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Posted on October 19, 2016

Without Name: Nature’s Power

Dawn Keetley

Irish folk horror film Without Name saw its US premiere on Saturday October 15, 2016, at the first Brooklyn Horror Film Festival—and it was without doubt one of the best films to play at the festival. Indeed, it just won awards for best feature, best director (Lorcan Finnegan), best cinematography (Piers McGrail), and best editing (Tony Cranstoun). I also want to single out Garret Shanley for a masterful screenplay and the three leads (Alan McKenna, Niamh Algar, and James Browne) for great performances.

Here’s the trailer:

Posted on October 17, 2016

Child Eater

Dawn Keetley

Icelandic-born director Erlingur Óttar Thoroddsen created something of a sensation with his 2012 horror short, Child Eater. He has now turned the short into a feature film, and it screened for the first time at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival on Sunday October 16.

The original short is pretty amazing, and you can watch it on Vimeo:

Posted on October 16, 2016

Mattie Do’s Dearest Sister: Seeing Things

Dawn Keetley

Dearest Sister (Nong Hak) is the second feature film directed by Mattie Do, and it has some similarities to her first film, Chanthaly (2013)—not least its pervasive sense that hauntings happen most often in our closest relationships. Do, who was born in Los Angeles to parents who immigrated from Laos, is making a name for herself as the first female director of a Lao feature film and the first director of a horror film (Chanthaly) written and directed entirely in Laos. Dearest Sister was also produced in Laos, filmed on location in the capital city of Vientiane, where Do was living. As important, though, as Do’s films unquestionably are for Lao film-making, Dearest Sister is an exceptional horror film by the standards of any national cinema. Read more

Posted on October 14, 2016

Babak Anvari’s Brilliant Under the Shadow

Dawn Keetley

Under the Shadow marks the directorial and writing debut of Iranian-born Babak Anvari. Having screened at film festivals in mid-2016 (the film notably won best film prize at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival), Under the Shadow opened in select theaters and on VOD on October 7. Netflix has acquired the rights to the film, so it will eventually be even more widely available. And that’s a very good thing because Under the Shadow is one of the best independent horror films released in the last few years—in the company of The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014), It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014), and The Invitation (Karyn Kusama, 2015).

Posted on September 30, 2016

The Wailing’s Brilliant Ambiguity

Dawn Keetley

The third feature film of South Korean director Na Hong-jin, The Wailing (Goksung) is his first foray into the horror genre. His first two films, for which he also wrote the screenplay, are thriller / action films, The Chaser (2008) and The Yellow Sea (2010).

The Wailing is a beautiful, lush, and thoroughly provocative film, featuring great performances by its four stars: Kwak Do Won as local police officer, Jong-goo, besieged by sudden vicious murders in his peaceful mountain community; Kim Hwan-hee as his daughter, Hyo-jin; Chun Woo-hee as a mysterious (unnamed) woman who seems to have some knowledge of what is behind the violence; and Jun Kunimura as an (also unnamed) Japanese “stranger” to the village, who becomes the target of the villagers’ suspicions.