Venezia83: Breaking news

The 83rd Venice Film Festival kicked off on Tuesday with the world premiere of Danny Boyle's new film Ink, with an extraordinarily glittering red carpet of celebrities in attendance. Of course, I watched the movie at another screening entirely, as the press is mainly kept at a distance from the stars these days. The weather is sunny and hot this year, so I'm enjoying my commutes across the lagoon from Venice proper (where I'm sytaying) to the Lido (where the festival is held). But the hunt for a reliable phone signal and/or wifi isn't quite as much fun. Still, there's always gelato to keep me smiling. Here are notes on five films...

Ink
dir Danny Boyle; with Jack O'Connell, Guy Pearce 26/UK ****
James Graham adapts his stage play for the screen, which is then turned into an explosion of imagery and sound by director Danny Boyle. It's the story of how tabloid reporting expanded in 1969 Britain, recounted with close-up camerawork, energetic cutaways and journalistic angst. At times, style drowns out substance, but there's also a sense of urgency as we see how news reporting got to where it is today. 

Bucking Fastard

dir-scr Werner Herzog; with Kate Mara, Rooney Mara 26/Ire ****
A genuine oddity, this fable-like film feels more like it came from Yorgos Lanthimos than Werner Herzog. But it's based on a true story, and the iconic German filmmaker brings his distinct quirkiness to an odyssey about two sisters who defiantly march to their own beat. And as the film crackles with charm and wit, their tenacious quest is for a world full of love, so the emotions continually catch us by surprise. 

Everest: The Other Side

dir Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi; with Jim Morrison, Hilaree Nelson 26/US ****.
Jaw-dropping cinematography puts us right on the slopes with intrepid climbers as they spend five years trying to do something unprecedented: after scaling the rarely climbed northern face of Everest, Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson intend to ski back down. Filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi get fully involved, tracing huge emotional currents throughout this unpredictable story.

Agata the Writer

dir-scr Kuba Dorabialski; with Mia Wasikowska, Vedrana Bozinovic 26/Bos ***.
Defiantly resisting a standard movie narrative structure, Polish filmmaker Kuba Dorabialski wrote, directed, edited, photographed and composed the music for this ambitious meta-drama. The story is a fascinating exploration of the place where art and history converge, knowingly blurring lines between books, movies and journalism as an author confronts her motivations. While it's darkly intriguing, Dorabialski's approach is also indulgent and stylised, which leaves it feeling somewhat academic.

Salón de Belleza

dir Nathalia Acevedo; with Sam Louwyck, Erwan Kepoa Fale 26/Mex ***.

From Mexico, this experimental drama is shot in a richly immersive style that creates a hypnotically enigmatic ambience. Filmmaker Nathalia Acevedo is gifted at capturing details that reveal characters and settings in an unusually visceral way, telling an evocative story without the need for dialog. The lead character is simply called “the individual”, making him an everyman in a surreal but profoundly human odyssey. 

Full reviews will eventually be linked to Shadows' VENICE FILM FEST PAGE >

FrightFest: There's something out there

The 27th FrightFest wraps up tonight after bringing another colourful lineup of ghastly movies to appreciative Leicester Square audiences. And with so many world premieres, a lot of filmmakers and cast members have been mingling with their fans. Here are notes on six more films I caught, several of these are world premieres...

Ithaqua
dir Casey Walker; with Luke Hemsworth, Kevin Durand 26/Can ***.
Strikingly shot in the snowy Canadian wilderness, this film nicely captures the period and setting, and it's populated by characters who are intriguing and enjoyably messy. Filmmaker Casey Walker sets up the story robustly, revealing the relationships, clashes and challenges before things take a an even nastier turn. The tension that comes along is genuinely unnerving, especially as this turns into an original ghostly zombie horror.

Bad Karaoke
dir Robert J Steinmiller Jr, Chris Lightbody; with Lexi Underwood, Case Walker 26/US ***.
With terrific character details and a raucous sense of pitch-black humour, this nutty horror comedy gets increasingly gruesome over the course of about 24 hours in an isolated cabin in the woods. Directors Robert J Steinmiller Jr and Chris Lightbody gleefully poke fun at the perils of karaoke, as well as the tried and tested tropes of scary teen movies. And it's all mixed together with a steady stream of goofiness.

Do You Want to Play?
dir-scr Nick Lyon; with Quinn Aune, Maxwell Mushallo 26/US ***
There's an oddly over-serious tone to this teen horror romp, which quickly establishes the premise and characters with melodrama rather than engaging detail. Writer-director Nick Lyon deploys grisly imagery early on, then follows a hideously masked supernatural villain terrorising a group of teens who are blithely playing around with the occult. So even if it never feels very original, there's some fun to be had.

Dracula: The Night Around Us
dir-scr Chris Schwab; with Eric Toms, Marlene Mc'Cohen 26/US ***.
Loosely based on the Bram Stoker novel, this low-budget freakout uses minimal dialog and lots of murkiness to keep the audience on edge. Writer-director Chris Schwab has a lot of fun with both jolting jump cuts and yucky closeups, making the most of the superbly grainy film stock. Offhanded humour adds a superbly engaging tone to what is otherwise a rather wacky gothic nightmare with heavy emotional overtones.

Hyena [aka: Hy3na]
dir Matthew Ninaber; with Storm Steenson, Kristen Kaster 26/Can **
Opening with a barrage of colourfully violent craziness, this lurid thriller then cuts back three weeks to recount the story of a wildly unhinged serial killer. With a quick pace, director-cowriter Matthew Ninaber indulges in outrageous grisliness while infusing everything with snarky broad humour. So it's a bit frustrating that the plot feels so oddly thin, with fragmented strands and too many slinky montage sequences. Plus the obvious twist.

Valley View Motel
dir-scr Nick Psinakis, Kevin Ignatius; with Laura Im, Soulo Smith 26/US ***.

Even with a limited budget, actor-filmmakers Nick Psinakis and Kevin Ignatius inventively infuse this thriller with a superb 1970s vibe, using the camerawork, a churning score and groovy costumes and cars. The also adeptly channel the Coen brothers, keeping things blackly comical as they throw a bunch of very messy characters together, pushing them to acts of desperation. So the final act is expertly staged horror slapstick.

Full reviews will be posted on SHADOWS' FRIGHTFEST PAGE >

FrightFest: I have a bad feeling about this

The 27th FrightFest is underway in London over the August long weekend, as always, bringing scary movies to audiences that love to be terrified. I'm only dipping my toes into the array of movies this year, and here are notes on films from the first three days...

Starsuckers
dir-scr Brett Butler, Jason Butler; with James Alex, Manon Ens-Lapointe 26/Can **
With over-saturated colours, this satirical horror comedy is flat-out ridiculous, populated with hilariously deadpan characters who are oblivious in their self-involvement or sentimentality. The Butler Brothers write and direct with a lot of witty style, although the plot is so absurd that it begins to wear thin early on. And while there are some strong points along the way, any message gets lost in the unhinged silliness.

Colony
dir Yeon Sang-ho; with Jun Ji-hyun, Koo Kyo-hwan 26/Kor ***.
A decade after his Train to Busan reinvented the genre, Korean filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho comes up with another new take on the zombie movie with this tense action thriller largely set within an infected Seoul high-rise. With its soapy plot threads, the script pulls the audience into the melodrama as chaos spirals out of control around enjoyably messy characters. And genre fans will enjoy the particularly yucky gore... FULL REVIEW >

Big Baby
dir-scr Spider One; with Brandon Scott, Krsy Fox 25/US ***.
Writer-director Spider One has some fun with the horror genre here, playfully juggling stalker movie cliches as well as the quirks of a creative person's imagination. Along with colourful production design and a self-aware script, there are also some deeper ideas in intriguing discussions relating to bullying and retribution. But of course the main point of the movie is to freak out the audience and some already frazzled characters.

Blood Secret
dir-scr Cameron Francis; with Katherine Lozon, Tiana Akers 26/US ***.
Cranking up the tension with a creepy sound mix and jarring editing, writer-director Cameron Francis makes the most of this offbeat thriller, which centres around a dinner between two women. But there are continual hints that there's also some ghostly nastiness happening around them. And both the actors and filmmakers have a lot of fun playing with various elements to keep the tension high before pushing everything over the top.

Electric Meat
dir-scr Dan Schaffer; with Caspian Faye, Emily Booth 26/UK **.
Shot in moody black and white, this experimental movie establishes its freak-out tone from the opening scene, which is disorientingly twisty and violent. Writer-director Dan Schaffer uses flickering edits, a dense sound mix and inventive camera trickery to create all manner of bonkers nuttiness. And because the scenes play out without dialog, it's a challenge to find narrative nuances that might allow us to get involved.

Full reviews will be posted on SHADOWS' FRIGHTFEST PAGE >

Critical Week: Puppy dog vibes

This has been an unusually busy week for me for a variety of reasons, mainly because there have been pre-Venice screenings in London to give me a jump on the festival, which starts next week. Meanwhile, I also caught up with Gregg Araki's new art-world/sadomasochism comedy I Want Your Sex, which stars Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde. It's colourful, lusty, funny and also a bit silly. Jacob Elordi leads the charge in Ridley Scott's thoroughly entertaining post-apocalyptic The Dog Stars, which has a refreshingly introspective tone interrupted by rather simplistic action and some nutty black comedy (Allison Janney alert!).

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
Bitter Christmas • Coyote vs Acme
The Dog Stars • De Gaulle: Resistance
Boorman and the Devil
ALL REVIEWS >

I really loved the Cannes award-winning La Bola Negra, a sweeping Spanish epic directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. Using gay themes, it traces three plot threads between 1932 and 2017. Ambitious and hugely involving, there's even a fabulous sequence featuring a scene-stealing Penelope Cruz. The Girl in the River is an underwhelming mystery starring Maggie Grace, Devon Sawa, Tiffany Haddish and every genre cliche imaginable. The jazz pianist biopic Everybody Digs Bill Evans is shimmeringly artful and rather aloof, with a terrific cast that includes Anders Danielson Lie, Laurie Metcalf and Bill Pullman. From French filmmaker Dominik Moll, Case 137 stars Lea Drucker as an investigator looking into police violence after a street protest. Straight from the headlines, it's riveting and urgent. The intriguing Bolivian drama The Condor Daughter follows a young midwife on a riveting journey into the big city. And the doc Super Nature features glorious Super 8 footage of life around the globe.

I also watched films this week that will be at the 27th FrightFest (this weekend in London) or the 83rd Venice Film Festival (next week in Italy). Both festivals will have regular reports right here.

Coming up, I'll be watching quite a few more films for FrightFest and Venice over the long weekend, plus Saoirse Ronan in Bad Apples and the sequel Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, then heading to Italy for Venezia83.

Critical Week: Stay sharp

I'm back in London after six days at the Edinburgh Fringe, where I watched and reviewed 15 shows. Back in London, film screenings are coming in thick and fast. I finally caught up with Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer in the sharply well-made drama The Death of Robin Hood, which is very violent and rather relentlessly downbeat. By huge contrast, there's the nearly shelved Coyote vs Acme, starring Jon Cena and Will Forte opposite animated characters from Looney Tunes cartoons. It's a riot of energy, references and inventive imagery. And it's very, very funny.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
The Magic Faraway Tree
Teenage Sex & Death at Camp Miasma
ALL REVIEWS >

Andrew Scott and Brendan Fraser lead the charge in the D-Day drama Pressure, a riveting true story about men on a knife-edge decision. It's seriously well-written, directed and played. Zoey Deutch has the title role in the comedy pastiche Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, but it's Jon Hamm and John Slattery spoofing themselves that makes this smart and very silly movie worth a look. Lea Seydoux stars in the Austrian drama Gentle Monster, as a woman whose life is upended by a police visit. It's powerful, complex and costars Catherine Deneuve. In addition, advanced screenings of films from next month's Venice Film Festival included the Bosnian drama Agata the Writer starring Mia Wasikowska. 

Coming up this next week, I'll be very busy watching Jacob Elordi in Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars, Olivia Wilde in I Want Your Sex, Maggie Grace in The Girl in the River, Cannes award-winner La Bola Negra, German satire Babystar, French crime drama Case 137 and Chabrol's restored 1969 classic La Femme Infidele. There will also be many more films from both FrightFest (which starts next Thursday in London) and the Venice Film Festival (I head to Italy the following week).

Fringe: Huge Davies - Confessions of a Mulatto Love Child

Huge Davies: Sleep Paralysis Princess
Monkey Barrel, Cabaret Voltaire 1 • Fringe 2026 ★★★★

With his grumpy style and hilariously absurd wordplay, Huge Davies takes the stage wearing a chef's hat for reasons than only become vaguely less unclear later. He starts by warning that old people in the audience won't like this show, and should just go to sleep. What follows feels like a fever dream that he makes up as he goes, although it's so well-structured that we know better. And he takes his dryly amusing contempt for his audience to startling new extremes this time.

The central joke here is that he hasn't been able to sleep for 10 years, which is affecting the way he sees everything. As he shares anecdotes from his life, he casually undermines homophobia, racism and xenophobia with close-to-the-bone jokes. Absurd stories from his childhood lead into a Henry VIII-style rhyme about his exes. One of these was a witch who placed a curse on him. And now he has discovered a profane ritual that will lift the curse, but at whose expense?

Huge's rapid-fire delivery keeps us thoroughly entertained, even as he snarls at us. He adds nonsensical twists to everyday situations that force us to look at them through new eyes. And his aggressive attitude is balanced by his snappy wit, which occasionally breaks the facade. Goofier moments include reenacting how he thought he was turning into a fly and listening to the audiobook of The Hobbit instead of sleeping, a gag that echoes and deepens right to the very end. It's unclear if he has a point here, but his caustic charm is thoroughly entertaining.

For more: HUGE DAVIES • 17.Aug.26

Confessions of a Mulatto Love Child
Zoo Southside, Studio • Fringe 2026 ★★★★

Directed by Maggie Soboil, this one-woman show is expertly performed by Bellina Logan, who walks the audience through her complex relationship with her mother. Bellina is such a skilful performer that every character in the story springs vividly to life with amusingly quirky details. Even though it's sharply well-written, the show only offers a glimpse of Bellina herself, leaving us wanting to know more about her too. But her mother Averil emerges as a larger-than-life figure who inspires us to embrace whatever life throws at us, although perhaps a bit less chaotically.

She launches into her quick-paced story describing her mother as a Maggie Smith-style Englishwoman, blonde and blue-eyed in striking contrast to her father, who looked like Shaft. They met in Los Angeles, and Averil hid her pregnancy from her two older daughters, heading to "Paris" then returning with a gorgeous brown baby. Over the years, they moved between London, New York and Los Angeles. There are several long-term friendships, plus an extended family of cats in Manhattan. And while Bellina was clearly raised to be independent and confident, her wedding and even the birth of her child are described in the context of her mother.

Bellina plays everyone using accents and distinct physicality, catching the most offbeat revelations about their personalities. Everyone is thoroughly colourful, especially her drama-queen mother. This is a funny and deeply involving show, peppered with lively breakout moments that add vivid textures of both musical joy and dark tension. In the final act, the show centres around Averil's slowly growing dementia and how Bellina had to "deconstruct the life of a lioness" to care for her. Even here, there's a terrific combination of real-life humour in the chaos of everyday events. Averil certainly had a very big life, and of course so did Bellina. Revealing more of herself here would make this even more powerful.

For more: BELLINA LOGAN • 18.Aug.26

Fringe: Maxx Eddy - Shane Torres

Maxx Eddy: Bi Meets World
Gilded Balloon Patter House, Blether • Fringe 2026 ★★★★

Charming the audience with his nervous energy, Maxx Eddy dives into his set with a flurry of anecdotes, taking on issues of masculinity and bullying from a refreshingly personal point of view, allowing him to make important points without ever feeling over-heavy. He's a terrific storyteller, adept at impersonating the people in his life with amusing detail. And the overarching narrative here feels like a journey of self-discovery, trying to understand important truths about himself and human nature.

As a small kid, Maxx was taught by his father to stand up to bullies. And he has always been especially sensitive to anyone who comes after his masculinity or sexuality. Sometimes this means that he is looking for a fight, for example ordering a piña colada with extra cherries just to get attention. The show is structured around three fights he got himself into, including a ridiculously physical showdown in a karaoke bar. And an extended narrative follows his online romance with a girl in Brazil, followed by a lively trip to meet her there, leading to a flatly ridiculous situation involving a PCP cigarette and a battle with the sea itself on a Rio beach.

Identifying as bisexual, he includes entertaining stories about experiences with boyfriends and girlfriends who have helped him find a sense of self. Insecurities follow him at every step, leading to him challenging anyone who confronts them, because he thinks that's the way a real man reacts. With hilarious asides and a witty perspective on the world around him, Maxx is hugely likeable. And it's impressive that he's able to keep the audience laughing even as he takes on some very serious themes and situations. So it's lovely to see how he brings all of the silliness together into a gentle note about how equating strength with masculinity only leads to isolation. And it's clear that he's still working on this.

For more: MAXX EDDY • 17.Aug.26

Shane Torres: Skinned Knees
Assembly Roxy, Downstairs • Fringe 2026 ★★★★

Using improvisation in a deliberately deadpan style, Shane Torres is a storyteller comic who embraces dark emotions and absurdity, but never gets silly. The humour emerges through what feels like a rather harsh worldview, so the show can often appear bleak, but witty observations make sure that it remains engaging. And the stream-of-consciousness narrative is thoroughly involving.

He opens with a brief confession about dropping Taco Bell into his mother's ashes, raising many questions, most of which will be answered over the next hour. Then Shane launches into his story about growing up in Texas with an Irish mother and a Mexican-American father, which made him fully Catholic. Anecdotes from his childhood have us imagining him as a chubby kid learning Irish dancing from his aunt, while his overworked night-nurse mother struggled to keep the family afloat after his vaguely unemployed father neglected to pay the bills, leaving them homeless. Much later, he recounts a haunting extended story, packed with amusing asides, about moving his father into a homeless shelter.

Because Shane simply chats to the audience, interacting with us, none of this seems scripted. So we genuinely feel his emotions as, for example, he becomes the "man of the house" at age 14. The masculinity theme is ever-present throughout this show, pointedly undermining expectations. And with each grim story point, he reminds us that it gets worse. Indeed, he circles back to comments about how both of his parents ended up as ashes in urns. It's an unusually serious show for a comic, and the way it takes on parenthood and mortality is both wryly offhanded and provocative on a surprisingly deep level.

For more: SHANE TORRES • 17.Aug.26