren)

Review preview for The Ugly Stepsister

There’s a good deal of depth and nuance to these relationships as Blichfeldt uses them to illustrate how a society which makes women dependent on men magnifies every petty disagreement and sets them at odds with one another.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
In a fairy-tale kingdom where beauty is a brutal business, Elvira battles to compete with her incredibly beautiful stepsister, and she will go to any length to catch the prince’s eye.

(Country: Norway, Denmark, Romania, Poland; Year: 2025; Director: Emilie Blichfeldt; Writer: Emilie Blichfeldt; Stars: Lea Myren, Flo Fagerli, Isac Calmroth, Malte Gårdinger, Ralph Carlsson, Isac Aspberg, Albin Weidenbladh, Oksana Czerkasyna, Katarzyna Herman, Adam Lundgren, Willy Ramnek Petri, Cecilia Forss, Kyrre Hellum, Richard Forsgren, Agnieszka Zulewska)

Full review See: Interview with Anne Catherine Sauerberg and Thomas Foldberg about The Ugly Stepsister , Interview with Emilie Blichfeldt about The Ugly Stepsister