Doctor Strange [IMAX 3D]

Iron Man origin story + Cyriak music video = Another feather for Marvel's crowded cap and a glorious excuse to explore multi-dimensional insanity in future episodes.

Going Clear: Scientology And The Prison Of Belief

A series of interviews that attempts to understand something which seems just a little bit crazy and in the process of doing so discovers that it is.

My Scientology Movie

Louis Theroux makes a movie about making a movie about Scientologists who are making a movie about Louis Theroux making a movie about making a movie about Scientologists.

The Greasy Strangler

It's so rare to see a film as compellingly unique as this. The closest comparison I can draw is that it's a bit like a Russ Meyer horror movie with less tits but that doesn't come anywhere close to describing the astonishing levels of insanity, hilarity and stomach churning disgust generated by this absolute gem.

May

An excellent central performance by Angela Bettis gets battered about by what looks to be some quite extensive script re-editing.

Smiley

I actually really liked the reverse Candyman idea at the centre of this. Good thing I did otherwise there would've been no hope of me making it through the rest of this limp toss.

Free Fire

Six films in and Wheatley shows absolutely no signs of slowing down in the excellence stakes. This one is far more straight up than the others but ably compensates with a bunch of cracking performances, consistently deft humour and a fuck-tonne of bullets.

The Ghoul

A dizzying swirl of shifting narrative and insidous weirdness. Loved it, but then this kind of thing is so far up my street it goes all the way round the globe and ends up back at the beginning of my street. That clever bit of praise works much better once you've seen the film, go watch it now.

Without Name

A loathsome twat takes a massive quantity of hallucinogens and as his ego melts away he discovers that even when divorced of his concious self he's still a loathsome twat.

Phantasm [Remastered]

I've watched so many horror films that there's not many considered classics that I haven't seen by now. This is one of them, I can easily see how it gained its classic status and now there's even fewer left to watch.

The Void

Good ideas stolen from other people's much better movies slapped together in haphazard fashion. I did like the chap with the messy face who kept headbutting a metal pole jutting out of a wall though.

Trespass Against Us

An attempt to take a sympathetic look at an often demonised sector of society. Surprisingly subtle for a Chemical Brothers music video director and contains by far the best vernacular you'll find in the cinema this year.

Nocturnal Animals

A superb trio of narratives entwined into a rope of seething hatred. Sometimes it's hatred for the lives being led, sometimes it's hatred of the people involved in those lives or in the case of Michael Shannon it's a compulsively watchable hatred of fucking everything.

Last Girl Standing

Attempts to distance itself from shitty slasher movies by examining the aftermath of a campsite massacre and the psychological fallout endured by the only survivor. Until a hamfisted attempt at a twist that is, at which point it uncomfortably wedges an entire shitty slasher movie into the final ten minutes.

After.Life

Needs a serious re-editing to get even remotely close to what it's trying to achieve.

Stalled

Zombie film set in a toilet. And the review writes itself.

The Return

Sarah Michelle Gellar uselessly ambles about somewhere she's never been before having freaky flashbacks to things she's never seen before, all building to a twist that finally makes her relevant but hinges on the unlikely notion that nobody, not her best friend, not even her dad would ever mention to her that she was in a car crash when she was eleven.

Before Dawn

Slow-burn relationship disfunction that gently segues into a feverish zombie struggle.

Borderland

Bland.

Rasputin: The Mad Monk

Dispenses with any allusion to historical accuracy allowing Christopher Lee to hit full badass mode as he uses evil hypnosis to drink, shag and dance his way to power.
King.

Curtain

H.P. Lovecraft via Frank Henenlotter. Loved it, obviously.

Silent House

Shot for shot remake of a one shot movie.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

Adapted from a book already best described as Tim Burton's X-Men. Which means with the heavy lifting done for him he can focus on making a film that is both his best since the nineties and that odd rarity, better than the book.
When I asked the teenaager if she liked it I got both a dismissive shrug and a 'yeah'. Whatever that means.

Night Of The Living Deb

Features the best slow/fast zombie gag in all of horror cinema. The rest is a good example of how a decent, witty script can easily carry a zero budget feature.