From the very first shot, 100 Nights of Hero fits into a particular style of indie film that’s been emerging over the past few years. It’s difficult to track down those I haven’t seen, as there aren’t many and there’s no name linking them. But you know it when you see it. They utilize a vibrant, […]
Author: Austin Noto-Moniz
Sisu: Road to Revenge Review
Sisu has had a strange life. Made by the same team that gave us Rare Exports, it landed fairly quietly at TIFF 2022. Its reception was warm enough, however, to be picked up for distribution. Although its US release didn’t light the box office on fire, it performed quite well relative to its budget and […]
Keeper Review
With Longlegs, director Osgood Perkins burst onto the scene. It may have been his fourth movie, but it represented a stark evolution of his style into something more technically precise, more tonally playful, while still staring into the darkness. That shift, combined with Neon’s brilliant marketing and audience hunger for Maika Monroe’s return to horror, […]
Dream Eater Review
The first movie from Eli Roth’s new production studio, The Horror Section, was Jimmy and Stiggs, a jaw dropping descent into goopy, neon madness. It was a perfect midnight movie that nonetheless played the multiplex. That was all it took to convince me that seeking out the studio’s films moving forward would be worthwhile. Roth […]
Anemone Review
When Daniel Day-Lewis announced his return to acting for the first time since Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, the industry reacted with cautious excitement. Not that anyone in their right mind feared his otherworldly skill had atrophied in his absence. Rather, it was the impetus. It’s impossible to fault him for coming out of retirement […]
Rabbit Trap Review
Judging purely by scale, Rabbit Trap could have been made during the depths of the COVID pandemic. Set on an isolated Welsh hillside that gives way to a dense and disorienting forest pushes thoughts of the wider world out of your mind. The cast consists of just four people, one of whom is relegated to […]
Relay Review
Between the complications inherent in releasing movies during the COVID pandemic, lending his voice to animated features, and the limited theatrical runs enjoyed by most streaming studio fare, Relay marks Riz Ahmed’s return to the screen in a starring role. So it’s quite bold that for its first thirty minutes, we don’t hear his voice. […]
The Roses Review
Welcome to the year of the romcom! Much has been made of the genre’s disappearance from the theatrical experience. True, they still flood streaming services, with Netflix distributing the best of recent years in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man. But with the exception of Anyone But You, few have made any noise either at the box […]
Jimmy and Stiggs Review
After a couple of fake trailers for amusingly dumb horror flicks, it was a genuine surprise that the opening of the film was shot from Jimmy’s (writer/director Joe Begos) perspective. We’re along for the ride in real-time as Jimmy putters and mutters about his apartment, doing coke and smoking grass and downing whiskey and watching […]
Strange Harvest Review
True crime has been around for hundreds of years, arising not long after the invention of the printing press. Whether it serves as a warning to the populace that a pleasant neighborhood is no guarantee of safety, or as pure entertainment designed to satiate our innate curiosity about the unfathomable darkness that lies inside others, […]










