Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

As a representation of a story previously untold, The Innocents offers enough surface material to hold your attention, but its refusal to get dirt under its fingernails renders it more frustrating than compelling. Review

For its first half, Fantastic Beasts keeps us thrilled, charmed and intrigued. But then it gets to a point where the plot kicks in, and it's highly derivative, falling back on some of the most tired clichés of the superhero genre. Review

The martial arts on display here are incredibly impressive, and if that's all you demand, you'll be more than satisfied. If you require more than continuous bone-breaking, the movie becomes tedious as it fails to offer variety in its action set-pieces and roundly ignores little details like character and plot. Review

Director Cody Calahan delivers a solid exercise in brooding menace... Review

You can get away with a story like this as an episode of a TV anthology show, but as a feature length movie it's far too reliant on pulling the rug from under our expectations to set it apart from the crowd. Review

Nic Lamont is stellar as struggling filmmaker Catherine, who finds herself making a series of increasingly ludicrous compromises in order to get her 'zombie comedy' made, from including a talking dog to casting Human Centipede 2 star Laurence R Harvey as a wildly inappropriate romantic lead. Review

The Swedish monolith proves himself a surprise master of comic timing in the role of a demon hunter who arrives in a small Mississippi town ravaged by an unexplained series of killings. Review

Parker uses his limited stage to good effect, the claustrophobia adding to the increasing tension between the various players. Review

On the evidence of his debut, writer-director Sean Spencer may need to develop his writing, but he's arrived fully formed as a director, and in an industry bereft of black filmmakers, his is a name to look out for. Review

My Father Die moves at a blistering pace, and Stretch's vengeful biker is as menacing a villain as you could want from a genre thriller like this. Review

It has all the gloss and sheen of a Hollywood production, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see the Finnish director cross the Atlantic in the near future. Review

As far as humour goes, Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies is far too light on laughs, and the zombie mayhem offers little in the way of the sort of creative 'splatstick' that makes or breaks this genre. Review

American Pastoral has the look of a classy cable TV production, and ultimately we're left in little doubt that this is a story that could have prospered on the small screen, with more time allotted to fill in the many frustrating blanks that riddle McGregor's big screen adaptation. Review

Dog Eat Dog is the first movie to come along in quite some time that's unafraid to, and skillful enough to portray crime and violence as exciting, snuff porn for our lizard brains. It's the cinematic equivalent of Ice T's Cop Killer album; we know it's an immature and misguided message, but damn if the riffs aren't catchy as hell. Review

There's a park in Paterson, New Jersey devoted to one former native, comedian Lou Costello. It may seem like a laughable idea, but I bet the residents of Paterson are proud of it. They should be proud of Paterson the movie too. Review

A film that plays like a Monday morning lecture, A United Kingdom will find its natural home on TV/DVD combo players wheeled into classrooms by teachers too hungover to deal with their pupils. Review

Patchwork is a distinctively L.A. story, a reminder of how lonely a big city can become if you don't fit in. Together, the film's three heroines are like a Cowardly Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow, but their ultimate plan is to bash the Wizard's brains in. Review

Mixing old school genre tropes with a very modern indie drama sensibility, Jackson Stewart has delivered one of the best horror movies of recent years, a film that isn't short on brains, guts and most importantly, heart. Review

This story may have worked more effectively as a one hour episode of a weekly TV anthology series, yet so compelling is it to watch Brian Cox attempt to solve a mystery by cutting into human flesh, I could fully support a 'corpse of the week' small screen spinoff. Review

The performance of Max Records is both creepy and compassionate. Watching him slide towards succumbing to his violent impulses is quite gripping, but ultimately the film's central plot proves a far less interesting distraction. Review

De la Vega delivers the sort of "what the hell are we watching?" grindhouse experience that's all too rare in modern genre cinema. While you may find yourself asking a lot of questions after the movie and receiving no satisfying answers, in the moment it's undeniably a bloody rollercoaster ride. Review

Though it's outwardly a horror movie, Raw is one of the all-time great college comedies, albeit a very Central European take on the sub-genre, a world away from the 'safe space' culture of Anglo-Saxon campuses. A love letter to third level education it's certainly not. Review

Writer-director Sean Byrne couldn't be accused of telling the most original of tales with The Devil's Candy - it's essentially a standard haunted house movie with a heavy metal twist - but he tells it with confidence and class. Review

Doctor Strange is visually stunning, boasting mind-blowing Dali-esque sequences that make it the closest Marvel will ever likely come to making an arthouse movie. Scott Derrickson does a fine job of integrating such visual insanity into coherent storytelling, blowing our minds without wrecking our heads. Review