A Long Shot
directed by Gao Peng
China, 2023, 117′, Drama, OVS
In director Gao Peng’s first full-length film, A Long Shot, the gun in question is seen during the first five minutes and then remains unused until the finale. For the rest of the two-hour running time of this dark and gritty thriller, firearms take a back seat to rampant corruption and crime in the industrial wasteland of northeast China. A long-established iron and steel foundry is in the midst of a major transformation process.
The Fenglin Ferroalloy Factory, a huge rust-covered structure where almost the entire film is set, employs more than 8,000 people and is almost a city unto itself. But wages have not been paid for months and the workers – or whoever is left – are becoming anxious.
To protect the place from a wave of robberies is Gu Xuebing (Zu Feng), there is a former sharpshooter whose career went downhill when he lost part of his hearing, forcing him to take a day job as one of Fenglin’s security guards.
Gu serves under Chief Tian (Shao Bing) along with half a dozen other people, who form an a surrogate police force. Suspects are regularly beaten and rarely transferred to the regular police, and they also have access to firearms – a rarity in China in the 1990s, as stated in the opening credits – but only use them in emergencies.
Back home in his dingy flat, Gu is secretly building his own homemade gun, hoping to continue practising the sport that turned him into a minor celebrity in his province. He’s a loner, keeping to himself at work and maintaining a long-distance relationship with Jin Yujia (Qin Hailu, Cliff Walkers), a single mother who lives across the street with her teenage son, Geng Xiaojun (Zhou Zhengjie), who is a bit of a punk.
Gu discovers Geng trying to steal scrap metal from the factory. Instead of denouncing the boy, he decides to mentor him, teaching Geng the rudiments of his job But the lure of crime is everywhere, whether it comes from the working poor, gangsters lurking in the area or, as we learn at the end, some of Fenglin’s managers.
Attributed to four writers, including director Peng, the script describes a crumbling industrial world scarred by years of theft and misery, where everyone does what they can to survive. Thieves risk their lives to steal rotten copper wires or broken machine parts, revealing the extent to which that part of China was in dire straits at the time, with state-owned companies privatised and sometimes bankrupt.
Although set in the mid-1990s, A Long Shot also seems to allude to the country’s current economic crisis, as well as to an authoritarian system in which responsible workers like Gu find themselves crushed by the constituted powers.
This aspect of the plot ends up clashing with the story of a robbery that emerges in the second half of the film, leading to an epilogue involving a bloody shootout that takes place during the factory’s 40th anniversary celebration.
What makes A Long Shot an important film is not the action scenes, but the dystopian atmosphere thanks to Florian Zinke’s (Two Tigers) rough photography.
Black Cab
directed by Bruce Goodison
USA, 2024, 87′, Horror, OVS
A couple in crisis, Ann and Patrick, take a black cab after a night out. The driver (Nick Frost) seems jovial at the beginning, but soon it becomes evident that he’s not going to bring the couple home and takes them hostage, leading to a road deserted – and presumably haunted. What is his goal? And why did he select this couple?
British drama veteran Bruce Goodison takes a story inspired by the classical gothic horror literature, comprehending Henry James and Shirley Jackson, and places it in a more modern and American genre as the road movie. With only three actors in the main cast, Nick Frost gets the main spot and offers a vast range in his role, from the most known comedic register to more unusual darker tones, finding a good counterpart in Synnove Karlson (Ann)’s interpretation to create the appropriate tension. A compact, claustrophobic horror based on atmosphere and suspense.
Cold Wallet
directed by Cutter Hodierne
USA, 2024, 92′, Thriller, OVS
After a group of Reddit users, including estranged father Billy (Raul Castillo), find themselves embroiled in a cryptocurrency scam, they organise to find and kidnap the rich influencer who caused them to lose everything. Things will not turn out to be as simple as they had planned…
Hodierne mixes the classic genre of home invasion with an extremely contemporary theme, taking his characters to the extreme to reveal what human beings are willing to do for their own gain. Despite the Mephistophelian appearance of the designated antagonist cryptoguru, in fact, the defrauded protagonists have with him not so much a moral confrontation as a class confrontation, linked to an “us against them” determined by the disposition to perform extreme acts in order to rise above others. There is no warmth and passion in their cause, as evidenced by the winter setting and the cold photography that permeates even the internal scenes; does their “Robin Hood-style” vigilantism have noble aims?
Creepy Crawly
directed by Chalit Krileadmongkon e Pakphum Wongjinda
Thailand, 2023, 92′, Horror, OVS
At a quarantine hotel during the pandemic, guests begin mysteriously disappearing. A group of young people begin to investigate, wondering if there is some truth behind the urban legend of an insect-shaped creature that takes possession of its victims…
From Thailand comes a horror film that plays with the dark, claustrophobic atmospheres of its setting, and the idea of an unstoppable contagion that finds similarities in recent reality with the COVID-19 pandemic, inserted not coincidentally as a background element. The special effects, suffering from a request of low budget are compensated for by the skillful use of lighting, music, and framing to build the tension of what is unseen but crawls lurking, as the title suggests (the original The 100 refers to the centipede).
The small cast allows the focus to be on the protagonists, particularly the family relationships they must mend, and the class clash with the hotel manager, characterized as a Romerian-cut capitalist villain. A light viewing, successful in the construction of the situation and its resolution.
Deleter
directed by Mikhail Red
Philippines, 2022, 93′, Thriller/Horror, OVS
Lyra has become accustomed to approaching people as if they were mere data immersed in the ether: her job as a “content moderator” is leading her progressively towards a worrying emotional flattening, from which at least apparently there seems to be no escape.
Every day, in fact, she must reach a quota of deleted videos, in order to prevent content of a violent, sexual or excessively graphic nature from spreading uncontrollably on web platforms in the Philippine country. But the more she sets about erasing clips containing suicides, rapes or borderline inhuman behaviour, the wider the gulf separating her from society and its individuals. And it is from this gap that Deleter articulates all its instances (narrative, thematic, aesthetic) and then restores them to a palpable radicality also by means of a contamination with the classic codes of psychological horror. In this way director Mikhail Red manages to propose not only a discourse – never trivial nor specious – on the politics of the contemporary gaze, and in particular on the emotional distance with which we are now accustomed to approaching the atrocities of today’s world, at the moment when they are returned to us through the non-referential (and therefore desensitising) aesthetics of the digital: but he also shows a great ability to link these reflections to the micro-censorship we are subjected to on a daily basis, especially when we think we can freely express our opinions or views through social activity(s). Because despite the fact that the Web may be a place of “liberation”, its real face is the result of a filter operated, independently, by third parties. And this is where Deleter unleashes its true horror.
Indera
directed by Woo Jing Ming
Malaysia, 2024, 104′, Horror, OVS
Indera opened the seventh Malaysia International Film Festival, MIFFest, in Kuala Lumpur. Joe (Shaheizy Sam) has never been the same since losing his wife (Azira Shafinaz) in an enigmatic accident. He has a daughter, Sophia (Samara Kenzo), who is unable to speak because of past trauma while they are surrounded by the turmoil of the 1985 Memali incident in Malaysia. With the sole goal of curing his daughter, Joe meets a Javanese woman who he believes may have a cure for his daughter’s condition. Both father and daughter are assigned a place to stay, and both father and daughter experience something disturbing and unusual that may simply confuse their memories.
Woo Ming Jin filters the horror through the popularization of Javanese and Malay culture, allowing the local community to be an active part of the film’s aesthetic and narrative construction, just as it was in his previous film Stone Turtle.
The more Joe discovers facts, the heavier the mysteries become. Woo Ming Jin intends for the countless unexplained obscurities to serve as a catalyst for the film’s progression by accumulating as many examples of “cross-path” algorithms as possible. By navigating the film’s path, confusing numerous ideas in various directions, the plot thickens considerably. Sophia’s personal quest to uncover hidden truths also seems to take numerous turns, focusing on horror from a child’s point of view.
Indera is a film rich in tradition and culture and offers the opportunity to discover horror from a political perspective that makes it unique.
Minore
directed by Konstantinos Koutsoliotas
Greece, 2023, 112′, Fantasy/Horror, OVS
In a Greek coastal port, an extravagant group of musicians, bodybuilders, waiters and tourists join forces to fight mysterious creatures from the sea.
The latest effort by Greek filmmaker Konstantinos Koutsoliotas is a comedy-horror with strong splatter tones that offers an honest and genuine insight into Greek humanity. Dreamy tourists, crazy musicians and unlikely athletes are just some of the eccentric and grotesque characters that populate the world of Minore. All these individuals on the margins of society are lovingly described by Koutsoliotas, who entrusts them with the arduous task of saving themselves and the small town in which they live.
Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever
directed by Ole Bornedal
Denmark, 2023, 113′, Horror, OVS
Young Emma (Fanny Bornedal) takes a job as a night guard in the same psychiatric hospital where, thirty years earlier, her parents experienced the greatest trauma of their lives. The young girl, while delving into the mysteries surrounding the tragic events involving her parents, unwittingly awakens a powerful demonic entity imprisoned in the hospital itself. As a result, the nightmare begins again.
The eagerly awaited sequel to the 1994 smash hit Nightwatch, which already had an American remake in 1997, is a grim horror film that puts the same traumas and deviances of the prequel into a contemporary setting. The film stars the talented Fanny Bornedal, daughter of the Scandinavian director, and marks the return of Hollywood star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, whose career was launched by the 1994 film.
Oversteer
directed by Derrick Lui
Singapore, 2024, 86′, Action/Drama, OVS
After his intimist debut 1400 in 2015, which successfully made its way to many international festivals including Asian Film Festival in the Newcomers section, Singaporean independent director Derrick Lui sets his second work in the world of car racing. Wind, a young racer, is at odds with his father, who nurtured his passion for cars, since he refuses to join his family’s company, preferring to work in a workshop with his friend Fu.
Far from the Hollywood genre films, produced particularly in the 1970s and often starring Steve Mcqueen and Paul Newman, Oversteer seeks a different form of spectacularity, plastic in its depiction of speed and its myriad pitfalls; actions sequences are few, and realized entirely by stunts during production. Lui relies on chiaroscuro and neon lights at night, rendering a liquid atmosphere of great charm. Certainly, characters’ characterisation is less successful: despite Aden Tan’s great performance, our protagonist doesn’t show many nuances, and the interactions with his wife and his friend, who betrays his trust, result over the top most of the time.
Oversteer remains an appreciable independent film, a dream project which required 10 years for Lui to realize it, due to changes to the script, funding issues and post-production during Covid-19 pandemic which prevented flying between Thailand and Myanmar – where also a military coup happened in 2021.
Pula
directed by Brillante Mendoza
Philippines, 2024, Drama/Thriller, OVS
A close-knit community’s foundations are shaken by a tragic event – a teenage girl’s murder. Senior Master Sergeant Daniel Faraon (Coco Martin embarks on a path of retribution, entangled in deception and betrayal.
The Code
directed by Eugene Kotlyarenko
USA, 2024, 98′, Comedy/Drama, OVS
We follow the misadventures of a sexless couple: while Celine (Dasha Nekrasova) is making a documentary about the pandemic’s impact on couple dynamics, Jay’s intent is to add his point of view to the narration. Their relationship enters in a dysfunctional spiral of mutual sabotage; will the phrase “I love you”, repeated many times during the movie, maintain its value?
Kotlyarenko is an author with the aim, since his beginnings, to explore through comedy the millennials’ new approaches to intimity and the neuroses of relationships conditioned by the constant presence of web and social - The Code adds also questions about future and resilience during COVID-19.
The director’s style, called ‘cinema desktop’, uses split-screen shooting in an unconventional way, combining hand-held cameras similar to mockumentary, surveillance micro cams, computer webcams, even recordings of phone screens. The intent is to replicate our perception of reality – or iperreality -, where our phones have become our extension, and the apathy most of the new generation develops as a shield in an interconnected, unfiltered world. The initial quote by Orson Welles, an innovator of media narration, can provide the viewer an orienting light.
The Killer Goldfish
directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi
Japan, 2024, 95′, Horror/Comedy, OVS
After a 50,000-year-old human fossil is discovered deep in the mountains of Japan, a series of bizarre and strange murders spread across the country. Mysteriously, a goldfish bowl and a crushed goldfish were found at each crime scene. Erika, an investigator with the public security service’s special unit, takes on the case and believes that the murders are the result of a psychic’s use of the goldfish as a weapon. Soon, Erika becomes involved in a grand scheme of revenge stemming from the genes of ancient fossils. Prolific Japanese director Yukihiko Tsutsumi is back with a compelling and crazy new story. Expect creepy spirits to arise from Japan!
The Waterhouse
directed by Samuel Clemens
UK, 2023, 84′, Horror, OVS
After stealing a precious painting, three men refuge in a secluded safe house by the sea, waiting for their accomplice (and one of them’s mother) who though fails to show up. While suspicion arises between the three that one of them might be responsible for her disappearance, and the arrival of three young women makes their plans more complicated, the presence of a sinister creature lurking in the water becomes more evident…
Son of producer and screenwriter Brian Clemens, descendant of Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens crafts a three-acts opera in which often modifies narrative structure but makes us stay on our toes: after the first fifteen minutes, psychological and without dialogue, the central part transforms in a role-playing between genres – and genders – to culminate in an adrenalinic finale, where our protagonists face their past choices.
Highly valuable are the shots constantly framing the sea as a potential danger (Evil Dead’s steadicam set an example), the photography in warm tones contrasting the cold and dark imbued in most of the film, and the music that results hypnotic and ominous at the same time. A Greek tragedy pièce, as irresistible as the siren song.
To a Land Unknown
directed by Mahdi Fleifel
UK/Greece, 2024, Drama/Crime, OVS
Two cousins, Reda and Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) are Palestinian refugees who left Lebanon to try their fortune in Europe and are now stranded in Greece, willing to do everything to get falsified passports and transfer to Germany. After Reda’s addiction has caused them to lose their money, Chatila plans a desperate solution involving a young boy in a similar situation as theirs and a loud Greek woman (Angeliki Papoulia).
Nominated in the Quinzaine des Cinéastes at 2024 Cannes Festival, Fleifel returns to fiction after directing several short documentaries in which he explores social drama, exile, marginalization, gradual hopelessness. Reda and Chatila also feel like prisoners everywhere they stay: Gaza, Lebanon… Athens is just the latest, and the camera makes us feel the sensation through the absence of wide shots and the intimistic sequences, often close to the questioning faces of the protagonists.
A search for realism with the intent to talk about reality, with moral ambiguity and no stereotypes, reminiscent of the New Hollywood (Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese are declared inspirations). An uncompromising story of people without landmarks, quite far from Elia Suleiman’s bittersweet approach.
What Remains
directed by Ran Huang
UK/Finland, 2022, 126′, Drama, OVS
A patient in a Scandinavian psychiatric hospital, Sigge Storm (Gustaf Skarsgård), confesses to being the author of the murder of Carlos Ross, a child who disappeared into thin air fifteen years earlier in 1977. Due to his unreliable and confused memory, the man will be assisted in the reconstruction of the facts by psychologist Anna Rudebeck (Andrea Riseborough) and investigator Soren Rank (Stellan Skarsgård). The three, with different methods, will collaborate in the attempt to reconstruct a truth with ambiguous connotations.
Starting from the solid basis of Scandinavian noir, Ran Huang goes beyond the surface of crime, dragging his film into the depths of deep human psychological analysis. Based on the true crime case of Sture Bergwall aka Thomas Quick.
What You Wish For
directed by Nicholas Tomnay
UK, 2023, 101′, Thriller, OVS
Ryan Mosley (Nick Stahl) is a talented chef with a gambling habit. Accumulated debts drive him to leave the United States and visit his long-time friend Jack (Brian Groh), who is also a chef in a catering agency living in a luxurious villa in a Latin American country. Soon, suspicions arise in Ryan about the activities involving his friend until a tragic event forces him to completely change his plans.
Tense and distressing, the second full-length film written and directed by Nicholas Tomnay after his 2010 debut with The Perfect Host, is a calibrated thriller with horror overtones. It is innovative in form but at the same time keeps an eye on the great tradition of the genre, from the classic Psycho to the more recent The Menu.