Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

This budding franchise doesn't even give us the fun of any elaborate deaths. The unlucky contestants just fall through holes, which allows the possibility for them to pop up later in the story, and also of course enables the film to court a teenage audience. Review

Was this trilogy ever really aimed at fans of horror movies, or did it set out to capture the attention of the fanbase for teen soap operas? Review

But The Toll is more than simply a reworking of the setup of The Strangers (a movie knowingly referenced in dialogue here). Review

Boiled down to its basics, The Forever Purge is a chase thriller, with our heroes trying to get to the sanctuary of Mexico (see what they did there) before the border closes. The action along the way is middling, and a lot of it feels like it's inspired by the Italian Mad Max and Escape from New York clones that propped up video store shelves in the early '80s. Review

Two chapters in and Fear Street is one of the big disappointments of 2021. You can't piss down horror fans' backs and tell us it's raining. We've seen this sort of thing down before, and done well, and crucially done by filmmakers who seem genuinely interested in the genre rather than just in mining cheap nostalgia. Review

Anyone expecting a gripping thriller might want to be put out of their own misery while watching the dreary West 11, but those who can appreciate it as a document of a forgotten period of London history while find value in Winner's film. Review

The horror-comedy sub-genre has given us some of the dumbest, most cynical movies imaginable, but Landon appears to have nailed what makes these two flavours go together – an appreciation and respect for both forms. Review

Let Us In is objectively trash with all the aesthetic appeal of a Hallmark Original, but with its homey smalltown atmosphere and likeable young protagonists it just might function as a way to introduce younger viewers to the joys of the horror genre. Review

If 1994 set out to evoke '90s slashers…well, I guess it does a good job. Those movies were generally awful to mediocre, and unlike the golden age slashers of the '70s and early '80s, spent more time spelling out the plot than building suspenseful sequences. Review

Visually, Murder by Decree presents one of the more atmospheric takes on Victorian London, fog floating above cobbled streets as the sound of foghorns and clomping horse hooves echo in the background. Review

Like a modern update of one of the BBC's classic MR James Ghost Story at Christmas adaptations, An Unquiet Grave makes economic use of a relatively brief runtime and a lack of special effects. Review

Von Horn seems to suggest that social media has returned us to a less civilised state, where alphas look down on the weak and pathetic. Review

Had Lee and Glazer filled us in on just what their heroine is being subjected to here, it would have made for a far more suspenseful experience. Review

After the muted response to his bland Rebecca remake, Wheatley wanted to get back to his low-budget roots, but with each new movie he makes, it seems the British auteur is moving further away from the talent teased in Down Terrace and Kill List. Review

Di Yorio certainly looks the part, but he's not exactly the most engaging screen presence, unlike Colombo, who has something of Joan Crawford about her and enlivens the film every time she pops up for a bit of suspect fondling of her boy's biceps. Review

I found it thoroughly intoxicating, one of those all too rare films that keep you entranced, blissfully ignorant of what might happen next. I certainly couldn't have predicted the final scene, which springs a magical surprise that feels like a nod to Tarkovsky. Review

Any cynicism we might have had early on in this music melodrama has been entirely eroded by the time we leave the studio and bid farewell to its muso protagonists. Review

Italian Studies never quite coalesces into a satisfying narrative. If it initially teases a gender reversal of Lost in Translation with a teenage boy acting as a tour guide for an older visitor to an unfamiliar city, that plotline ultimately never quite materialises. Review

Perhaps what's most refreshing about See for Me is how it gives us a disabled protagonist and refuses to portray them in a patronisingly angelic light. From the off, Sophie is difficult to warm to, even if her attitude is perhaps understandable. Review

Aside from Ohm, who gives a performance worthy of a far better movie, everyone seems utterly disinterested here. Review

This is what makes Nobody so much fun, watching this average Joe transform into a ruthless killing machine. Review

Cuartas gets us into the conflicting psyches of Dwight and Jessie, but it's somewhat frustrating that the film treats Thomas in a similar fashion to his older siblings – he may be the centre of the story but he's largely sidelined. Review

It's a warts-and-all glimpse of a future we're all set to face, and that's if we're lucky enough to make it that far. But watching Hopkins face his own mortality through a role that must have given him pause for thought is enough to get you through the darkness, like a senile parent suddenly remembering a long forgotten childhood detail. Review

At a brisk 77 minutes, we're left wanting a little more, which is a compliment to Seligman's ability to create characters we warm to. But ultimately it's that very specific Jewish humour that makes Shiva Baby so much fun, that ability to find a silver lining, or sometimes a cloud, in every scenario. Review