Category Features

September 3, 2017, Posted in  Features Comments: 3 comments

Horror Channel FrightFest 2017 has come and gone. Like any good horror icon, it will be back. But, let us take time to reflect upon a suitably wild eighteenth year for the festival. For the first time we have decided to round-up FrightFest with a series of awards. Awards which we hope will provide a flavour of what FF 2017 was like. So, until FrightFest 2018…

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BEST “INTRO & Q&A” AWARD– Jennifer Tilly, Cult of Chucky

“I’m here now, bitches!” If we learnt one thing at FrightFest 2017, it’s that an intro to a movie and said movie’s Q&A will go insane if Jennifer Tilly is in the room. A force of nature, when director Don Mancini was late announcing her she burst onstage with, “I have a thing about people starting without me. But, I’m here now, so continue Don, I would love ...

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September 2, 2017, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

You may not have heard of Todd Tucker, but you will certainly have seen his work. A Hollywood make-up artist for over twenty-five years, he has worked on such films as Pirates of the Caribbean, Watchmen, The Boy, Ouija: Origin of Evil and more.

Tucker is also co-founder of movie make-up and prosthetic company Illusion Industries. So, the man knows something about fantasy films. All of which is why his latest outing as a director, The Terror of Hallow’s Eve, is a winner.

A tale of bullied young horror movie fan Tim, and the accidentally deadly deal he makes with a malevolent spirt to get revenge, it’s an affectionate funhouse frightener with characters you can root for.

Tucker’s film is also an unabashed homage to classic 80s movies in the John Carpenter and Steven Spielberg tradition...

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August 1, 2017, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

Horror Channel FrightFest 2017 sees the UK’s premiere fright n’ fantasy film festival turn 18 years old. For any British horror fan, “18” is the rating that promises real terror; red, raw and spicy.

FF2017 looks to be just as juicy.

From Thursday 24^th – Monday 28^th August, FrightFest will showcase 64 movies across five screens at London’s Cineworld Leicester Square (formerly The Empire Leicester Square, the festival’s past stomping ground) and Prince Charles Cinema.

In a veritable cinematic santa sangre, there will be: 20 world premieres; 22 European premieres; 18 UK premieres. And the return of old favourites. To get even more excited, check out this sensational sizzle reel.

Kicking off the festival is Don Mancini’s Cult of Chucky, follow-up to the gleefully nasty Curse o...

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July 28, 2017, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

Dunkirk marks Christopher Nolan’s 10^th theatrical outing since debuting 19 years ago with the impressive low-budget thriller Following.

Across an extraordinary filmography, Nolan has gone into deep space, deep inside the mind, redefined the superhero movie and may have just done the same for the war film.

His films tackle different genres, but crossovers remain in the Nolanverse. Fittingly for the 10-film director, here are 10 ways to spot you’re watching a Christopher Nolan Film… (warning: contains multiple spoilers)

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1. Time Goes Screwy

Christopher Nolan is the only blockbuster filmmaker with a touch of the theoretical physicist about him. Notably, an elastic approach to time, which rarely runs linear in his movies.

The director set out his stall with Following and its old-school f...

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May 14, 2017, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

Summer movies. They promise so much, yet so many times deliver so little. Terminator: Genisys, Jason Bourne, Suicide Squad anyone?

But, eternal optimist Rich Phippen takes an idiosyncratic, partially cautious look at films coming up over the summer period that may very well buck the trend and become warm weather hits.

MAY

Colossal (release: 19th May)

If you want to put your money on the sleeper hit of 2017, look no further than this monster movie with a twist. Gloria (Hathaway) has lost her job and boyfriend, and moved back to her hometown in upstate New York to lick her wounds. But when she gets there, and turns on the TV, she discovers a giant monster is wrecking Seoul in South Korea...

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April 11, 2017, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

SPIRITED REIMAGINING

(Spoiler warning: key plot points from Ghost in the Shell 2017 revealed in this feature)

Mired in whitewashing accusations since 2015 when Scarlett Johansson was announced in the lead. Subject of sustained online fan fury. Mediocre US box office Paramount Studios acknowledged was partly due to this controversy.

Is now a good time to admit I’m a fan of this incarnation of Ghost in the Shell? A reason for this being because of how it addresses its own casting and the surrounding debate? Please give me time to outline the case for the defence.

From Masamune Shirow’s 1989 manga, to Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 anime, its 2004 sequel Innocence, the Solid State Society and Arise spin-offs, Ghost in the Shell is constantly evolving and reworking its themes.

Themes of identity flu...

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February 27, 2017, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

01.31 – Welcome to the first Electric Shadows Oscars blog-along.  A stream of consciousness over the next 4hrs+ at the spectacle of Hollywood’s biggest night.  Currently Justin Timberlake is singing a selection of songs and celebs are looking awkward (see: Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman).  Interesting start… should have been The Lonely Island doing Humble or Incredible Thoughts.

01.36 – First political joke.  Jimmy Kimmell says we are being watched by hundreds of countries that now hate us. Funny joke about Mel Gibson, “you’re looking great, I think the Scientology is working.”  Reference to Matt Damon passing up Manchester by the Sea to star in his “Chinese ponytail film” The Great Wall, a film which went on to lose $80m dollars.

Kimmell’s opening monologue genuinely funny...

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January 3, 2017, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

The powerful coming-of-age drama Moonlight dominated the 2016 Online Film Critics Society Awards, winning a total of four awards out of seven nominations.

The film beat out competition from La La Land, Arrival, Jackie and Manchester by the Sea amongst others to be named Best Picture. Barry Jenkins won Best Director and Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris won Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively.

The Online Film Critics Society’s Governing Committee said, “We’d like to congratulate all involved with Moonlight for the power and humanity of this extraordinary film. Topical and relevant, it is a timely reminder of that which unites us being greater than that which divides us.”

Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, which tied with Moonlight for seven nominations, won ...

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January 2, 2017, Posted in  Features Comments: One comment

2016. We’ll not dwell on what an awful year it was. Suffice to say there was a lot happening in the movie world, some of it bad, some of it rather wonderful. Here is Electric Shadows’ take on the year in film.

As is customary, we’ll begin with…

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WORST FILM OF THE YEAR – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

OfAllTheFilmSites.com editor Rob Wallis and myself begun The Electric Shadows’ podcast this year. For said podcast we have spent approximately 12 hours watching or discussing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. “Visionary” director Zack Snyder’s superhero magnum stinkus is mean-spirited, miserable, ugly, incoherent and fundamentally misunderstands its two titular heroes...

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December 30, 2016, Posted in  Features Comments: No comments

Oh 2016, you terrible year. What general miserableness was foisted upon us these past 12 months. Providing a light in the gloom were movies released this year; a great selection from which it was difficult to draw a top 10. But, we managed it and proudly present what we regard as the year’s best releases.

Before we get to that list, firstly a shout-out to those films that skirted the Top 10 but which didn’t make it in.  Ironically, we couldn’t find room for Room, Green Room, or The Keeping Room.  Captain America: Civil War was the only summer blockbuster worth bothering with, but again didn’t make the grade. Elvis & Nixon, The Nice Guys, Bone Tomahawk, The Hateful Eight, Creed. We salute you, but there were still 10 movies we placed above them.

Here they are – in reverse order as is cus...

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