Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  More women directors are choosing horror to showcase their talent. It is a genre that traditionally presents female protagonists as victims, stalked by masked psychopaths or terrified by spectral demons. Women directors are reclaiming the genre to ensure that heroines are treated fairly and not exploited through torture porn. This is not to say that female-directed horror films feature women protagonists shooting the genitalia from their male assailants, tempting as that may be. Indeed, female-directed horror films do not offer castration as a response, which makes them very suitable as ‘first date’ movies. Revenge , the debut feature of French writer-director Coralie Fargeat, is a case in point. It is a rape revenge movie – bloody, but also bloody ridiculous. Shot in Morocco but set in Arizona, it stars Italian actress Matilda Lutz as Jen, the scantily clad American lover of Richard (Belgian actor Kevin Janssens), who is married with children and away on a hunting trip. Jen ho...

Pictured : Students at the Talent Campus practice 'conscious eating' in a scene from Jessica Hausner 's 2023 film, ' Club Zero '. (Still: Coop 99 ) Over the period 1 November 2023 and 31 October 2024, I watched and reflected upon a further fifty-two fiction films directed by women. 28 of these films had American finance. Six could be classed as British films. Three were French, a surprisingly low number given the number of French auteurs currently working. Two had Indian subjects, if not finance. Two were Belgian, another two Canadian (one in French, the other English). The remaining nine films were from Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Denmark, Germany, Morocco, Netherlands and Spain. Of the fifty-two, three movies officially grossed more than $100 million (either superhero sequels or spin-offs, namely Venom: The Last Dance , The Marvels and Madame Web ). One ( Yolo ) unofficially grossed this sum; Box Office Mojo does not offer reliable figures on Chinese movie...

  Pictured : Better days behind her. Elizabeth Sparkle ( Demi Moore ) contemplates life in her luxury apartment in a scene from the body horror film and Cannes Palme D'Or competitor, ' The Substance ', written and directed by Coralie Fargeat . Still courtesy of Mubi (UK, US) Caution: Spoilers At its second screening in Cannes, writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s ‘living your best life’ body horror flick The Substance had patrons heading for the exit early. It is extreme – and none too subtle – about the extent to which one should sacrifice oneself for the cause of reinvention, or more particularly, to have a younger body to use as one shouldn’t. In her first leading role in a horror film, the 1990s-star Demi Moore ‘puts her back’ – and pretty much everything else - to enable a younger doppelganger, played by Margaret Qualley, to be born. Expect this to be on Quentin Tarantino’s top ten list for the year – but not Barack Obama’s. Fargeat’s titles are in block capitals and s...