REVIEW: Destroyer [2018]

Let’s see if it’s your time. It’s billed as a down and dirty revenge flick with some calling it a redundant variation on a theme “better” films already delivered. That’s not how I see it, though. No, Karyn Kusama‘s latest is about guilt. Erin Bell (Nicole Kidman) isn’t drowning herself in alcohol and pushing everyone who loves her away because she’s devoting her life to finding the leader (Toby Kebbell‘s Silas) of the criminal outfit she infiltrated as a green undercover agent over fifteen years ago. That may be her…

Read More

REVIEW: XX [2017]

“Well I have to eat. Don’t I?” The concept is simple: task four female directors to create and film four unrelated shorts in the horror vein—with female-led casts—to be combined into a single compilation in which to show off the talents and voices of artists Hollywood continues to ignore. Tap newcomer Jovanka Vuckovic (whose “The Box” is based on a story by Jack Ketchum), musician Annie ‘St. Vincent’ Clark with her debut behind the camera (“The Birthday Party”), the veteran leadership of V/H/S producer and Southbound helmer Roxanne Benjamin (with…

Read More

REVIEW: The Invitation [2016]

“I’ve been waiting to die since the moment it happened” Death plays a large role in our lives, mortality seemingly out of reach but never forgotten. For some it knocks early—or at least earlier than we’d hope to believe. Disease, accident, and fate remind us how precious our time on Earth is. We grieve, pray, repress, and overcome, the inevitable sorrow bringing as much strength to move on as agony to stop everything. And nothing is more heartbreaking or painful than the passing of a child taken too soon and…

Read More