Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

Like any good punk gig, Green Room is best experienced with an audience, as Saulnier manipulates us into pogo-ing out of our seats in terror. Whether punk is dead or not is an ongoing debate, but on the evidence of Green Room, down and dirty genre cinema is alive and gobbing in our faces. Review

Hitchcock/Truffaut purports to give us an examination of the series of interviews French director/critic Francois Truffaut conducted with the master of suspense in 1962, and the resulting book. Yet after a brief introduction, Kent Jones' film morphs into yet another run of the mill Hitch doc, recounting anecdotes all too familiar to even the most casual of Hitchcock fans. Review

As a piece of entertainment, Hail, Caesar! performs the function a night at the movies once did, providing a little bit of song and dance, a little bit of mystery, and a little bit of sex. Review

That a key sequence takes place at the stadium of the LA Dodgers - a club that infamously uprooted itself from Brooklyn in 1957 in what most fans saw as a soulless, money-making move - is particularly fitting for a remake inspired by purely financial motivations. Review

At one point the girls escape their uncle's house to attend a football match where all male supporters have been banned for previously causing violence. The image of Lale crowd-surfing over waves of jubilant women, rejoicing at being free of a male influence for a couple of hours, speaks a thousand unsilenced words. Review

White is a highly complicated and nuanced figure. We're torn between contempt for his narcissistic ways and sympathy for his genuine love and affection for his mother. Life has dealt him a cruel hand, and he's looking for an antagonist to strike out against, but the film never conveniently gives him one, just as life rarely does. Review

Using a location synonymous with real life suffering for a horror movie is the height of bad taste. Hollywood seems to think tragedy is fine once it doesn't effect Americans. Try pitching a horror movie featuring the ghosts of those who died in the Twin Towers or Hurricane Katrina and see how far it gets you. Review

If you close your eyes and think of the words 'American indie cinema', the images your imagination conjures probably won't veer too far from those found in writer-director Felix Thompson's feature debut. It's a familiar package, but peel back the wrapping and it presents a few surprises. Review

In what era should a movie version of Ballard's novel be set? Is it still relevant? Ben Wheatley has answered the former question by resolutely setting his adaptation in 1975, but his film leaves the latter question unanswered. Review

It may feature a very traditional presentation of its titular antagonist, but The Witch is more psychological period drama than Saturday night horror flick, more Bergman, less Blumhouse. Review

Sing Street is a reminder of what a truly creative moment in pop culture the '80s was, with music and fashion trends evolving on a month to month basis. In this age of movies loaded with nostalgia for other movies, it's refreshing to indulge in a form of nostalgia grounded in an actual lived past. Review

Following on from Eli Roth's Knock Knock, this is the second time in a row we've witnessed Reeves and de Armas deliver impressive performances in an otherwise awful movie. Exposed really shouldn't be. To anyone. Review

This is no martial arts flick. The fights are very much of the playground variety - sweaty, out of shape men meeting their demise on a patch of suburban Dublin wasteland. It would be interesting to see what could be achieved with this intriguing premise on a more accommodating budget. Review

The film has been described as 'giallo-esque', seemingly because it can't be bothered stringing together a worthwhile story, but it lacks the visual audacity and laudable insanity of the great Italian horrors. Review

It's difficult to decipher which audience the film is attempting to court. Horror fans will be bored senseless by its sensibility, while Austen devotees will need more than a little persuasion to view this as anything other than blasphemy. Review

If you were cryogenically frozen in the early '90s as a 12 year old boy, you'll be blown away by Deadpool. For anyone who lived through Tarantino, The Matrix and Shrek, or has enjoyed intercourse at some point in their lives, this is the low point of the seemingly never-ending superhero fad. Review

This scandal is quite recent news, and Concussion was clearly rushed into production for a timely release, but had the filmmakers shown less haste, we'd likely have a more satisfactory examination of this landmark moment in US sports. Review

A western is only as engrossing as its characters, while a horror movie relies on the threat of its villains. Writer-director Zahler nails both elements here to give us a rare hyphenated genre piece that succeeds in satisfying both camps. Review

The Survivalist is an exemplary piece of low budget filmmaking. Experts will tell you to make the most of a tight budget by confining your action to a single, easily accessible location and a handful of characters. That's just what we get here, and writer-director Fingleton makes the most out of his limited means. Review

The further it enters genre territory, the more the film begins to resemble something the notorious Spanish exploitation guru Jess Franco might have knocked out over a long weekend in a borrowed villa, albeit with an all-star cast, all dizzying camera moves and damp pubic hair. As such, it's a lot of fun, if maybe not in the way Guadagnino had intended. Review

John Goodman steals his scenes as producer Frank King, who is all too happy to work with a communist as long as he's cheap. At one point, King admonishes a scriptwriter for injecting politics into a sci-fi screenplay; he wouldn't have any such problem with the politically vague script for Trumbo. Review

Strangerland does have two undoubted assets - a quality central cast and a striking location. Kidman, Weaving and Fiennes do their best to flesh out their characters, but there's not a lot for them to work with beyond the stereotypes of horny wife, grizzled cop and uptight husband. Review

Hakonarson does an admirable job of keeping the storytelling visual, yet at the same time the ambiguity regarding the brothers' animosity is ultimately unrewarding. We never learn why they hate each other so much, and despite fine performances, this reduces them to bearded Spy Vs Spy players. Review

To call 13 Hours propaganda would be an insult to that particular school of manipulative cinema. Bay simply doesn't have the skill to sell a political stance. To view the movie as anything more than a bad Assault on Precinct 13 knockoff is to give its director far too much credit. Review