#LFF2016: Down Under, Indivisible, Wild
Quick takes from the 60th London Film Festival, with public screenings from October 5th-16th, 2016.
horror
The Girl with All the Gifts movie review: I believe the children are our future…
Stakes out its own fresh place in an SF subgenre that is well played out, and rehumanizes it ways that are both extraordinarily moving and deeply unnerving.
Blair Witch movie review: more like blah witch…
An entirely superfluous attempt to recapture the magic of the original film. A remake masquerading as a sequel that goes nowhere and has nothing new to say.
Morgan movie review: AI why?
Eschewing the compelling SF questions it raises, Morgan resorts to violence and would-be cleverness, and makes concrete what it should have left ambiguous.
The Purge: Election Year movie review: soylent green is Donald Trump!
A few hints of stagnation aside, this franchise remains a terrifyingly trenchant dystopia. A brutal vision of an America not far removed from our own.
The Shallows movie review: she’s gonna need a bigger surfboard
Pure popcorn thrills. Whips up visceral suspense and maintains it till you’re breathless as it cements the arrival of “woman versus nature” as a subgenre.
Train to Busan (Busanhaeng) movie review: delays due to zombies
This South Korean hit is an oozy doozy of a horror-thriller; confidently spins out its own unique — and breathless — take on familiar genre tropes.
Ghostbusters movie review: boo yeah!
Kate McKinnon’s gleefully reckless physicist is brainy comic mayhem, unlike any female character we’ve seen before. And there are more reasons to cheer.
The Conjuring 2 movie review: haunting only in its disjointed bulkiness
“Less Ed and Lorraine” and “more cheese and cardboard” is precisely the last direction a sequel to the classy original should have gone in. Yet here we are.
The Invitation movie review: do not turn this one down
A chillingly crafted portrait of quiet menacing uncertainty. Balefully replicates the precariousness of not being able to trust one’s own instincts.
