In the Company of Kings by George Wolf Resting somewhere between personal memoir and an episode of ESPN’s 30 for 30, In the Company of Kings is buoyed by undeniable layers of passion and gratitude. In a brisk 70 minutes, director Steve Read and producer/narrator Robert Douglas reveal the inspiration they have taken from legends of boxing, while putting the spotlight on 8 boxers with very personal stories of struggle, sacrifice and success. Drawn by the lure of the fight game, Douglas tells of his move from Liverpool to a hardscrabble section of North Philadelphia. Feeling a kinship with those ..read more

Muse and madness, art and commerce duke it out in a slew of films that mine the depths of the artistic nature. We welcome author LCW Allingham, whose dark novella Muse looks at the darker side of art, to join us as we use a little fuzzy math to share our favorite horror movies about artists. 6. Devil’s Candy (2015) Ethan Embry plays Jesse Hellman, struggling metalhead painter who, with his wife and pre-teen daughter, just bought a bargain of a house out in the Texas sticks. Why so cheap? Amityville shit. Jesse’s a metalhead and a painter and writer/director Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones) mines t ..read more

Challengers, Boy Kills World, The Beast, Humane, Infested, Dancing Village The post Screening Room: Challengers, Boy Kills World, Infested, The Beast, Humane appeared first on Maddwolf ..read more

Challengers by George Wolf “This is about winning the points that matter.” Honestly, the relationship triangle at work in Challengers could probably work outside of a tennis court, but director Luca Guadagnino does wonders with the sports angle for a completely engrossing drama of intimate competition. Anchored around a three-set challenge match between Art Donaldson (West Side Story‘s Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor from The Crown), the film drifts back and forth in time as it immerses us in their series of entanglements with tennis phenom Tashi Duncan (Zendaya). Through Grand Sl ..read more

Humane by Hope Madden When Brandon Cronenberg decided to be a filmmaker—one keenly interested in corporeal horror—it felt both natural and brave. Natural because his father David is perhaps the all-time master of body horror. Brave for the same reason. It turns out, Brandon Cronenberg is a natural. (If you haven’t, you should definitely see his films.) But the family affair doesn’t end with him. Daughter Caitlin Cronenberg’s feature debut Humane sets her slightly apart from the fellas, though. Written by Michael Sparaga, Humane takes place in a near future where climate catastrophe requires th ..read more

Boy Kills World by George Wolf Boy Kills World feels like a film the gamers are going to love. For the rest of us, it offers a hyper stylized, uber-violent riff on The Hunger Games by way of Kill Bill while it harbors Deadpool aspirations and a coy surprise waiting in act three. But while the style is never in doubt, real substance is lacking. Bill Skarsgård supplies plenty of physical charisma as “Boy,” whose family was murdered years earlier during a lethal event known as “The Culling.” Once a year in this post apocalyptic landscape, enemies of ruling matriarch Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janss ..read more

Infested by Hope Madden Remember Quarantine (or Rec, for that matter)? Remember that moment when you realize you’re locked inside an apartment building, trapped with the ravenous undead? OK, so that but spiders. Nice, right?! Sébastien Vanicek’s Infested (co-written with Florent Bernard) doesn’t steal from other movies as much as it mines the primal fears that have plagued the most effective horror movies from the beginning. Kaleb (Théo Christine) is a well-meaning dumbass. He lives in a dump of a high rise, but he loves the place, loves the neighbors, and cherishes the memory of his mother. T ..read more

Abigail, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Sasquatch Sunset, The People’s Joker, Blood for Dust, With Love and a Major Organ, Villains Inc. The post Screening Room: Abigail, Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Sasquatch Sunset, The People’s Joker & More appeared first on Maddwolf ..read more

Abigail by Hope Madden Back in 2019, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett had a blast locking a group of evildoers and one innocent inside a luxurious mansion for about 90 minutes of head exploding, weapon wielding, visceral mayhem. The fun they had with Ready or Not was contagious. So catchy that you can certainly feel its influence in the filmmakers’ latest, the ballerina vampire tale Abigail. The first big difference is that in this mansion, no one is innocent. A team has been assembled for a kidnapping: grab a wealthy guy’s kid and hole up in some out-of-the-way safe house unt ..read more

Villains, Inc. by Rachel Willis When their super villain leader dies, three henchmen are left adrift in director Jeremy Warner’s comedy Villains, Inc. It’s an interesting concept told with the kind of mundanity that speaks to real life. Though most of these villains have superpowers and special abilities, they need jobs – just like the rest of us. They also have dreams of the future, just like us. Not perhaps of a summer house in the country, but of world domination.  After the leader dies, Beatrix (Mallory Everton) becomes the group’s de facto number one. The other two (Colin Mochrie and ..read more