After

2012
Dir. Ryan Smith

Bus crash survivors Ana and Freddie (Karolina Wydra and Steven Strait) awaken to find they are the only people left in their small town, and their attempts to leave are thwarted by a towering wall of impenetrable fog completely encircling the place. Before long they discover that all is not what it seems, and as the sinister fog continues to encroach upon them, they realise their time is running out…

Incorporating elements of sci-fi, horror, comic books and fairy tales, and conveying a strong influence from the likes of The Twilight Zone and Carnival of Souls, Ryan Smith's feature debut is an intriguing genre hybrid that, despite revealing its major twist early on, unfurls as a quietly powerful and compelling yarn. With striking visuals, twisting plot, assured direction, strong lead performances, and engaging ideas concerning destiny, fate, and redemption, After is a strangely touching and haunting film.

Head Over to Exquisite Terror to read my full review.

Popular posts from this blog

Whistle and I’ll Come to You (2010)

Image
Dir. Andy de Emmony After placing his senile wife in a care home, retired astronomer James Parkin (John Hurt) heads for the coast to revisit their ‘old haunts’, including the now out-of-season hotel they honeymooned in. By day he is stalked along the windswept beaches by a spectral figure dressed in white, and by night he is terrorised by strange sounds and someone, or something, attempting to enter his room… In the 2000s BBC4 attempted to reignite the old Ghost Story at Christmas tradition by adapting MR James’s A View from a Hill (2005) and Number 13 (2006). This series was seemingly short lived though, as their next outing wasn’t until 2010, and an unusual reinterpretation of James’s classic chiller Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad . While de Emmony’s direction captures the atmosphere and tone of James very well, this film differs significantly from other adaptations, including Jonathan Miller’s supremely unsettling 1968 take . Neil Cross’s screenplay only incorpo...
Read more

Halloween: Resurrection

Image
2002 Dir. Rick Rosenthal Four years after mistakenly killing a man she thought to be her brother (really, Dimension Films? Really ?), long-suffering Laurie Strode is eventually hunted down by her not really dead actual brother, crazier-than-bat-shit Michael Myers, and murderlised. Making his way back home to Haddonfield, Myers discovers the crew of an online reality show has taken over his house (!) to broadcast a Halloween special featuring a group of dumb-fuck teenagers dared to spend the night in the house of ill-repute. Naturally he goes on yet another killing spree. And it's all caught on camera and broadcast online for other dumb-fuck teenagers to watch. Yes, all of this actually really happens. It really fucking happens. Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later did not warrant a sequel. It was intended not only as a twentieth anniversary celebration of John Carpenter's classic chiller , but as a way to draw the series to a close, with its original heroine finally co...
Read more

Caveat (2020)

Image
Isaac, a brooding drifter suffering from memory loss, agrees to look after Olga, the niece of his acquaintance Moe. A troubled woman prone to bouts of catatonia, Olga lives in an old, ramshackle house on an isolated island in the middle of a dark lake. Isaac agrees to wear a chained harness that prevents him from going into certain rooms. He gradually comes to learn of the unsettling history of the house and the unquiet dead it harbours within its walls... Written and directed by Damian McCarthy,  Caveat  is steeped in the Gothic tradition. With distinct echoes of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, it is ripe with a lingering atmosphere of morbidity and decay. McCarthy's screenplay toys with themes such as psychological rot, dark family secrets, and the aftermath of unspeakable violence and cruelty. The story unfolds within the creepy confines of the lonely, mouldy house, with myriad forbidden rooms, hidden passageways and concealed bloody secrets. The house itself is cut off from c...
Read more