August 19, 2019, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

One of the brightest gems playing the 2019 Arrow Video FrightFest is Graham Hughes’ Death of a Vlogger.

Cannily spinning fresh ideas into the mockumentary and found footage genres, it tells the story of Graham (Hughes himself), a prolific vlogger who accidentally captures on camera an apparently supernatural event. When this and subsequent spooky occurrences go viral, Graham and his pal Erin (Annabel Logan) hire in brash YouTube ghost chaser Steve (Paddy Kondracki) to help them solve the mystery.

As events unfold, reality begins to wobble and characters question if they can really trust anything on the internet.

A smart skewering of online toxicity and a genuinely unnerving ghost story, Death of a Vlogger should be on the watchlist of anyone who likes their horror served w...

August 14, 2019, Posted in  Reviews Comments: No comments

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Writers: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Dakota Fanning, Margaret Qualley, Julia Butters, Al Pacino, Bruce Dern

Cert: 18

Running time: 161mins

Year: 2019

What’s the story: Los Angeles, August 1969. Has-been actor Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) grinds out a living guest starring on production line TV shows, backed up by his stuntman Cliff Booth (Pitt). Living next door to Rick is Roman Polanski’s wife Sharon Tate (Robbie).

What’s the verdict: Quentin Tarantino’s 9^th movie (if you include Four Rooms and Grindhouse, this is actually the twelfth QT movie we’ve paid to see) sees him use a familiar title gimmick for a movie that dazzles and defies expectations.

His most relaxed movie since Jackie Brown, this ...

August 13, 2019, Posted in  Podcast Comments: No comments

Once upon a time in Middlesex, Robs Daniel and Wallis took a good, long look at Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie, Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood. What better way to tackle an expansive, rambling tapestry of a movie than by having a rambling, discursive chat of their own.

Over 70 minutes the two Robs look at everything from old Hollywood and the rise of the new Hollywood to how Tarantino seems to be making his own statement on women in Hollywood, the troubles of weaving real life tragedy into a wonderland fantasy, how the film treats real life figures Sharon Tate and Bruce Lee, and so much more. Including Burt Reynolds sad passing before he could appear in the film and the unblinking ferocity of Dakota Fanning.

Rob Daniel also muses on the usefulness of Instagram...

August 8, 2019, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

Horror fans will rejoice (and possibly feel a little old) this August Bank Holiday. The legendary Arrow Video FrightFest is marking twenty bloody good years of terror… and it is doing it in style.

From Thursday 22^nd August to Monday 26^th August the Arrow Video FrightFest will host an astonishing seventy-eight movies, a record-breaking number for the event. Celebrating horror from around the globe, FrightFest will bring films from fourteen countries to the Cineworld and Prince Charles Cinema in London’s Leicester Square.

There are 20 world premieres, 20 International or European premieres and 28 UK premieres. Make no mistake, this is horror so fresh the blood is still wet…

Highlights include opening film Come To Daddy, Ant Timpson’s chiller starring Elijah Wo...

July 14, 2019, Posted in  Podcast Comments: No comments

Episode 66 of The Electric Shadows Podcast tackles two different films indeed.

First up we have Spider-Man: Far From Home. Can the latest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe swing as high as Spider-Man: Homecoming or Avengers: Endgame? Or Into the Spider-Verse for that matter? Robs Daniel and Wallis take a look and rank this latest instalment against the webslinger’s previous big screen adventures.

The episode then journeys into the rural horrors of Ari Aster’s Midsommar. The follow-up to Aster’s Hereditary, it’s folklore and cult horror in one. But, does Rob Daniel think it an improvement on Hereditary, that critical darling that left him cold? Rob Wallis was an Hereditary fan, so what does he make of this latest outing?

There is also time for a discussion on what is next ...

June 22, 2019, Posted in  Reviews Comments: No comments

Director: Josh Cooley

Writers: Andrew Stanton, Stephany Folsom (screenplay and original story), Josh Cooley, John Lasseter, Valerie LaPointe, Rashida Jones, Will McCormack, Martin Hynes (original story)

Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Tony Hale, Christina Hendricks, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Madeleine McGraw, Keanu Reeves

Cert: U

Running time: 100mins

Year: 2019

What’s the story: With Woody (Hanks) increasingly becoming sidelined during Bonnie’s playtime, he wonders what the future holds. When the young girl’s homemade toy Forky (Hale) is lost during a family holiday, he takes it upon himself to reunite them.

What’s the verdict: As we currently reside in the darkest timeline, trepidation about a Toy Story 4 is understandable.

Toy Story 3 tied an Osc...

June 21, 2019, Posted in  Reviews Comments: No comments

Director: Lars Klevberg

Writers: Tyler Burton Smith (screenplay), Don Mancini (original characters)

Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Mark Hamill, Gabriel Bateman, Brian Tyree Henry

Cert: 15

Running time: 90mins

Year: 2019

What’s the story: Single-mum Karen (Plaza) gives 13-year-old son Andy (Bateman) a Buddi doll for his birthday. His initial bemusement turns to terror when it transpires this doll, which answers to Chucky, is murderously malfunctioning.

What’s the verdict: Above all other rules of the slasher film, no.1 is the killer never truly dies. That goes double for killer-doll Chucky, who due to the vagaries of Hollywood copyright laws, is owned by two different companies.

Universal currently has the rights to the original saga (at seven films, we’re calling it a saga)...

June 15, 2019, Posted in  Podcast Comments: No comments

In episode 65, we welcome a special guest to The Electric Shadows Podcast. Regular listeners will know that frequent ESP contributor Ian Bird knows his movies. What you may not be aware of is Ian’s 10-year-old son Ronan is also something of a film authority, particularly when it comes to monster flicks.

This isn’t patronising flattery, listen to Ronan’s 12-minute discussion of Godzilla: King of the Monsters in this episode and you’ll know what we mean. His kaiju knowledge puts Robs Daniel & Wallis in the shade. Which is why you’ll find it at the end of the podcast as there was no way their opinions could follow Ronan’s.

Don’t believe us? We’ve had to update this episode with a postscript correction on two errors the Robs have made that Ronan picked up on when li...

June 9, 2019, Posted in  Podcast Comments: No comments

In episode 64 of The Electric Shadows Podcast, Robs Daniel and Wallis show remarkable restraint in largely eschewing X-related puns as they discuss Dark Phoenix.

But, they do talk about the long, windy road of this 19-year-old franchise, why in some ways it is superior to the MCU, where it has stumbled, and what they think of the latest instalment.

Which, of course, is a retelling of a plot events previously visited in X-Men: The Last Stand (aka, the Brett Ratner one, aka the black sheep of the X-franchise, but actually containing good stuff and certainly better than X-Men: Origins – Wolverine).

They also rank the entire series best to worst and make room for favourite moments.

So, pop your headphones on and let us X-cite you. Damn, almost made it to the end!

To check ...

June 2, 2019, Posted in  Podcast Comments: No comments

Episode 63 of The Electric Shadows Podcast is a bonus instalment capping off our Night of the Living Dead trilogy.

Those three episodes looked at George A. Romero’s six Dead films, his other movies and the zombie explosion and totaled just under six hours of edited podcast time.

But, that final episode just grazed the cranium rather than putting one in the brain, so our Living Dead series is still biting. Which is a flowery way of saying there is always something else to talk about.

This episode came about after we had recorded those three Dead episodes. A Herculean effort that took eight hours, so thanks to Rob Wallis and Ian Bird for putting up with Rob Daniel’s request that we got it all done in one day.

Post-record, Ian was kicking himself for not discussing J...