Director Mikael Håfström joins this episode of the Movies In Focus podcast to discuss his latest film, Slingshot, a space thriller starring Casey Affleck and Laurence Fishburne. Mikael is no stranger to crafting tense, atmospheric films, having directed works like his adaptation of Stephen King’s 1408 starring John Cusack and the Sylvester Stallone…

Directed by Adam Nelson and written by Chris Watt, The Mire is a well-honed dramatic thriller which grabs your attention and draws you into its tense plot. Essentially a one-location, three-hander, the low-budget film knows exactly what to do with its limited resources and it keeps you hooked until its surprising finale. Returning guest Adam Nelson…

Director Joe Stephenson joins this episode of the Movies In Focus podcast to discuss his latest film, Doctor Jekyll. This film marks a significant moment for Hammer Studios, being their first horror release since the company's acquisition by the aptly named John Gore. Starring, Eddie Izzard and Scott Chambers, the film offers a fresh take on Robert…

Dog Soldiers, The Descent and Doomsday filmmaker Neil Marshall joins the Movies In Focuspodcast to talk about his new gangster film, Duchess alongside its star, co-writer and producer Charlotte Kirk. The pair previously collaborated on the action-horror The Lair and the mediaeval thriller, The Reckoning. With Duchess, Marshall delivers a fast-paced…

On this episode, Jeff Downes and Graham O'Dwyer from the brilliant At The Flicks podcast discuss Kevin Costner's western epic, Horizon: An American Saga. We'll be putting our collective expertise to work as we explore Costner's latest directorial effort, examining its place within the western genre and its potential impact on cinema. So let's saddl…

Director Alejandro Brugués goes for old-fashioned chills and offers up some slow-burn horror with his excellent new horror, The Inheritance. It can be difficult to have sympathy for characters who have immense wealth and privilege – especially when you’re not supposed to like them. However, The Inheritance gets the balance just right – and along wi…

Written by Joe Russo and Chris LaMont, The Inheritance delivers old-fashioned chills and offers up some slow-burn horror. The quick pitch is to call the Alejandro Brugués directed film a well-balanced mix of Knives Out and The House On Haunted Hill by way of The Haunting Of Hill House and Succession. There’s a sophistication and understanding of th…

Shane Dax Taylor’s Murder Company is an old-fashioned World War II men on a mission movie. On Demand now in the U.S., the film stars William Moseley, Pooch Hall, Gilles Marini, Joe Anderson and Kelsey Grammer. The plot follows a group of US soldiers as they attempt to smuggle a member of the French resistance behind enemy lines so that he can assas…

Writer/director Jake Allyn's film Ride is now available On Demand in the US. It’s a wonderful modern day western that sees Allyn star alongside C. Thomas Howell, Annabeth Gish & Forrie J. Smith. It's a beautifully shot & exceptionally well acted film that has dramatic highs alongside some strong tension. Jake Allyn joins the Movies In Focus podcast…

Alexander Payne’s 1999 release Election was a film which took the filmmaker’s career to the next level. A biting satire, it features a great Matthew Broderick as a teacher with a grudge battling Reese Witherspoon‘s overly enthusiastic student, Tracy Flick. As part of a special look back at some of the films released in 1999 - a year many believe to…

Arrow Shorts is a showcase for great short-form film-making. From the scary to the bizarre, Arrow highlights the amazing work being created by filmmakers in a shorter-length medium. Film-maker Drew Maxwell Weiss joins this episode of the podcast to talk about his Giallo inspired short Anatomy Maestro. With nods to the bloody thrillers of the late ‘…

Arrow Shorts is a showcase for great short-form film-making. From the scary to the bizarre, Arrow highlights the amazing work being created by filmmakers in a shorter-length medium. Film-maker Alex Baro-Cayetano joins this episode of the podcast to talk about his small, but perfectly formed short, Keith. In the film, a little girl meets someone cal…

Darkness Of Man is a new action noir starring Jean Claude Van Damme as a former Interpol agent haunted by the actions of his past. Visually striking, Darkness Of Man sees Van Damme give a nuanced turn - and it’s once again an indicator that the action icon can deliver good performances alongside bullets and flying kicks. James Cullen Bressack, the …

Arrow Shorts is a showcase for great short-form film-making. From the scary to the bizarre, Arrow highlights the amazing work being created by film-makers in a shorter-length medium. Film-maker Ryan Iriving joins this episode of the podcast to talk about Bark, a witty, original and well-composed slasher pastiche which crams a lot into its short run…

Arrow Shorts is a showcase for great short-form film-making. From the scary to the bizarre, Arrow highlights the amazing work being created by filmmakers in a shorter-length medium. Film-maker Izzy Lee joins this episode of the podcast to talk about her incredibly fresh and original short film Meat Friend. Meat Friend was nominated for a 2023 Fango…

The Image Of You is the screen adaptation of Adele Parks’ novel of the same name. Directed by Jeff Fisher and adapted by screenwriter Chris Sivertson, the film stars Sasha Pieterse, Parker Young, Néstor Carbonell and Mira Sorvino. It’s something of an outlier - a modern take on the erotic thriller - one with particular nods to masters of the genre …

Adele Parks MBE has sold over 5 million plus copies and has been translated into over 30 different languages. Her 19th novel, The Image Of You has now been adapted for the screen by director Jeff Fisher and screenwriter Chris Sivertson. Starring Sasha Pieterse, Parker Young, Néstor Carbonell and Mira Sorvino, the film is a modern take on the erotic…

Sometimes a movie will come along and subvert expectations - and Francis Galluppi’s brilliant feature film debut, The Last Stop In Yuma County is one of the movies. The set-up is that a travelling salesman is caught up with a pair of bank robbers in a remote diner - we’ve all seen that type of thriller a dozen times before but Galluppi takes things…

As its title suggests, Stefon Bristol’s Breathe is a claustrophobic and tense film that will leave you gasping for air. A prescient science fiction piece, Breathe is set in the near future where the earth has a depleted oxygen supply. A small family eke out an existence, but when strangers arrive at their doorstep paranoia seeps into their lives. A…

Unfairly dismissed in 1998, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Soldier underperformed when it was released, grossing a paltry $14.5 million at the U.S. on a then substantial $60 million budget. In the UK the Kurt Russell starrer became the most expensive film to go straight to DVD/Video. Danny Stewart's book Soldier: From Script to Screen takes a serious deep di…

It’s usually hyperbole to say that someone does it all, but in the case of Larry Fessenden, it just so happens to be true. An award-winning actor, producer, writer, director and editor - Fessenden is a genre filmmaker with a real skill in delivering works that entertain but also have a fair amount of nuance and sophistication. Fessenden’s latest fi…

Based on E.O. Chirovici's novel, The Book of Mirrors, Sleeping Dogs is a twisty and entertaining thriller starring the mighty Russell Crowe. Crowe plays Roy Freeman, a former cop undergoing treatment for Alzheimer's disease who starts to dig into an old case in the hopes of exonerating an innocent man. The type of film that used to be Hollywood’s b…

Joe Stephenson's Doctor Jekyll was the first Hammer horror film released since the company was purchased by its new owner - the perfectly named John Gore. An entertaining throwback feature with a modern twist, this new imagining of Robert Louis Stephenson's iconic tale stars Eddie Izzard and Scott Chambers. Izzard is the titular Jekyll, while Chamb…

Writer-director Gabriel Abrantes joins this episode of the Movies In Focus podcast to discuss his new film Amelia’s Children A slow-burning and delicately paced horror with Brigette Lundy-Paine, Carlota Cotta, Anabela Moreira, Alba Baptista, Amelia’s Children sees a New York-based musician discover that he has a long-lost mother and brother in Port…

In this episode of the Movies In Focus podcast, film director Andrew Davis talks about his long and prestigious career. Best known for directing the hugely acclaimed blockbuster The Fugitive with Harrison Ford, Davis’ career has been as eclectic as it has been successful. From his excellent jazz-fused 1978 debut, Stony Island through to The Package…

Ruthless is a bone-crunching thriller starring an against-type Dermot Mulroney as a teacher trying to rescue one of his students from a gang of human traffickers. Eschewing preaching for entertainment, Ruthless is an enjoyable, no-frills throwback revenge thriller with a good turn from Mulroney. Best known for his romantic leads, Mulroney sells the…

Director Phillip Noyce and Morena Baccarin join the Movies In Focus podcast to talk about their new film, Fast Charlie. Brutal when it needs to be, funny when it wants to be and heartfelt when you least expect it, Fast Charlie is first-class entertainment for grown-ups. Master-craftsman Noyce has built a well-constructed revenge thriller around sta…

It’s A Wonderful Knife is an entertaining slasher flick - with a difference. As the title indicates, the film is a riff on Frank Capra’s 1946 Christmas classic, It's A Wonderful Life. Starring Jane Widdop, Joel McHale and Justin Long, the film has heart and laughs wrapped up against the film's bloody kills. A year after saving her small town from a…

Belfast-based director Dominic O’Neill joins the Movies In Focus podcast to discuss his new comedy horror, Haunted Ulster Live. A comedy of errors, Haunted Ulster Live uses the famed UK mockumentary Ghostwatch as a stepping-off point. Taking place in a supposedly haunted house, the broadcast is interrupted by things that go bump in the night – as w…

Writer, film critic and visual artist Jaylan Salah joins this episode of the Movies In Focus podcast. A woman of many talents, Jaylan is a passionate film lover with a keen insight into multiple genres. Delving deep into what frightens her, Jaylan discusses a selection of thrilling films including Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, Werner Herzog’s Nosferat…

Douglas Schulze has been a friend of Movies In Focus since 2009, in the lead-up to the release of his David Carradine starring horror film Dark Fields - or The Rain as it was then called. Films like Mimesis: Night Of The Living Dead, Mimesis: Nosferatu and his experimental thriller The Dark Below show a director who wants to push the boundaries of …

Belgian filmmaker Daphné Baiwir's King On Screen is an excellent documentary that puts the focus on the many film and television adaptations that have been based on the work of Stephen King. A must-see for King fans, Baiwir looks at these adaptations from the perspective of people who made them - and the film features interviews with the likes of F…

On this episode of the Movies In Focus podcast, director Yuval Adler talks about his latest film, Sympathy For The Devilstarring Nicolas Cage and Joel Kinnaman. Carter Smith also joins the show to talk about his latest Blumhouse release, The Passenger. Sympathy For The Devil is a Las Vegas set modern noir. It features an exceptional turn from Nicol…

Writer, producer, director and podcaster Joe Russo joins the Movies In Focus podcast to discuss the current strike by the Writer’s Guild of America. An up and coming genre filmmaker, Russo has written a host of well regarded screenplays with his partner Chris LaMont, as well as directing the thriller, The Au Pair Nightmare. He also produced the hor…

Get The Gringo and Rambo: Last Blood director, Adrian Grünberg joins the Movies In Focus podcast to talk about his new film,The Black Demon. The killer shark movie stars Josh Lucas as an oil company employee struggling to protect his family from a megalodon shark after they become stranded on a disused oil rig. An entertaining horror-thriller, The …

City University of New York lecturer and film historian James Kenney once again joins the Movies In Focus podcast. The last time he was on the show he talked about discovering the original cut of Peter Bogdanovich’s Squirrels To The Nuts - and this time round he discusses Gee Malik Linton’s surrealist religious drama, Daughter Of God. Starring Kean…

Running on HBO for seven seasons and 93 episodes from 1989 to 1996, Tales From The Crypt was a wonderfully ghoulish show that was based on Bill Gaines’ EC Comics imprint of the same name. Executive produced by Joel Silver, Richard Donner, Robert Zemeckis, Walter Hill and David Giler, the show was a huge success due to its dark tales and even darker…

Japanese-American director Yoko Okumura makes a punchy feature film debut with Unseen, a new genre-bending comedy-thriller from Blumhouse Productions. Running a tight eighty minutes, Unseen stars Midori Francis as Emily, a woman escaping from a boyfriend who wants to kill her. Lost in the woods, and without her prescription glasses, she relies on t…

Corey Deshon, the talented multi-hyphenate writer-director joins the Movies In Focus podcast to talk about his new film, Daughter. Daughter is an intense psychological thriller that stars Vivien Ngô as a young woman who is abducted and then inducted into a family as their new daughter. Casper Van Dien plays the mysterious Father, the man who will s…

Released in the summer of 1991, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves was a monster success that grossed over $165 million at the US box office and more than $390 million globally - a number which made it one of the biggest hits of the year. The success of the film, along with the massive Bryan Adams hit, (Everything I Do) I Do It for You means that it sti…

Manifest West is a coming of age survival drama starring Milo Gibson, Annet Mahendru and Lexi Kolker. A film about a family ditching civilisation and seeking a new life in the American wilderness, Manifest West is an incredibly timely movie which looks at family values, the broken economy and the search for a better way of life. The film’s writer-d…

Sam & Kate is a heartfelt family dramedy from writer-director Darren Le Gallo. It’s a low-key piece, which features a collection of strong performances from its cast - Dustin Hoffman, Sissy Spacek, Jake Hoffman, Schuyler Fisk and Henry Thomas. They all manage to cover a wide range of emotions, delivering plenty of light-hearted moments amongst the …

This episode of the Movies In Focus podcast sees a pair of directors join Niall Browne to talk about their latest movies. First up is French filmmaker Romuald Boulanger who is discussing his new thriller On The Line. The film sees Mel Gibson star as a radio host whose evening show is thrown into chaos when he gets caught-up in a dangerous game of c…

Director K. Asher Levin joins the Movies In Focus podcast to talk with Niall Browne about his horror-action-comedy Slayers. A very modern take on the vampire film, Slayers stabs its stake into the heart of everything from online influencers to QAnon conspiracy theorists. It’s an energetic and entertaining genre pic with committed performances from …

Gerry Maguire, the Head of Irish Film London returns to the Movies In Focus podcast to discuss the 2022 incarnation of The Irish Film Festival London. The festival, which is now in its 11th year will take place in London from the 16 – 20 November 2022. Showcasing the best of Irish cinema, the festival opens with a gala screening of Frank Berry’s dr…

Steven E. de Souza, the acclaimed screenwriter and director joins Niall Browne for this episode of the Movies In Focus podcast. Mega hits and cult classics such as 48 Hours, Commando, Die Hard, The Running Man, Die Hard 2, Hudson Hawk, Streetfighter, Judge Dredd and Tomb Raider litter his filmography. That’s taking into account television shows suc…

This time around Irish filmmaker Andrew Baird joins Niall Browne to talk about his new film One Way. A character based thriller which stars Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly), Kevin Bacon and Travis Fimmel, One Way is a piece which mainly takes place in one location - onboard a bus. Considering its limited scope, One Way is a film which is direct…

Actors, writers, directors and producers all have key roles in production - but one of the most important aspects in a film is the musical score - a score can literally make or break a film. Composer Lorne Balfe joins the Movies In Focus podcast about his work on the hugely acclaimed and massively successful Tom Cruise blockbuster, Top Gun: Maveric…

At the tail end of 2021 Movies In Focus watched and reviewed Sonny Mallhi’s excellent horror, Hurt. On The surface it appeared that Hurt was just another film in the slasher genre - but it turned out to be much more than that, Yes, it was a horror film but it had rich characterisation and dealt with a lot of interesting themes such as fear, death, …

Premiering at the Venice Festival in 2014, She’s Funny That Way was the final narrative feature from the late Peter Bogdanovich. Starring Owen Wilson, Imogen Poots, Kathryn Hahn, Will Forte, Rhys Ifans and Jennifer Aniston, the film was a screwball comedy which, while enjoyable, never truly felt like a cohesive vision from the master writer-directo…