THE NEST ★★★★★
Directed by Sean Durkin. Starring Jude Law, Carrie Coon, Oona Roche, Charlie Shotwell. 16 cert, lim release, 107 min
Arriving almost a decade after Martha Marcy May Marlene wowed audiences, the second film from Sean Durkin is impressively, arrestingly chilly. An Englishman (Law) decides to uproot his American family – horse-trainer wife (Coon), son (Shotwell) and teenage stepdaughter (Roche) – to a country pile across the Atlantic. Slowly, the superficially happy family transforms, as if by some terrible alchemy, into a profoundly unhappy one. It's Scenes from a Marriage with Children. Son of Saul cinematographer Mátyás Erdély typically keeps the camera at an alienating distance. Durkin's script is equally clinical. Full review TB
CANDYMAN ★★★★☆
Directed by Nia DaCosta. Starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Colman Domingo, Tony Todd. 16 cert, gen release, 91 min
Imaginative, original sequel to the 1992 horror of the same title. Da Costa directs with great flair, but the influence of producer and co-writer Jordan Peele is hard to ignore. Like his Get Out and Us, the new Candyman has much to do with white supremacy and the challenges for contemporary black America. Abdul-Mateen plays an artist living in a gentrified incarnation of the Chicago 'hood where the Candyman myths first emerged. There are plenty of gory thrills following foolish incantations to mirrors. There is also much canny sociopolitical irony. A success. Full review DC
REDEMPTION OF A ROGUE ★★★★☆
Directed by Philip Doherty. Aaron Monaghan, Aisling O'Mara, Kieran Roche, Pat McCabe. 16 cert, gen release, 93 min
Grim Ulster comedy concerning a dissolute Cavan man (Monaghan) faced with an impossible challenge following the death of his father: if he buries the body on a rainy day he will be disinherited. There is something of a Nick Cave song about Redemption of a Rogue. Black humour is interspersed with mad visions that alternately flesh out the film's dark themes and slyly subvert them. Like Cave, Doherty seems aware of his own excesses and is prepared to place them within occasional inverted commas. A bit overcooked at times, but committed throughout. Full review DC
DEMONIC ★★★☆☆
Directed by Neill Blomkamp. Starring Carly Pope, Chris William Martin, Michael J Rogers, Nathalie Boltt, Terry Chen. Digital platforms, 104 min
Secretly shot during lockdown, Demonic is a return to form for the director of District 9. As the film opens, Carly (Pope), the traumatised heroine, finds her mother (Boltt) inside an abandoned mental hospital. It's a dream, but Blomkamp's deftly fashioned uncanny valley signals that there's more to it. So it transpires. The appearance of the paramilitary wing of the Vatican feels too much like a visit from Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition. At its best, however, Demonic brushes against the same walls as Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor. It has agreeably creepy ideas about the human experience and it's never dull. Full review TB
