RAW ★★★★
Directed by Julia Ducournau. Starring Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Naït Oufella, Laurent Lucas, Joana Preiss. 18 cert, limited release, 98 min
It's been a while since we've had a horror film that caused audiences to be hospitalised with acute disgust. Just such a headline-grabbing event occurred when Julia Ducournau's Raw screened at the Toronto Film Festival. A young woman severs her own finger and blames it on the dog. Buckets of blood are spilled. Ugly rashes spread across guilty bodies. It also offers much disgusting fun. What really sets the film apart, however, is the appalling power of its disgusting images. Francis Bacon would have got on all right with the dripping flesh. Hannibal Lecter would, however, have been disgusted at the inelegant preparation of the comestibles. Make of that what you will. DC Review/Trailer
I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO ★★★★
Directed by Raoul Peck. Featuring Samuel L Jackson. Club, IFI Dublin, Queens, Belfast, 95mins
In 1979, author James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project. Remember This House would be his personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his close friends: civil rights activists Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Baldwin died in 1987 leaving behind just 30 completed pages. Drawing on that manuscript, archival footage and Baldwin's 1976 mediation on race and Hollywood director Raoul Peck has completed the project with an intellectual aplomb that would surely have pleased Baldwin. Here is a picture that, rather like its dazzlingly brilliant subject, will make you rethink everything, See it. TB Review/Trailer
THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE ★★★★
Directed by André Øvredal. Starring Emile Hirsch, Brian Cox, Ophelia Lovibond, Michael McElhatton, Olwen Kelly, Jane Perry. 16 cert, limited release, 86 min
Øvredal's excellent follow up to Trollhunters cast Hirsch and Cox as father and son carrying out an autopsy on a possessed body. The characterisation is thin, but these two fine actors manage to drape flesh across the bare bones. (Apologies for the on-the-nose metaphor). The film is, however, all about the accumulation of shadowy menace, and Øvredal proves a young master of that art. A very original horror. 16 cert, lim release. DC Review/Trailer
GET OUT ★★★★★
Directed by Jordan Peele. Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, Milton "Lil Rel" Howery, Betty Gabriel. 15A cert, gen release, 104 min
Magnificent social horror that – in imitation of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner – sends a white girl and her black boyfriend to her parents in liberal suburbia. Here is a film about racism in a supposedly post-racial society that features few acts of explicit prejudice. The film builds elegantly from sinister omens to full-on viscera-gurgling mayhem. But Get Out has more to do with discomfort and envy than blind hatred. What a strange marvel it is. DC Review/Trailer
KONG: SKULL ISLAND ★★★★
Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts. Starring Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, Jing Tian, Toby Kebbell. 12A cert, gen release, 118 min
Who saw this coming? Kong: Skull Island and Apocalypse Now should just get a room together. Vogt-Roberts's hugely enjoyable semi-prequel to the recent Godzilla sends a team of Americans to the titular South Pacific island in the mid 1970s. A giant ape awaits. The characterisations are thin, but the shameless revelling in Vietnam movie culture is impossible to resist. Helicopters surge in with speakers blazing. Credence and The Stooges blare. An absolute hoot.. DC Review/Trailer
AQUARIUS ★★★★★
Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho. Starring Sônia Braga, Humberto Carrão, Irandhir Santos, Zoraide Coleto. Cert 18, select release, 148mins
At 60, retired music critic Clara (Braga) is a badass who can turn heads and rock out to Queen better than anyone else in her picturesque seaside Brazilian city. She is now the sole resident in the tasteful beachside building, despite the patronising, lupine advances of Diego (Carrão), the son of the property vulture who wants to tear down and redevelop the block. Mendonça's film has epic sweep, real emotion and, at its heart, a quite brilliant performance. TB Review/Trailer
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