TIFF21 REVIEW: Encounter [2021]

Everything I do is to protect you. A meteorite falling to Earth disintegrates into stardust that subsequently permeates everything it touches. It hits the soil, enters a bug, is consumed again, and then injected into human flesh by a mosquito while feeding on a microscopic tardigrade about to explode. This is the computer-generated prologue to Michael Pearce‘s Encounter that sets the table for its forthcoming struggle between man and neurological parasite. Has he and co-writer Joe Barton therefore shown that their protagonist has suddenly been infected while sleeping? Malik Khan…

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REVIEW: Beast [2018]

I just wanted to go dancing. Everything is and isn’t as it seems with Michael Pearce‘s genre-fluid romantic thriller Beast. What starts with the template of rich girl falling for local bad boy against mom’s wishes turns to a case of serial murder with assumptions made every second that confirm what we believe is real just as they throw everything out the window. Nightmares point fingers inward, physical evidence out. Love becomes a weapon for hope and understanding as well as a mask for impending horror moving closer to home…

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