In the back of an ambulance, a paramedic tries to keep a critically injured car-crash victim talking. He asks her name, and if she has any siblings. At first it seems like he’s just trying to help her remain conscious, but then his questions grow more obscure and personal. It’s just one of many early clues in Alps that something in this world is seriously amiss. This new film from [...]

In Tetsuo: The Iron Man, a man’s penis turns into a power-drill while having sex with his wife. She’s into it. In the sequel, Body Hammer, a man’s arm ruptures and transforms into a gun, which he then uses to shoot his infant child. Japan’s answer to David Cronenberg (The Fly), the films of Shinya Tsukamoto have always been horrifically confronting. But his latest outing – Kotoko – deals less [...]

Clip is a Serbian film that I found more disturbing than A Serbian Film. The latter picture gained notoriety last year for its graphic depictions of rape, incest, paedophilia and necrophilia, and was the result of additional controversy in Australia after it was refused classification – banned – by the Australian classification review board. Personally however, I found the content of director Srđan Spasojević movie to be so ludicrous – [...]

A politician whose tyrannical conservatism earned her the nick-name “The Iron Lady”, the life and career of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first and only Prime Minister, was destined to be made into a movie. Mired by controversy from the moment she stepped into office, over her eleven year tenure Thatcher started a war, survived an assassination attempt, and made sweeping changes to Britain’s political and economic landscape that made her a [...]

A chilling murder mystery set against the haunted nights and frozen days of the Scandinavian tundra, the American adaptation of Swede Stieg Larsson’s bestselling novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo seems, at first glance, like the perfect material for renegade filmmaker David Fincher. One of Hollywood’s most celebrated and sought-after directors, Fincher’s resume already boasts two of the best serial killer films of the past twenty years in Seven [...]

While it might not have been what Arthur Conan Doyle had in mind when he first put pen to page, 2009s Sherlock Holmes was a rip-snorting action picture that was hugely popular with audiences and critics alike. Two years later and to the surprise of no one, Hollywood has decided it’s time for a sequel, reuniting director Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) with stars Robert Downey [...]

While its revolting premise and some ingenious marketing has earned The Human Centipede much notoriety online, the 2009 Dutch horror film about three unfortunate tourists sewn anus to mouth by a maniacal German scientist isn’t really all that difficult to stomach. Indeed, the relatively small amount of gore and bodily fluids that director Tom Six actually depicts in the film – along with the general crumbiness of the dialogue, plotting, [...]

The bitter cynic within me — located just left of the pancreas, if we’re being precise — would want nothing more than to rip into the manipulative emotional rollercoaster that is Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo, the kind of on-rails Hallmark drama where every ascent is followed by a predictable fall. Yet preventing such a scathing report is my inner romantic, a resident of the heart who shows up [...]