Beautiful Disaster (2023) - Movie Review

After the last two After films, I figured that we had already reached Peak Fanfiction. Between After Ever Happy cutting the pretence and turning its male lead into a glorified fanfic writer, and After Everything bending over backwards about the creepy undertones of legitimising that kind of writing like this, I thought we had officially hit the ceiling. But no, it seems that Wattpad still have at least one more direction to go, and it might be the most embarrassing one yet. See, Beautiful Disaster, the latest product to come out of the Wattpad assembly line, shows the publisher now starting to make fanfiction… about themselves.

Renfield (2023) - Movie Review

I reckon we’re in somewhat safe hands here because, no matter how this turns out, there’s little chance of this being the worst Dracula fanfic I’ve reviewed on here. We also have director Chris McKay, who has a healthy pedigree for legitimising the fanfic mentality in mainstream storytelling, from his ambitious work on Robot Chicken to the IP free-for-all of The LEGO Batman Movie (before Warner Bros. went way the hell too far with that idea for films like Space Jam: A New Legacy), and of course, Nic Cage as Dracula. Honestly, I could have just left it at “Nic Cage as Dracula” and that would’ve been enough to sell why this deserves to be watched… but that would still be leaving out a lot of the surprising delights of this feature.

Deep Water (2022) - Movie Review

After a twenty-year hiatus from filmmaking (save for a brief stab at screenwriting in Alex Pettyfer’s Back Roads), one of the few directors that could actually get his head around erotic mainstream cinema, Adrian Lyne, has returned. And true to his sweaty and mentally fucked-up trappings, it’s an unsettling take on the idea of romance, but there's a fair bit of rust showing through as well.

Hounds Of Love (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: On her way to a party, teenager Vicki (Ashleigh Cummings) is picked up by suburban couple Evelyn (Emma Booth) and John (Stephen Curry), who offer her a lift. However, they don’t take her to the party; they take to the same place they took the last few strays they picked up from the side of the road: Shackled to a bed in their home. Turns, Evelyn and John’s sexual tastes lean to the more… adventurous, and if she wants to make it out alive, she’ll have to figure out how to turn the tables against her captors.

Gerald's Game (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) and his wife Jessie (Carla Gugino) go to a secluded lake house for a romantic weekend. However, after a bit of bedroom roleplaying goes hideously wrong, Gerald winds up dead with Jessie still handcuffed to the bed. With no-one around to help and time soon running out, she retreats into her own mind for support… and what she finds isn’t pleasant.