Category Features

March 30, 2020, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

Back in 2018, we were lucky enough to talk with director Sam Ashurst about his debut feature, Frankenstein’s Creature. That film is a singular experience and left us excited for what Ashurst would deliver next.

We are happy to report then that his follow-up film, A Little More Flesh, does not disappoint. A dazzling black comedy whose laughs often freeze in the throat, it tackles issues around the abuse of women in the film industry, and skewers the once-tacitly approved view of directors’ unacceptable behaviour as simply being artists at work.

A film-within-a-film movie, A Little More Flesh unfolds as a director recording an audio commentary for his first feature, a once-banned slice of 70s porn entitled God’s L...

March 14, 2020, Posted in  Features Comments: One comment

This feature was first written when The Hunt was one of the few new films in cinemas. Cinemas that are now closed. What a difference a week makes… But, by the time you read this you’ll most likely be able to watch The Hunt from the comfort of your quarantine zone, as Universal rush release it to digital rental.

In our current world of postponed movies, it is ironic you’ll be freely able to watch The Hunt, because this Blumhouse shocker led the way. Pulled from its original release date of autumn 2019 following mass-shootings in the US, it briefly hit cinemas in the UK on 11th March and 13th in the States.

Back in 2019, right-wing media quickly piled in on a film they saw as a gleefully sadistic tale of liberal elitists hunting Trump supporters...

December 28, 2019, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

2019 may have had many problems, but cinema wasn’t one. The decade closed with a banner year for movies, so much so that our 11-20 list in any other year would have been a fine Top 10. Before we move onto what films we thought were the year’s best, here is a nod to those movies that didn’t quite squeeze in (although it was, appropriately, a close run race between The Peanut Butter Falcon and Le Mans ’66).

So, also check out… Le Man ’66, Booksmart, Monos, Ready or Not, One Cut of the Dead, The Sisters Brothers, Avengers: Endgame, The Report, John Wick 3: Parabellum and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

The Electric Shadows Top 10 Films of the Year also sees a couple of firsts...

October 17, 2019, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

After making quite a splash at this year’s Arrow Video FrightFest, Rob Grant’s Harpoon arrives on The Arrow Video Channel from Friday 18th October…

Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote, Hell is other people. In Harpoon, they are also your closest friends.

A gleefully caustic, witty and violent film about three pals self-destructing when they’re accidentally stuck in a boat out on the ocean, it is rollercoaster horror in the best sense. Snide remarks soon turn darker as resentments and long-held secrets begin to surface, while an omniscient narrator (Fleabag’s Brett Gelman) keeps tabs on their predicament.

Regular readers of this site will be aware of Arrow Video and what they do, i.e...

August 28, 2019, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

The Arrow Video FrightFest 2019 came, delighted and went. Let us take time to reflect upon a fantastic 20^th anniversary weekend for the UK’s premiere horror film festival. Indulge us as we run through memorable moments from the weekend and the movies that played.

THE BUCKET LIST MOMENT – Dario Argento Interview and Signing

For FrightFest’s 20^th anniversary, it was fitting that undisputed maestro of terror Dario Argento was in attendance. Watching an Argento movie at a formative age is the reason many of us have dedicated so much time to the genre. For the record, my movie was Suspiria, viewed age 14 when I should have been revising. I regret nothing…

Dario Argento joined the festival for a one-day appointment on Friday 23^rd, supporting the English langu...

August 27, 2019, Posted in  Features Comments: One comment

A standout movie at the 2019 Arrow Video FrightFest was Tony Dean Smith’s Volition. Co-written with Smith’s brother Ryan, this cerebral sci-fi thriller has reviewers drawing parallels with Looper, Inception and Black Mirror. We rather enjoyed it too..

Adrian Glynn McMorran of TV’s Arrow is James, a man afflicted with clairvoyance. Believing destiny is fated so there is no point in trying to be better, he gets by using his ability to scam sports bets. But, after becoming involved in an illegal diamond exchange, James begins to see visions of his own murder.

Together with Magda Apanowicz’s Angela, a woman who has burst into his world, he must discover the identity of the unknown killer. A journey that will reveal to him his affliction is not quite how he understands it…

August 19, 2019, Posted in  Features Comments: One comment

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 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...

December 29, 2018, Posted in  Features Comments: 2 comments

Time thwarted us and we didn’t get chance to write up a review of 2017. We weren’t going to allow a second year to pass without forcing our opinion of how the year in cinema shaped up on the cinema-going public.

2018 may have seen politicians outdo themselves in dumb-fuckery and the world was put on final notice regarding climate change. But, amidst the wreckage there were pleasures to be had. Many of them found within the dark confines of your local picture house.

Here are some of the most notable moments. But, to match the mood of the year, we’ll open on a downer…

WORST FILM OF THE YEAR – You Were Never Really Here

Lynne Ramsay’s adaptation of Jonathan Ames’ novel is not bad in the sense that it is poorly made...

October 28, 2018, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

At Electric Shadows, we like art of all stripes. Particularly when that art is infused with an achingly cool sense of noir. A painter who has recently grabbed our attention is Vincent Kamp.

For his latest solo exhibition, on Thursday 8th November Kamp will turn Mayfair’s Clarendon Fine Art gallery into a den of iniquity, featuring wily card sharps, inked mobsters and gun-toting barmaids.

Comprising thirty new paintings and featuring a cast of twenty characters, The Long Game tells the story of a high stakes poker match that ends badly.  For one night only, the cast will be present, alongside ‘the narrator’, re-enacting the story to create a unique interactive experience for the viewer.

Acknowledged as one of Britain’s most evocative and exciting new figurative artists, Kamp is fas...