My Best Friend’s Exorcism

In 1988 best friends Abby and Gretchen navigate boys, pop culture and a paranormal force clinging to Gretchen. With help from a mall exorcist, Abby is determined to compel the demon back to the pits of hell -- if it doesn't kill Gretchen first.
Initial release: 30 September 2022
Director: Damon Thomas
Story by: Grady Hendrix
Distributed by: Amazon Studios

A Horror Movie Review By George Wolf

It’s the late 1980s in South Carolina, where Abby (Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade) and Gretchen (Amiah Miller, War for the Planet of the Apes) are BFFs. Even though Abby’s family is a bit more hardscrabble while Gretchen’s “hamburgers don’t need help,” the girls have been inseparable since waaay back in the early 80s.

Now they’re sophomores at a Catholic high school, facing a bummer of an upcoming summer. Gretchen and her family will be moving away.

But there’s lots of fun to be had before that day, and it starts with joining their other friends Margaret (Rachel Ogechi Kanu) and Glee (Cathy Ang) for a girl’s getaway at a secluded cabin by the lake.

Oh, great, Margaret’s boyfriend Wallace (Clayton Royal Johnson) shows up, too, which means plenty of PDA and sex talk. But scary talk soon takes over, as the gang heads off to investigate a creepy old building where a girl was supposedly sacrificed in a satanic ritual.

Once inside, Gretchen gets separated from the group, and by the time she catches back up, Abby’s best friend has changed.

Director Damon Thomas and writer Jenna Lamia adapt Grady Hendrix’s novel with charm and zest, bringing together a variety of tropes for a mashup just out for some fun.

And they have it. From 80s music to religion to possession movie staples, the barbs keep coming, delivered with an alternating mix of sarcasm, satire, raunch and projectile vomiting.

Fisher and Miller are wonderful together, cementing the film in a friendship that rings with the authenticity needed to effectively raise the stakes of survival. The insecurities about zits, weight, sex and peer pressure are sweetly heartfelt, and Abby’s uncertainty about the best way to help her friend brings a nice balance of humanity to the inhuman.

And for awhile, it does seem Thomas and Lamia are on the way to making a big metaphorical statement about leaving childhood behind, repression, and chasing imagined demons while evil is right in front of you.

But by the time Christopher Lowell is stealing scenes as one third of a hilariously lame “faith and fitness show” who also fancies himself a demonologist, the nuttiness has won out for good.
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And that’s okay. My Best Friend’s Exorcism is the teenage sex comedy religious satire devil flick we didn’t expect. No need to aim higher when it pretty much nails the bullseye.

George “Screen” Wolf is co-founder and writer for maddwolf.com. He’s also  film critic for Saga Communications radio (25 markets across the US), Columbus Underground and UK Film Review.

In Columbus, Ohio, you can catch George on TV every Friday morning on ABC6/Fox28’s Good Day Columbus.

George is a member of the Columbus Film Critics Association, and lives in Grandview Heights with his wife, Hope Madden. Their son Donovan lives in L.A. George enjoys music, politics, his Harley, sports, travelling, and, oh yeah, movies!

Contact George at maddwolf95@gmail.com.

Follow George on Facebook and Instagram @maddwolfcolumbus and on Twitter @maddwolf

Hocus Pocus 2

Three young women accidentally bring back the Sanderson Sisters to modern day Salem and must figure out how to stop the child-hungry witches from wreaking havoc on the world.
Initial release: 30 September 2022
Director: Anne Fletcher
Distributed by: Disney+

A Horror Movie Film By Hope Madden

Thirty years ago (more or less), Disney released a family friendly seasonal comedy that underperformed and was forgotten. Forgotten, except by every 8-year-old who watched Hocus Pocus then or would go on to rewatch it annually during spooky season.

The entertainment behemoth finally realized what it had and commissioned a sequel. Hocus Pocus 2 reunites willful witches Winnifred (Bette Midler), Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Mary (Kathy Najimy) with Salem, the town that hates them.

What is it that reawakens the evil Sanderson sisters? A somewhat convoluted storyline, actually, but it involves female empowerment and community and it’s charmingly, inoffensively told.

Halloween’s here, and with it, Becca’s (Whitney Peak) 16th birthday. She’ll celebrate this year as every year by sharing a little spookiness in the woods with her bestie, Izzy (Belissa Escobedo). It’ll be the first year that the third in their trio, Cassie (Lilia Buckingham), doesn’t join because she’s hanging out with her boyfriend. Meh!

Anyhoo, the Sandersons are accidentally conjured. Somehow the local crystals and essential oils purveyor (Sam Richardson, likable as ever) is mixed up in things. And Cassie’s dad – kindly Mayor Traske (Tony Hale) – is in mortal danger!

Director Anne Fletcher (The Proposal) hits enough nostalgic notes that adult fans of the original will feel seen. Its contemporary story allows for brand new witch-out-of-water scenarios to explore, and, of course, the sisters are always up for a musical number. But this is definitely a kids’ film.

The original was a kind of sibling to Fred Dekker and Shane Black’s 1987 family film Monster Squad. Both showed poorly at the box office and went on to become beloved seasonal fixtures. Hocus Pocus brought the sensibilities into the nineties by, for one thing, recognizing that boys can also be virgins. HP2 modernizes further.

To begin with, not every citizen of Salem is white. And though it’s impossible to entirely redeem three characters looking to eat children, at least the sequel skims the ideas of systemic misogyny. But mainly it offers campy, scrappy, bland but amiable fun.
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Midler, Najimy and Parker reinhabit the old trio well enough to remind us why so many kids loved the original. Whether HP2 can strike the same chord with today’s youth is tough to tell, but at least there’s a Halloween flick everyone can watch together.

Hope Madden is a writer and award-winning filmmaker living with her husband George and cat Velma in Columbus, Ohio. She writes what scares her, which worked out fine until she became a filmmaker and had to live what scared her for the duration of a shoot. Terrible decision. Her novella, Roost, was published in 2022 by Off Limits Press and her first feature film releases in late 2022.

Some minor spoilers ahead

The premise of WHO INVITED THEM is simple. Having bought a swanky new house in the hills, Adam (Ryan Hansen) and Margo (Melissa Tang) throw a party to show off their new status symbol. However, it turns out that Adam is a bit of a dick and people leave early, unimpressed by his posturing and need to be centre of attention.

Or do they…?

Tidying up after the party, they find Tom (Timothy Granaderos) and Sasha (Perry Mattfeld) still hanging around in their new home. At first, Adam and Margo are shocked and angry and try to get the strangers to leave. However, they calm down when they discover Tom and Sasha are their new neighbours. Adam’s insecurities and need to impress lead to him invite Tom and Sasha to stay and drink more of his ‘famous’ Old-Fashioned cocktails. Thus begins an evening of reflection for Adam and Margo as the cracks in their marriage are pushed wide open by their guests who manipulate them in a way that eventually leads to violence and terror.
‘Eventually’ is the key word here.

For a film that runs to just 80 minutes, it takes a long time for anything to really happen.

Influenced by similar home invasion movies like Ils, Cherry Tree Lane, The Strangers, Knock Knock, and Funny Games, WHO INVITED THEM tries to build tension as the interaction between Adam and Margo, and Tom and Sasha develops over one night. However, it isn’t until about 15 minutes before the end that any real reveals occur, by which time it is too late to fully capitalise on the terror that Adam and Margo face. This is frustrating for the audience as we know exactly who Tom and Sasha are very early on, but we have to wait far too long see their true colours. Tom and Sasha are clearly psychos, so let’s see them in action, don’t draw things out.

In Funny Games, the boys get stuck into terrorising the family almost immediately and are completely unpredictable. The horror arises from the fear of what is going to happen next and putting yourself in that situation. In WHO INVITED THEM, although we know Tom and Sasha are wrong ‘uns, they just come across as a bit annoying; there isn’t anything to fear in what they do. Yes, they force Adam and Margo to face up to the failings in their relationship, but not in any way that didn’t seem to be almost immediately forgotten by the couple. Take away the last 15 minutes of the film and this is just extreme marriage counselling. Considering who Tom and Sasha are revealed to be, this was a missed opportunity.

Instead of getting Tom and Sasha front and centre doing their thing, the film chucks in a side plot about Adam and Margo’s son, Duncan, who is at a sleep over. When Duncan realises he has forgotten his favourite toy, the mother, Teeny (Tipper Newton) sets out in the middle of the night to drive back to Adam and Margo’s on a mission to retrieve the stuffed toy. This really is just padding to add tension – would Teeny get to the house and save Adam and Margo or would she get caught in the funny games? I didn’t really care. Once Teeny, using her cell phone while driving her shiny new electric car gets lost and doesn’t think to use sat nav, I couldn’t care less. This subplot simply serves as a catalyst for something that happens towards the end of the movie that really had no bearing on the story at all. We could have gotten to the same place without it. Hell, Adam and Margo didn’t even need to have a kid, he had no impact on the story and was never in any jeopardy. It just felt like padding and a distraction from Tom and Sasha.

The film is well directed and looks good. Granaderos and Mattfeld do a fantastic job of being annoying and threatening and are definitely the more interesting of the couples. They really should have been allowed to do more and cut loose earlier in the film. When the film finally hits its stride 15 minutes before the end, they get to show who they really are, and we get to see the psychos at play. We see a glimmer of the way their minds work and the terror they are capable of wreaking. But it is too late by then. Unleashing their inner psychos and upping the unpredictability would have added so much more terror to this film.

The acting is good, and the four main characters work well together. It starts a bit shaky and some of the dialogue is a bit clunky to begin with, but it does settle down and was fine for the rest of the film.

Now, all this makes it sound like I hated WHO INVITED THEM. I didn’t. I had fun watching it, I just felt it didn’t quite capitalise on the premise and took too long to get to the juicy bits. The film is also listed on IMDB as COMEDY HORROR and the comedy didn’t really land for me, I was hoping for something darker, along the lines of FUNNY GAMES, but that is a personal preference, and it may just be that I didn’t click with the vision of the team behind the movie. If you like the sound of the logline and enjoy the trailer, then give WHO INVITED THEM a go, just don’t expect full on home invasion terror.


WHO INVITED THEM is a solid but predictable thriller that wastes a bit too much time getting to the juicy stuff. While mind-games are a big part of the film, we never really get beyond the mildly irritating for the most part. When you have psychotic loons insinuating themselves with strangers for nefarious purposes, you want to see them at their worst but in WHO INVITED THEM we really just get to see how crappy Adam and Margo’s relationship is – which may well be the point, but Tom and Sasha are easily the more interesting couple and feel like a missed opportunity. It really just feels like Tom and Sasha were killing time with Adam and Margo and, but for a conveniently forgotten earring, everything would have probably been fine.
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WHO INVITED THEM will fill a Friday evening after a few too many Old Fashioneds but will likely be forgotten in the Saturday morning hangover fog.

House of Darkness

Justin Long and Kate Bosworth star in this seductive thriller from director Neil LaBute (The Wicker Man). Driving home to her secluded estate after meeting at a local bar, a player out to score thinks his beautiful, mysterious date will be another casual hook-up. While getting acquainted, their flirtation turns playful, sexy and sinister. Hoping to get lucky, his luck may have just run out.

Director: Neil LaBute
Screenplay: Neil LaBute

A Horror Movie Review by Hope Madden

Who hurt Neil LaBute?

Would it surprise you to find that the latest from the writer/director behind In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors (as well as the less impressive Wicker Man reboot and others) is a meditation on sexual dynamics, power and agency? That it’s brimming with psychosexual wordplay? That it’s bitter and a bit misguided?

How many times can we disassemble the mating ritual to judge and shame those involved?  

Sometimes LaBute does it well—so well that it’s tough not to look forward to whatever he releases. House of Darkness sees the filmmaker again exploring his favorite topic, this time within a horror context.

Justin Long riffs on his nice guy persona, his character Hap actually referring to himself at one point as “one of the good ones.” (Had Hap seen Promising Young Women, he might have had sense enough not to make such a claim.)

Hap’s been lured into the stately gothic manor of the lovely Mina, played with controlled ferocity by Kate Bosworth. Bosworth seems to relish the directness of her character. Mina’s disinterest in accommodating Hap’s insecurities is glorious—a reminder of how casually brutal LaBute’s work can be.

Perhaps because he started his career as a playwright, each of LaBute’s films rise or fall on dialog. House of Darkness is a chamber piece – it could easily be a stage play (though it’s likely a Covid production). Limited performers pepper scenes with double entendres in an awkward dance of “will we or won’t we” sexual politics.

The difference this time around is the genre trapping, a first for the filmmaker. The look is lush and effective, particularly the more fantastical sequences. Long — a genre veteran — delivers a bit of nuance, his Hap never entirely sympathetic but definitely hard to hate.
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The story builds effectively enough. It’s just that nothing is ever in question. The genre tropes are more threadbare from use than LaBute’s banter-driven power game. Worse, the point rings hollow, like a disingenuous, cash-grab reversal of In the Company of Men.

Tiny Cinema

A mysterious stranger tells the twisted tale of seemingly unconnected strangers caught in a series of otherworldly events whose lives will change in incredible ways forever.

Director: Tyler Cornack

A Horror Movie Review by Daniel Baldwin

Colloquialisms being taken to their absolute extremes. A woman struggling to find happiness in solitude. A pleasure-deprived man seeking help from his friends. Body horror ending not in goo and grue, but in dad jokes?!? Tiny Cinema is a comedic genre anthology film that wants to make you laugh and gasp in equal measure with the outrageous storytelling that it contains within. Does it succeed? Mostly.

Tiny Cinema is the latest cinematic endeavor of director/writer/actor extraordinaire Tyler Cornack and his motley crew of performers. If you’ve seen their previous effort, Butt Boy, you’re going to spot a lot of familiar faces across all six segments here. This film largely lacks that one’s Henenlotter-esque weirdness, however. It instead opts for a modern Twilight Zone vibe; offering up situations where ordinary people find their lives turned upside down by strange occurrences that are either tied to everyday problems (i.e. loneliness, sexual dysfunction, dating) or become twisted takes on everyday sayings (i.e. “That’s what she said!” and “Yo momma!”).

The results are mixed. On the positive side of things, there is a great host in the form of the quirky and deeply charismatic Paul Ford. The first three segments are also really entertaining (particularly “Bust!”). Furthermore, what really helps Tiny Cinema along is its cast. The troupe that Cornack has pooled together are all beyond game for whatever delirious nonsense he asks of them and that helps smooth over even the segments that don’t really work. They help to drive his best ideas home and make his films worth seeking out.

It’s in the back half where things begin to wobble, as the other three segments aren’t nearly as strong. Almost all anthology films have weak spots. Unevenness is par for the course with episodic storytelling. The weaker segments here are the slighter ones that just aim for shock value. Unfortunately, with them all filling out the second half of the feature, it means that it starts with a bang and ends with a bit of a whimper.
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Tiny Cinema might be a step down from Butt Boy, but it’s a solid indie slice of portmanteau moviemaking. If you’re game for some weird fun, this might just be up your alley.

Daniel Baldwin is a freelance film critic currently residing in West Virginia. He is the owner/operator of The Schlocketeer and his work has also appeared at Bloody Disgusting, Dread Central, Forbes, and MaddWolf.


Follow Daniel @schlocketeer on FaceBook and @schlocketeer Twitter.

Cecilia (Aisha Dee) runs ‘Sincerely Cecilia’, a growing social media account that provides spiritual guidance to those who are struggling with life and need support and reassurance when times are tough. With over 200k followers Cecilia is an influencer on the rise and has even managed to garner some interest from celebrities and companies seeking to endorse their products. (I did chuckle at the wonderfully named, “Elon Mask” facial product.) However, that is just the public face of ‘Sincerely Cecilia.’ Behind the scenes Cecilia appears to be a relatively normal young woman, living in a mildly untidy apartment and eating cold pizza for dinner, until…

… a chance encounter with her childhood best friend, Emma (Hannah Barlow) leads to an invitation to Emma’s bachelorette weekend and an uncomfortable reunion with Cecilia’s school bully, Alex (a delightfully bitchy Emily De Margheriti). It was Alex who formed the wedge between Cecilia and Emma that eventually ended their BFF relationship. Seeing Alex dredges up old wounds for everyone (literally and figuratively) as well as Cecilia’s childhood nickname “Sissy, The Sissy” that she has been fighting to put behind her ever since. The pain and animosity of the past is too much for Alex and Cecilia to put behind them and, as the tension rises, things spiral out of control and the weekend turns into one of murder and mayhem.

Sissy examines the power of social media and bullying, of belonging and acceptance. It explores the complexity of identity, both external and internal, how we see ourselves and how we think others see us. The effects of bullying last a lifetime and, while most people don’t resort to murder, Sissy forces us to explore how hard you can hit back at the people who almost destroyed your life. The beauty of the film is that neither Sissy, Alex nor even Emma are exactly innocent; they all played a part in the past trauma. But who should you identify with? The bullied or the bully receiving (disproportionate?) justice? Both Alex and Sissy have grudges to bear, but are their actions and behaviours justified? Sissy blurs the lines between right and wrong in the same way social media often portrays a biased, one-sided view of the truth. The film does an excellent job of instilling the audience with a sense of empathy and sympathy for people doing horrible things, as you find yourself debating whether or not you would do the same and whose side you should really be on?

This all presents Sissy as the  bastard child of Promising Young Woman and American Psycho. There are elements of revenge and a darkly humourous undertone that explores the issues around identity and belonging much like American Psycho did, just in an updated environment of celebrity and social media. Just how important and influential is a big online following? Is there any truth in the online world? The cult of celebrity that surrounds influencers is also studied here; fans and stans believing everything their heroes tell them without question. While the behaviour in Sissy is an awfully long way over to the right of my ‘NORMAL to ****ING MENTAL’ scale, the outcomes, in this day and age, are very much believable.

The writing and direction here is great and the cast is fantastic, but Aisha Dee as Sissy is the standout. She plays Sissy with a palpable level of anxiety and fragility so deeply embedded in her past experiences that her journey in the film is both expected and shocking. I haven’t seen her in anything before, but she plays a blinder in Sissy! She is, in one moment, a delicate victim who needs a reassuring hug and, in the next, a stone-cold angel of retribution!

I have seen criticism of Sissy that it doesn’t address the obvious issue of racism, and that this is a missed an opportunity. While some of the behaviour in Sissy could well be embedded in racism, the film does a great job with straightforward representation. For example, Jamie (Daniel Monks) is a great character who just happens to be disabled, but his disability is not a focus of the film, until he needs to run away from danger, of course. The issues front and centre here are friendship and how childhood relationships can be the most intense experiences of our lives and, when they break down, they can also be the most devastating with far reaching and long-term consequences.


Sissy comes with some great practical effects and, although they are low budget, they are suitably icky. Practical effects in horror are always better than CGI in my opinion. Yes, ILM can render a pretty impressive dinosaur but, if you want a head to explode, sometimes it is just better to just fill a bag with offal! Some of the practical effects in Sissy are obviously on the cheaper side, but they are all the more visceral, stomach churning and (dare I say it) satisfying for it. Sissy doesn’t hold back and has plenty to keep gore hounds happy. I think I spotted a couple of CGI shots which weren’t quite as effective, but they are fleeting.

I say this a lot when reviewing films, but I can’t really talk any more about the plot in Sissy without giving it all away. While the plot isn’t exactly complex, there are enough little twists and turns to grab your attention and I don’t want to spoil anything. I went into Sissy with just the basic blurb and thought it was going to go in a slightly different direction from what it did. While you have a fairly good idea of where it is heading once everything kicks off, it is still a hell of a lot of fun getting there! I can imagine this would have been fun to watch in a crowded cinema.

In a couple of other recent reviews, I have used my new, patented “wristwatch” method of scoring films and, for Sissy, I can safely say I didn’t once check my watch during the film.
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**** it, just watch it when it comes out, it’ll be worth it.

As an exploration of grief and guilt, CONTROL works fairly well and the decisions Eileen makes at the end are understandable when you consider the memories that she has recovered; I still wonder if Cypher had the right idea in The Matrix. However. the mystery around the room and the unseen testers is barely touched on and some may find that a little disappointing. I know I did. Not enough for me to hate the film, but enough to be a little irked by the end of it. I can guess, maybe, but it isn’t as satisfying as having a bit more info to play with; I don’t necessarily expect everything to be spelled out, but a few more breadcrumbs might have made it more interesting to think about after the fact. As it is, I enjoyed the film, but it isn’t one that I found myself thinking about in much detail after the credits rolled.

Which is a shame as this is a pretty slick, nice-looking, low-budget thriller. James Mark does a great job at directing and the cast work hard; Mitich and Tchortov admirably carry the majority of the film on their shoulders. Single-location movies like this are always tricky to get right, to hold the audience’s interest, but Control manages it. It is also well-written by James, and Matthew Nayman. The dialogue can feel a bit clunky at times but, again, this can be a problem with such films where you have characters talking to silent, invisible antagonists. I did find myself a little bugged by some of the decisions Eileen and Roger made when solving the puzzles; just do something, stop debating it! But that does help immerse the audience in the action as you find yourself screaming at the screen in the same way Roger shouts at his wife in a really unhelpful attempt to be…encouraging. Actually, now I think about it, Roger is bloody annoying when he first appears!

Overall, I enjoyed my time with CONTROL and, if the synopsis interests you, then I think you will too. It’s always a personal thing, but the lack of detail around Eileen’s incarceration may annoy some, but it is not a deal breaker on what is, otherwise, a decent low-budget thriller.
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Control comes to UK streaming platforms on 26th September 2022.

Saloum


Saloum is a 2021 Senegalese thriller film directed by Congolese director Jean Luc Herbulot and produced by Pamela Diop. The film stars Yann Gael, Mentor Ba and Roger Sallah in the lead roles whereas Evelyne Ily Juhen, Bruno Henry, and Marielle Salmier made supportive roles. 
Initial release: 2021
Director: Jean Luc Herbulot

A Horror Movie Review by Hope Madden

There is no denying the stylistic mastery of Jean Luc Herbulot’s Senegalese horror Saloum. An opening voice-over describes revenge as a river that eventually drowns you, but a wise viewer will follow Herbulot’s current because this film knows where it’s going even when you don’t.

We open during the 2003 coups in Guinea-Bissau. In an incredible shot down an alley of endless bodies, we first meet three hooded men. These men are mercenaries, Bangui’s Hyenas, and they’ve come to extract a drug dealer from the dangerous city. But his escape goes south and soon Chaka (Yann Gael), Minuit (Mentor Ba) and Rafa (Roger Sallah) find themselves hiking across deserts, boating through winding waters, and laying low in an unusual little hideaway near the delta in Senegal.

Already we’ve gone from war movie to crime thriller to Western, and we’ve barely exited Act 1. Act 2 will float between mystery and revenge thriller before Herbulot finally embraces the supernatural horror we realize has been bubbling just beneath the surface all along.

A trio of fascinating performances keeps your eyes fixed on the Hyenas. Gael’s unreadable, unbreakable smile hides true intentions, charms and terrifies depending on the scene. Ba’s mystic/elder statesman helps the film transition from one subgenre to the next and gives the trio a center. Meanwhile, Sallah’s explosive Rafa is a constant surprise.

Gregory Corandi’s cinematography conjures each new genre beautifully without creating abrupt leaps from one to the next. Colors are amazing, vistas are both beautiful and dangerous, and there’s always movement just beyond where you look. Western slides into thriller, which bends toward horror, the popping action the one constant through the entire running time.
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Herbulot splashes his cinematic influences across the screen: Leone, Woo, Peckinpah, Tarantino (whose own style amounts to a concoction of the previous three). It’s a heady mix. It’s not style over substance, although the style does draw attention away from the film’s weaker elements. Instead, it’s the calling card of a filmmaker leaving his mark on genre filmmaking.

Speak No Evil

A Danish family visits a Dutch family they met on a holiday. What was supposed to be an idyllic weekend slowly starts unraveling as the Danes try to stay polite in the face of unpleasantness.

Release date: 17 March 2022 (Denmark)
Director: Christian Tafdrup

A Horror Movie Review by Hope Madden

There’s little as uncomfortable as a good horror of manners—like a comedy of manners, but the social discomfort makes way for grim, horrifying death. Michael Haneke did it best with Funny Games (either version). Just last month, Shudder released the lighter but no less bloody Who Invited Them.

Denmark comes knocking with co-writer/director Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil, a terribly polite tale of Danes and Dutchmen that veers slowly but relentlessly toward something sinister.

Bjørn (Morten Burian) is facing a crisis of masculinity. He’s too polite to articulate it, which only exacerbates that strangling sensation.

It’s a testament to Burian’s performance that he remains sympathetic throughout the film, however selfish and weak his actions. Playing his wife, Sidsel Siem Koch easily embodies the proper but awkward and easily cowed Louise.

Their adversaries? The good-looking, fun-loving, demonstrative Dutch couple Patrick (Fedja van Huêt) and Karin (Karina Smulders). The two families — each with a youngster in tow — run into each other on holiday and become pals. Sometime later, when Bjørn & Louise receive a postcard inviting their family to visit, Bjørn is anxious to go.

It takes some quiet, polite maneuvering, but before long, he, Louise and little Agnes (Liva Forsberg) are face to face with their hosts and the escalating tension grows almost unendurable. Speak No Evil quickly becomes a sociological experiment that questions our tendency to act against our own instincts, side with the cool kids, and lose who we are.

Van Huêt ably maneuvers Patrick’s manipulations, his about-faces, and his indefatigable charisma.

Sune Kølster’s score works deliriously against cinematographer Erik Molberg Hansen’s beautiful images to create dissonance (again, in much the same way Haneke did, but if you’re going to copy someone, he’s as good a place to start as any).

Tafdrup’s script, co-written with Mads Tafdrup, is sneaky in the way it treads on social anxiety, etiquette, politeness. You see how easily gaslighting alters the trajectory of a conversation, the course of action.
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There is a resignation that feels unearned, even contemptuous. But actions throughout are believable enough, each couple’s interactions authentic enough, and the tensions palpable enough to forgive slight lapses. Speak No Evil is a grim trip, but there is no question that it’s well made.

An upstanding pastor uncovers a dark and twisted underworld as he searches for answers surrounding his daughter's brutal murder. A high-octane original soundtrack and cameos from some of the biggest names in rock music set the tone as this horror-thriller reveals a game of revenge played using a new set of rules.
 
Release date: 14 September 2022 (United Kingdom)
Directors: Michael Lombardi, Bridget Smith, Samuel Gonzalez Jr.
Production company: Better Noise Films
Music composed by: Michael Stein, Kyle Dixon
Producers: Michael Lombardi, Allen Kovac, Michael Walsh

 
The Retaliators will be in Cinemas worldwide from 14th September. Tickets on sale now https://www.retaliatorsmovie.com

We live in a society now where social media and the near-constant ability to be online allows us to take revenge on anyone for the merest of slights against us, but how far would you go to get revenge for a heinous act of violence against your child? Will, our mild-mannered religious man, turn the other cheek, or will he go full righteous wrath of God on her killer and those who stand in his? That's the dilemma faced by a New Jersey pastor (Lombardi) when a local crime boss brutally murders his daughter.  


Well, of course, he does. Otherwise, the film would be really short, and I would be here writing this review, and you wouldn't be here reading it before deciding whether or not you should make the trip to the cinema to watch it. (Spoiler alert, you should be quick about it as it is only showing in cinemas for one night; you can buy tickets from the link above or keep reading and use the link at the end of the review). 


The Retaliators is a slight slow burner of a film, with the initial segment of the film being a somewhat sombre meditation of loss and grief; full credit must be given to Michael Lombardi, as during the quieter moments, the film is carried mainly on his shoulders, something which he pulls of with great success. His transformation from mild-mannered priest to full-on avenging angel is a performance filled with both nuance and a god to honest maniacal energy often lacking in these sorts of films. 


Joseph Gatt, as the film's main villain, also excels at turning his character Ram Kady into one that we can all get behind in the hope that he gets the comeuppance he rightly deserves. Such as the detective who helps our priest and the biker gang who are also hell-bent on getting revenge on Gatt. I say the main villain, as there is a brilliant layer of grey in this film sandwiched between the black and morality of the main narrative thread of the film. This lends the film a perfect down-and-dirty feel, which suits these sorts of revenge thrillers perfectly. This isn't some sanitised, Liam Neeson Hollywood blockbuster; this is a gritty, bloody, and brutal film that will leave you feeling that you have just swam through the waste pipe of your local abattoir, which is precisely how you should feel with these sort of films. 


Thankfully the filmmakers decided to stick with practical effects; the number of horror movies that I have watched lately with a similar budget range that resort to using CGI blood is deeply distressing. Blood and body parts should always be wet and physical; we gore hounds demand this, so thank the production team for keeping it real.  


The film also boasts a lot of cameos and bit parts from many heavy metal singers, but as someone who stopped listening to heavy metal when Limp Bizkit blundered onto the scene, so most of the Easter Eggs went right over my head. This brings me to the first of my two gripes about this otherwise excellent horror movie. The soundtrack, this isn't so much a matter of taste, as the songs used here in many ways do compliment the film; hard, heavy, unrelenting songs should be the perfect match, whether or not you like the bands, however, their mixing into the audiotracks is just too much. They intrude on the film like a loudmouth drunk uncle at your granny's funeral. It got so bad that I ended up muting it at a couple of points in the movie. However, your mileage might differ, and I might be too old for these bands.  


My second gripe of the film is that it is a tad too long; a few unnecessary scenes could have easily been excised from the final cut without having any effect on the film. In the case of one scene, cutting it would have significantly improved your overall enjoyment of the film, as it is so heavy-handed that it is somewhat cringeworthy. This is a pity; if they had been done better, the thematic thread where Bishop battles his faith would have added an excellent emotional depth to the film.  


However, these gripes aside, The Retaliators is a highly enjoyable film. That once the action gets going, it doesn't shy away from taking the viewers on an aggressively bloody journey of revenge. By the time you reach the batshit crazy final act (no spoilers here, but some of you might be reminded of a gimp suit were nutjob film), you will be fully invested in this inventive unrelenting horror revenge movie. ​

 
The Retaliators will be in Cinemas worldwide from 14th September. Tickets on sale now https://www.retaliatorsmovie.com