Remi Weekes directs Sope Dirisu, Wunmi Mosaku and Matt Smith in this British horror where a refugee couple are assigned a council estate masionette which houses terrors within its walls.

Something is in the shadows, something is in the cracks. Well acted, visually impressive and going toe to toe with James Wan’s blockbuster use of negative space, His House is a fine shocker. The ghouls are iconically nasty, the social message heartfelt. Like Jacob’s Ladder (another strong influence on the genre aspects) this is as much an existential puzzle as it is a five fingered exercise. Rial and Bol are clearly traumatised by the manifestations they cannot escape. Is it survivor’s guilt? A curse that has followed them across the ocean? A vision of the hell they do not yet realise they belong in? A psychic attack from the white country and white authorities and white neighbours who do not really want them to settle and integrate? A good old fashioned haunting? Weekes never shows his hand until he has played full value out of each and every card in it. His debut works as both an issues piece and a rattling good spookshow. Featuring stand out work from a defiant Mosaku and a creepy Smith.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart direct Honor Kneafsey, Eva Whittaker and Sean Bean in this Irish animation where the daughter of one of Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers befriends the wild girl who lives in the woods and turns into a wolf in her sleep.

I tend not to watch current kids’ movies now being child-free and finding the critically lauded ones to be often awfully middle class – joyless and conservative. They lack anarchy and fun, are more about emotions than thrilling the pants off of naive eyes. Say what you want about the feature length toy adverts I grew up on but they were action packed and silly affairs. Wolfwalkers had much that I enjoyed though. A Fox & The Hound style across the tracks / ‘we aren’t so different after all’ friendship. Rousing adventure with a strong basis in actual Irish history and a Celtic mystical tilt that appeals to these second generation paddy tastes. A nice, scruffy, chaotic, flowing visual sense that pulls you along like a bolt from a crossbow. If I had a young family I’d happily take them to see this hand drawn treat.

6

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Steve McQueen directs Kenyah Sandy, Sharlene Whyte and Tamara Lawrance in this teen period drama where a bright black British boy is dumped into a pointless “special school” after a few misdemeanours in class.

The final Small Axe film is the most naturally entertaining, the one that resonated with my childhood the most and the closest that one got to bringing me to tears. The scene where Kingsley’s mother tests him on his reading ability just crushes your heart. I struggled at primary school in certain areas and more often than not faced punishment and castigation until I reached secondary school and handwriting was not deemed quite as important as content. I can recognise a lot of what Kingsley went through in class – the restless infractions, the segregation and kinda know… I was lucky to be white and born just a few years later. Despite the hard hitting subject matter… this is the funniest of McQueen’s explorations of black British life from when he and I grew up in West London. It also ends on a warmer moment of hope than the other films. I’m going to give the lauded Lovers Rock another try soon, but for me this and especially Mangrove were the highlights of a year defining project.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Sidney Lumet directs Sean Connery, Harry Andrews and Ossie Davis in this war time drama about the over zealous punishment of the shirkers and deserters consigned to a desert stockade.

Fascism and corruption fight free will and collaboration in a military prison. We start out with a gruelling real time indoctrination. Lumet at his most candidly procedural. We get to experience a few laps up and down the hill, feel the heat of the Libyan sun, the unsure footing of the sand banks, watch even the hardiest hero be felled by a couple more steps. After that we switch to a macho play on film. Not opened up. Lumet likes the claustrophobia and pressure. The state of play becomes repetitive as both sides try and goad and bully the other into making a provable error. Bullying overwhelms every interaction. Bullying on film is often inaccurate. It is not just violence towards a weaker individual. It is a relentless cornering of that person until they a forced to break the rules too. A bully wants to see you lash out or fight back. As then they can use the full force of the rules meant to protect you against you. A bully wants you to be a defenceless version of their own weaknesses. The performances are superb. Connery, the star, is the closest we have to a hero. Yet he is passive unless the opportunity is right. He endures until he spies winnable ground. Ossie Davis is subjected not just to the regular dehumanisation of this process but suffers racism from all sides. He is never broken by them, amplifying the fears in their face in his bravura finale. Then on the side of the officers we have Ian Bannen’s sole good chap and Ian Hendry’s nasty bastard. Two sides of the same coin but one struggles to find his strength of character while the other is viciously sure of himself. The insidious power of the loudest or smartest voice gives way to the most unblinkingly confident. A culture of fear and unwavering fealty to rank fuels the mistreatment and power plays. The finest piece of acting is Harry Andrew’s as the man in charge. He lives by tenets that do not allow for the nuances of personality. And that is his ultimate undoing. Not that anyone wins. For a film that revels in its monochrome starkness, very little is black and white here. If Twelve Angry Men was a celebration of the democratic system, this Twelve Shouty Men is an evisceration of the very idea of systems having power over men.

8

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne directs Thomas Doret, Cécile de France and Jérémy Renier in this drama where a boy abandoned by his father begins to be fostered at weekends by a local hairdresser.

A gritty sweet slice of social realism. Noteworthy that one subplot lays out the realistic process of gang indoctrination of lone kids by older members pretty accurately.

7

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Antonio Campos directs Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson and Bill Skarsård in this adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock’s southern gothic literary sensation where two generations of the town of Knockemstiff, Ohio are consumed by dark desires and zealous faith.

A montage of horrific tragedy and everyday violence. I would say Pollock’s intertwining family histories suffer from a bad case of the Monster’s Balls. If oh so much misery and weird criminality happened over a locale then surely the FBI would eventually become involved? At least these interconnected vignettes are spread over a couple of decades. And I guess if one looks at Pulp Fiction then far more happens in a few days and smaller area there than here. Still whether you want to sit through relentless, feverish, depressing brutality with no glimmer of hope or humour is your look out. It is well acted and beautifully grim, constantly. Akin to a man pouring a jar full of spiders over his head, freakish but you wouldn’t look away. The eventual succession of vigilante resolution reaches a satisfactory closure to all the random threads.

6

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

John Whitesell directs Emma Roberts, Luke Bracey and Kristin Chenoweth in this romantic comedy where two losers make a deal to accompany each other at special occasions over a hectic year.

Aims for a Adam Sandler-level of poppy broadness but due to the script proving rather humourlessly tone deaf most of the time, Holidate plays out like a Rob Schneider shitshow. It is a very busy film and Bracey, while handsome, only has one setting… he’s certainly no Cary Grant, he’s not even a Chris Hemsworth. Emma Roberts and Kristin Chenoweth are better than this and if you have no built up goodwill towards them then I’d say avoid Holidate like the plague. As a Scream Queens fan, I’ll take my Chanel #One fix wherever I can get it. Not even her aunt would accept material as off its meds yet utterly as predictable as this though.

4

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Karen Maine directs Natalia Dyer, Timothy Simons and Alisha Boe in this turn of the millennium set teen movie where a prim Catholic schoolgirl begins to question her community’s attitude toward sex.

More of a well observed light drama than the raunchy comedy it has been pitched as, this is successful on its own terms. It has a sweet sex positive message and accurately portrays the overriding sense of guilt that being raised Catholic installs into exploring your sexuality. Not groundbreaking but difficult not to enjoy.

6

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Lawrence Gordon Clark directs Simon Gipps-Kent, Michael Bryant and Edward Petherbridge in these M.R. James period ghost story adaptations made by the BBC to be screened at the darkest hour over Christmas each year in the Seventies.

Shot on 16mm film, at gothic locations, with high production values for shoestring TV, with a focus on convincing atmosphere (a combination of dread and crumpets) these lesser celebrated A Ghost Stories at Christmas all stick the landing nicely. Camply overacted but all building to an unsettling head of steam, each contains a mystery that keeps you glued and barely glimpsed monsters that irritate your dreams days after you’ve turned the DVD disc off. Ghoulish children with overgrown corpse’s fingernails floating around the hallways. A black slime that follows you home. The spider baby hatchlings that live in the ash tree. All achieved on a low budget yet deployed at a point when James’s stock questing curious academic heroes are too close to the truth to notice the dangers. We are foolishly right by their side as they unravel the dark secrets that any sensible person would leave well enough alone. These shorts all work as more often than not the terror is only peeped at and ignored until those final fateful shots. Before then a patient deadpan rationalism keeps us blinkered as to the true shocks that awaits us all.

7/7/7

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/

Éric Rohmer directs Marie Rivière, Vincent Gauthier and Carita Järvinen in this French romantic comedy where a miserable young woman embraces loneliness (poorly) when her holiday plans are ruined at the last minute.

Quite possibly the nadir of boredom that a competently made narrative film can achieve.

2

Check out my wife Natalie’s Point Horror blog https://cornsyrup.co.uk

We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/