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AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL – ‘She Wants Revenge’
“She Wants Revenge” begins promisingly, with the Countess (Lady Gaga), in voiceover, making plans to rid herself of everyone but Rudolph Valentino (Finn Wittrock); her one true love, who was recently released from several decades of imprisonment in the Cortez. The Countess is planning to build her own fortress by sealing off a floor of…
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TRIPPED – Series One, Episode One
The best word for E4’s newest comedy is ‘amiable’. Tripped, co-created by Jamie Mathieson (who wrote the Doctor Who episodes “Mummy on the Orient Express” and “Flatline“, in addition to working on Being Human), is the story of two slackers: Milo (George Webster) and Danny (The Inbetweeners’ Blake Harrison), who find themselves swept up into…
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TRAINWRECK (2015)
It’s both a success and failure that the funniest thing about Judd Apatow’s latest film is basketball star LeBron James. I’ve never seen him play on the court, but he can certainly play ‘the weirdo’ in a rom-com; appearing in Trainwreck as a bizarre version of himself who’s befriended doctor Aaron (Bill Hader), the subject…
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KRAMPUS (2015)
It’s impossible to talk about Christmas horror movies without referencing Gremlins, and Krampus knows that. Boasting a similar family-fight-festive-critters premise to Joe Dante’s 1984 classic, it’s got a similarly dark sense of humour, too—not least when its menagerie of creatures are finally unveiled. While director Michael Dougherty (who previously made decent 2007 Halloween anthology Trick…
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THE LEFTOVERS, 2.10 – ‘I Live Here Now’
Here ends one of television’s finest seasons, and a remarkable achievement in terms of The Leftovers transforming itself into a more inclusive drama without losing its identity. Fine-tuning is what happened this year, and it’s been a pleasure to watch and review 10 episodes that didn’t really put a foot wrong; becoming something of a masterclass in…
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DOCTOR WHO, 9.12 – ‘Hell Bent’
If there’s one thing that Steven Moffat’s “Hell Bent” achieves, it’s certainly not clarity. Picking up from The Doctor’s (Peter Capaldi) arrival back on Gallifrey, Moffat sidesteps any intention to make this the major conclusion to the particular quest that began with “The Day of The Doctor.” He’s got home “the long way round”, and…
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THE KNICK, 2.8 – ‘Not Well At All’
As “Not Well At All” unfolds, it quickly becomes the funniest episode of the season. It also happens to be the best episode, delivering a series of pay-offs and punchlines to plots that have been simmering all season in darkly humorous fashion. But by the episode’s end, the sly humour falls away, and we’re left…
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AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL – ‘The Ten Commandments Killer’
Any American Horror Story viewer who’s seen Adaptation has probably thought about “The Three”; the thriller screenplay by main character Charlie Kaufman’s brother Donald, about a detective trying to catch a killer. In a last-minute twist, it’s revealed that the detective, the killer, and the woman trapped in the killer’s basement are the same person. At one point,…
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YOU, ME & THE APOCALYPSE – ‘Episode Ten’
Oh, how I love a bleak finale. Hats off to You, Me & The Apocalypse’s creator Iain Hollands, who after 10 weeks of expertly blending light and dark, delivered an absolute sucker punch of an ending—as it was revealed that the man in the Slough bunker narrating the story of these last few weeks was…
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UK Premiere: ASH vs. EVIL DEAD
Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy can proudly boast one the most fervent cult followings around. The original film launched the careers of both Raimi and his leading man Bruce Campbell—now a genuine cult legend—but it’s in the increasingly bonkers and hilarious sequels that each cemented their credentials as the overlords of the horror-comedy sub-genre. Well,…
