In Review
Welcome to In Review! Check out the latest reviews across film, TV, theatre and so much more…
Japanese Film Fest 2025 Review - Cloud
It is clear that Cloud is a well-made film with effective cinematography and performances. It’s just a shame that the narrative isn’t stronger and more confident in what it is trying to do or say.
Japanese Film Fest 2025 Review - Serpent’s Path
Serpent’s Path is filled to the brim with such evocative images of mundane criminality and the bleak and brooding horror of industrial spaces, seen so often in crime films but rarely shot as atmospherically as with Kurosawa’s hand.
Film Review - Shelby Oaks
Shelby Oaks is a fine horror film with flashes of promise, but too many inherited ideas and not enough discernible passion.
Italian Film Fest 2025 Review - Diamonds
Diamonds is about ambition, love and community. It celebrates the many hands that sew our lives together and work to create the art we pride ourselves on as a society.
Film Review - Sketch
Sketch is a charming, chaotic blend of fantasy, gateway horror, and emotional earnestness - heartfelt and imaginative, leaving one with the sense that your own little creative scribbles might be worth keeping.
Film Review - The Thread
The Thread is an understated courtroom drama that is guaranteed to leave you questioning absolutely everything by its end.
MIFF 2025 Film Review - Chain Reactions/The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Chain Reactions is a celebration of the 50 year anniversary of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
MIFF 2025 Film Review - The End
Musicals and apocalyptic fiction don’t make for particularly common genre pairings, but in his debut fiction work, aptly titled The End (2024), Joshua Oppenheimer fuses the two to Frankensteinian effect.
Film Review - On Swift Horses
On Swift Horses explores the intersecting relationships of its principal characters but proves too ambitious, stringing together more narrative threads than its two-hour run time can support.
Spanish Film Fest 2025 Review - Marco, the Invented Truth
Marco, the Invented Truth is a stunning, modern drama with award-worthy acting that immerses you into this true, scandalous story.
Film Review - The Shrouds
The Shrouds presents potential by reeling in its audience at the beginning, but then loses its grip on them far too soon.
Film Review - The Story of Souleymane
The Story of Souleymane is ultimately exhilarating in its revelation of the hardships of illegal French immigrants, with its immersive nature making for an intense cinematic experience.
Brunswick Underground Film Fest 2025 Review - The Lost Sex Films of King’s Cross
The restoration of Charis and George Schwarz’s work is a wonderful reclamation of a peculiar piece of Australian cinematic history.
Brunswick Underground Film Fest 2025 Review - From Ground Zero
The people of Palestine need more than words, what is depicted in From Ground Zero makes that abundantly clear.
Brunswick Underground Film Fest 2025 Review - The Code
The Code is an earnestly off-kilter, free-wheeling journey down the rabbit hole.
Fantastic Film Fest 2025 Review - Monkey’s Magic Merry Go Round
Monkey’s Magic Merry Go Round is an audacious leap into analogue horror that skilfully marries the nostalgic charm of children’s television with a creeping, unsettling dread and forebodingly surreal stylistic turns.
Film Review - An Unfinished Film
There are few films that you will watch like director and writer Ye Lou’s docufiction, An Unfinished Film.
🇵🇸Palestinian Film Fest 2025 Review - Upshot
Upshot is a perfect example of utilising simplicity to underline the horror of reality.
Fantastic Film Fest 2025 Review - Mr. K
Mr. K is ambitious, imaginative and impressive, but the setup is unfortunately better than the payoff.