HCF Review - Skin Deep

REPLACE (2017)

Time for a bit of good old fashioned body horror, a sub-genre which is often employed to get both the brain cells and the stomach juices swirling once the credits roll. Norbert Keil’s feature debut certainly includes this sort of material from the gruesome to the thought provoking, in a story which includes plenty of inspirations from stories about lost time, lost identities and everyday people find themselves the centre of a Metamorphosis. There also seems to be some connecting tissue with a monster of the week X-Files story called ‘2Shy’ for those who remember that classic season. But any good idea is only as good as its execution, and like the protagonist of this story it’s all a bit cracked and broken when put under the microscope.

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Scorecard

NOVEMBER

FILM OF THE MONTH - Silent Running ☆☆☆☆

Review Roundup - Get Hoffa

THE IRISHMAN (2019)

It's been a long time since Martin Scorsese has done a film like this. Or has it? In terms of this style and subject matter there have been many glimpses of it since Casino, most notably in narration driven stories like The Wolf of Wall Street. Many of his films are less about crime and more about the characters after all, even when extortion and violence is placed front and centre. They often mix a variety of tones and a confessional perspective to deliver relatable human drama. But it has been long time since this director and these actors have been together, and as a result this could just be one last hurrah for his decade spanning stories as well as one last team up with Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci. The interesting part is how all the intervening years have affected his approach.

Review Roundup - It Happened Again

2019 CATCHUP - SEQUEL-A-THON

Another year, another bunch of sequels. And they're all... fine? Just fine. At least from the selection I'll cover here. Nobody dropping the ball or outdoing themselves, just more of the same for better or worse. There's really not that much to say in most cases which is why I've left them to this round-up at the end of the summer. The results just feel like an extension of things that don't feel essential, and in the case of one in particular could have been missed entirely. You get just about everything that's to be expected all over again and nothing breaks the mould. Even this intro is starting to feel recycled so enough beating around the bush, let's go down the only road we've ever known.

HCF Review - Abduction

DEVIL'S GATE (2017)

A creepy old farmhouse covered in metal trinkets, a car that has broken down at just the wrong moment… and a backyard full of booby traps. Not the usual ingredients for a science fiction movie about alien visitors, but hey why not throw in some of this horror stuff in too I guess. Although this may have been intended as a kind of Dusk ’til Dawn style bait and switch, there’s no real way of keeping the sudden change of events here a secret. The first act of the story does at least keep things going in a fairly realistic direction with a suspicious disappearance in a rural town, however this is mostly a tale of sinister intruders from other worlds. It might be set on a farm for the most part, but it’s not crops that are being harvested.

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