Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

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

After Love never manipulates us into rooting for its couple to get back together. Quite the opposite in fact; the more time we spend in the company of this mutually miserable pair the more we long for them to get as far away from each other as possible. Review

Nocturnal Animals is gloriously trashy, but also one of the most aesthetically pleasing movies of the year. It seems fashioned specifically to feature on future double bills with Nicholas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon. Review

The first Reacher movie just about turned a profit, so it came as a surprise to most of us when a second was announced. On the evidence of the resulting sequel, Cruise should have taken the advice of its prophetic title. Review

With director Mike Flanagan at the helm, hopes will be quite high among horror fans for this sequel, but there's little of the skill he displayed in this year's straight to Netflix thriller Hush evidenced here. Review

For roughly its first half, I, Daniel Blake succeeds as a well-observed look at the trials of an unwanted underclass, but as the film progresses it becomes apparent that while Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty have a clear message, they haven't got much of a story. Review

As the film is told wholly from the perspective of Francisca, rather than any of her victims, there are few opportunities to generate suspense. Much of Pesce's cold and clinical film causes us to recoil in disgust, but little of it makes us shiver in terror. Review

By all means lay down your cash and go see Inferno, but the experience could be easily duplicated by flicking on the Discovery Channel and blasting the Bourne Identity soundtrack over the images. This is an abyss of entertainment. Review

We're living in something of a golden age for sci-fi dramas whose protagonists are scientists and intellectuals determined to think rather than blast their way through obstacles, and Amy Adams' linguist is perhaps the most human of them all. Review

Mainstream western movies set in Africa rarely tell positive stories. Queen of Katwe is a refreshing break from this unhelpful narrative, a story of Africans achieving greatness unaided. The only white knights you'll find here are on the chess board. Review

War on Everyone purports to be a comedy, but it's not laughing at its evil protagonists so much as with them, and its idea of edgy humour is to simply remark on the race, religion, gender politics or body image of every character it introduces. Review

The dialogue sounds like it was written in Spanish and translated to English through a Google Chrome extension, and the actors spend most of their time wandering around with a bemused look on their faces, as though they've gotten lost while trying to find their way back to the set from the catering truck. Review

The Light Between Oceans is unashamedly old-fashioned, a lengthy widescreen drama that seems custom made for viewing on a lazy Sunday afternoon. By no means the epic of human drama it believes itself to be, it's nonetheless a solid attempt to replicate the great melodramas of the past. Review

With Emily Blunt's portrayal of Rachel, we always feel like we're watching a drunk pretending to be sober, rather than a sober actor playing drunk. She's thoroughly convincing as an alcoholic. Unfortunately, so are the film's director, screenwriter and editor. Review