Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

On a technical level, Nina of the Woods is one of the more impressive low budget American indies of recent years, and I have to applaud Griak's aspiration. But while it's a cut above the slew of "let's go the woods with a camera and hope for the best" indie horrors, it fails to come anywhere near the sort of metaphysical genre films (Stalker; Solaris; Picnic at Hanging Rock) it hopes to echo. Review

I'm certainly curious to see what he might achieve if he's given a fully developed script to work with. Review

The Columnist is a provocative satire that doesn't offer any answers but raises plenty of questions regarding free speech. Review

A combination of sloppy, unfoccussed camerawork and an irritating soundtrack of loud guitar dirges makes Night of the Rumpus something of a sensory endurance test. Review

While his film is more concerned with mood, surreal atmosphere and vignettes... Review

Taken out of context, the first half of Shadow in the Cloud resembles a fun instalment of an Amazing Stories type anthology series. There's a rip-roaring 40-minute yarn here, but unfortunately Shadow in the Cloud follows it up with another 43 minutes of eye-rolling nonsense. Review

The Woman Who Ran is a film where very little happens during its running time, but its characters seem to continue existing beyond the closing credits. Review

Even if you can get on board with such insensitive victim-blaming, there's little here to satisfy fans of either the horror or western genres. Review

The three central performances are quietly heart-rending. Review

That bit of subversion aside, WW84 is as generic as any other superhero movie. Review

It's testament to Walsh's directorial skills and particularly the taciturn charisma of Belgian actor Talpe, that we remain invested in Dom's story. Review

Any potential for nerve-jangling suspense is squandered and in its place we get brief shocks, as villains appear out of nowhere. As Hitchcock was oft to say, a bomb suddenly exploding is nowhere near as effective as one ticking under a table. Review

Perhaps in a decade or so, Songbird will have some value as a shoddy document of what we all went through in 2020, something for teens who are currently too young to fully grasp what's occurring can look at and appreciate why Mommy and Daddy were so stressed out back then. Review

Up in space, the drama is just as inert. Sully and her crew, including her child's father, scientist Tom, are a poorly sketched lot. Review

Let Him Go is a gripping modern western anchored by one of the most textured screen couplings of recent mainstream cinema. Review

In place of muscular action, Knuckledust features a bloated ensemble of characters all suffering from verbal diarrhea. Review

Amid the cliches, it's the performances that make Falling worth sticking by. Review

Unfortunately this flatness is carried over to the film's scare scenes, and while Anything for Jackson is innovative in its premise, in its execution it's anything but. Review

But like the barely furnished, modernist home it plays out in, The Bloodhound is a film that could use an injection of warmth and life. Review

But simply critiquing the street level drug dealer without examining the wider context that puts kids in such danger is a little like giving a starving man a fish rather than teaching him how to fish for himself. Review

For all its genre tropes, Muscle is an earnest attempt to examine and question a very Northern European type of masculinity. Review

Murder Me, Monster gets by on its brooding visuals to a point, but eventually you realise that there's really very little going on beneath the surface here and it's essentially just a standard monster movie with a decidedly po-faced approach. Review

I'm no prude, but I just don't see the entertainment value in watching women being tortured in gruesome fashion with no sufficient story to anchor such portrayals of depravity. Review

After setting up an intriguing cat-and-mouse game between Frank and Cordelia, the film doesn't know what to do with this dynamic, and it descends into the sort of cliches you'll be familiar with if you've ever witnessed a TV soap opera play out a stalker plot-line. Review