Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

Blending the cheesy smarm of '80s TV with an increasingly unsettling feeling that something awful is going to happen, The Luckiest Man in America is surprisingly similar to the recent cult horror hit Late Night with the Devil, complete with a smarmy host in a bad wig, played by a shit-eating Walton Goggins. Review

It's all very entertaining until it isn't. At a certain point we find ourselves wishing the drama had more to offer than simply forcing us to watch awful people treating each other awfully, which just isn't enough to justify the film's ultimately patience-testing running time. Review

There are some nice shock moments when the creatures snap their jaws into action, and the bloodshed is proper gnarly at times. Review

Macdonald, Connolly and Klinger have created a striking work of filmic embroidery with nary a stitch out of place. Review

Y2K's biggest glitch is that it's simply nowhere near as funny as it should be. Much like our reaction to the real life panic that inspired it, Y2K leaves us shrugging our shoulders and asking "Is that it?"... Review

If La Cocina were an eatery it would be the sort with laminated menus, and it's unlikely you'd want to stick around for dessert. Review

It's as dark a scenario as they come, but Guiraudie mines humour through the growing absurdism of it all. Review

We establish early on what An Taibhse has up its sleeve, and while the movie delivers a few effective shocks, it's all too short on surprises. Review

Lianjie's debut is a silent scream from a sterile society. Review

On the horror front, it has a couple of inventive kills that might be enough to satisfy the most undemanding genre fan if enough beer is consumed, but its idiotic and ill-conceived world-building will leave you nursing a sore head. Review

It's a fun time with enough espionage to keep us engaged in its plot, but it's the quality of the cast and their understanding of the tone Soderbergh wants to strike here that makes Black Bag really tick. Review

While its narrative and ideas fail to stimulate, the same can't be said for Glorious Summer's visuals. Review

Majors is undoubtedly the film's greatest asset. His is a performance that veers between making us nauseous to earning our sympathy, often in the space of a single scene. Review

McManus's performance impressively sells both the movie's heady sci-fi themes and its message about the effects of substituting grief with vengeance. Review

It's a profoundly moving expression of adolescent female solidarity in the face of an encroaching adult world filled with uncertainty and danger. Review

Mickey 17 is a film that presumes its audience are morons, and its contempt for the viewer is summed up when Pattinson's voiceover tells us that 17 is followed by 18. With its juvenile humour and mugging performances, Mickey 17 plays like a love letter to the awful sci-fi movies of Luc Besson, but with the brightness turned down. Review

Had Herbulot been able to weave his political points organically into the action, Zero might have stood up to its obvious John Carpenter influences by simultaneously giving us genre thrills and food for thought. Instead, Zero is half fun action romp, half eye-rolling high school level politicising. Review

Ashcroft's film is very good at playing on our fears of being tortured by some cruel sociopath in our dotage, but it never quite does anything beyond reminding us how awful we can treat one another when we're given a little bit of power to do so. Review

There's little to suggest Number Seventeen was made by arguably the most talented filmmaker working in England at the time. Review

While Medoff's film is surprisingly touching, it's first and foremost a horror movie, one that goes to some shockingly dark places. Review

Cold Wallet never quite nails its tone, veering from the black comedy of Michael Bay's Pain & Gain with its out-of-depth meatheads to something darker in its final act. Review

Torres has rightly received plaudits for her performance. Aside from Torres, Salles has assembled a strikingly good ensemble. Review

Had The Other Way Around been made by a Scandinavian filmmaker you can't help but suspect the scenario would have been played as an absurdist comedy. Trueba's film has a light tone, but laughs are thin on the ground. Review

Perkins is playing this for laughs rather than scares, and his shocks do indeed result in hilarity. Review