Highly Suspect Reviews

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BETTE & JOAN? – WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO KENNETH HYMAN? On the second episode of this bonus season, we look at the career of Kenneth Hyman, the influential movie producer who spearheaded the production of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, as well as many other classic titles. First up, the […]

WITHOUT BLOOD MOVIE REVIEW Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality, other people get killed; not you”. A more modern writer, multiple award winning Alessandro Baricco, examines the fallout of war in his work Without Blood which now has been adapted and directed […]

UNABOMBER MOVIE REVIEW For two decades, the notorious Unabomber terrorized America, until 1996 when the FBI finally apprehended Ted Kaczynski, a former professor of mathematics now living as a recluse in a small cabin in Montana that lacked running water or electricity, but had a typewriter and lots of bomb-making equipment. A gifted student, the […]

GHOST IN THE CELL MOVIE REVIEW Let’s just get out of the way from the get-go that this is in no way beholden to the film that you almost certainly thought of when you saw the title was Ghost in the Cell. There’s no anime referencing here. Instead you get the modern master of Indonesian […]

5 MORE MINUTES MOVIE REVIEW The time-loop time travel conceit in film and tv has been well explored, certainly since 1993’s Groundhog’s Day (although explorations of the idea in fiction go back to the early 20th century). The Spanish film 5 More Minutes which played at this year’s Fantastic Fest sets very specific boundaries to […]

DONKEY PRINCESS MOVIE REVIEW From the directors of the politically charged, surreal, animated fairytale film The Wolf House comes the politically charged, surreal, partially animated fairytale film Donkey Princess which was featured at Fantastic Fest this year. The story follows Princess Diana who lives in a magical kingdom with her father the king. When the […]

PHREAKER MOVIE REVIEW If you’ve ever listened to us talk about Fantastic Fest, you’ve heard us say that often it’s the films that weren’t on your radar at all that end up on your ‘best of the fest’ lists. It’s rare for one of those films to be one of the minority of entries in […]

THE SPIRAL MOVIE REVIEW Coming off a run at some other major festivals and the announcement that it will be the Italian entry for Best International Feature Film at the upcoming Academy Awards, The Spiral is getting a lot of discussion right now. From a young Italian director Paolo Strippoli who has already gotten lots […]

DIGGER MOVIE REVIEW Director/Co-writer of Digger Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Birdman) has made a film that is structured in such a way that it is completely impossible to discuss without giving away the game it plays with the audience. Thus, this Highly Suspect Review of the film spends only a little time upfront in non-spoiler territory […]

KICK ON MOVIE REVIEW After being kicked out of a club for fighting, a group of young party folks make a decision to go up the drug food chain and head to the 9th floor apartment of the son of a Russian gangster to acquire more ‘party favors’. Eden is in a relationship with Drew […]

FUTURE TENSE MOVIE REVIEW The past is filled with many key points that if one small thing changed, history would be completely different. This comes as a bit of a complication to a corporation in the Fantastic Fest film Future Tense. They offer time travel to places in the past far enough away from these […]

THE DEPUTY MOVIE REVIEW When good men refuse to do nothing, the long arm of the law has the power to deputize the men who just need a chance but don’t test so well on exams and probably couldn’t pass the physical. In The Deputy, local town screw up Toby (Duke Nicholson) is awoken from […]

THE HERETIKS MOVIE REVIEW Horror website Dread Central has gotten into the filmmaking game with their first ever production, The Heretiks, which premiered at this year’s Fantastic Fest. The story follows a coven of witches who have aims to awaken their goddess who dreams the world which will bring about the end of all things. […]

JANUR IRENG – SEWU DINO THE PREQUEL MOVIE REVIEW If you have yet to dive into the world of Indonesian horror films, the time is now. With their industry regularly releasing some of the most original and graphic films out there, it’s no surprise that any given genre festival, like Fantastic Fest, is going to […]

RIVER MOVIE REVIEW Nothing like a lazy day floating down a river on your boat, hanging out with your family, drinking beer, scattering your father’s ashes, and being set upon by masked serial killers. Man, these summer days really are the memories we cherish. In the horror film River, three estranged siblings (Jane Levy, Jessica […]

PRIMETIME MOVIE REVIEW Perhaps you remember the NBC early 2000s show To Catch a Predator. Host Chris Hansen had a team of folks catfishing child predators online and eventually getting them to show up to a meet where a younger looking actor would pretend to be the child until Hansen himself and his cameras walked […]

THE CYCLE MOVIE REVIEW Meg (Deborah Ann Woll) is a forensic examiner who specializes in the decay of human bodies. When the police show up to ask her to consult on a mysterious case of a body found outside of a murder house that seems out of place, she’s interested…until they tell her it’s the […]

GODMOTHER MOVIE REVIEW Theo and Colby are going to the desert to a cute little air b&b run by a delightful old couple (horror stalwarts Dee Wallace and Bruce Davidson). Unfortunately, Theo’s party girl sister Katie got invited along kinda making Theo’s plans for a romantic weekend get quashed. Much more unfortunately, the delightful old […]

VICTORIAN PSYCHO MOVIE REVIEW The director of Sanctuary is back with another seriously weird little horror film, Victorian Psycho. Maika Monroe (It Follows) plays Winifred Notty, a new governess at the remote and huge Ensor house for the wealthy Lamb family. The mom (Ruth Wilson) doesn’t like her because she thinks she’s screwing her husband. […]

THE YETI MOVIE REVIEW Pack your parka, grab a rifle, and for the love of God, stop following the enormous footprints. Set in 1947, The Yeti sends Ellie Bannister (Brittany Allen) and Merriell Sunday Jr. (Eric Nelsen) into the frozen wilderness of northern Alaska after the vanishing of their fathers, famed adventurer Hollis Bannister (William […]

THE WHISPER MAN MOVIE REVIEW Widowed crime writer Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott) is thrown into every parent’s nightmare when his young son Jake is abducted. Desperate for answers, Tom turns to his estranged father, retired detective Pete Willis (Robert De Niro), whose past may hold the key: decades earlier, Pete captured notorious child killer Frank […]

WILD HORSE NINE MOVIE REVIEW Director/Writer Martin McDonagh has become one of our ‘never misses’ creatives. Since moving from stage to screen in 2008 masterfully with In Bruges, he’s made one delightfully dialogued film after another. This year at Fantastic Fest we got to see his latest work of hysterical somberness, Wild Horse Nine, and […]

BEWARE BOIÚNA MOVIE REVIEW I am not sure anyone was clamoring for another film about folks traipsing around the Amazon who are set upon by a giant killer snake, but here’s Beware Boiúna to take up that space anyway. The second film we saw at this year’s Fantastic Fest is directed by Mike P. Nelson, […]

RESIDENT EVIL MOVIE REVIEW There have been seven Resident Evil live action film adaptations. SEVEN. That’s not even counting a whole slew of animated film ones to boot. So why can’t anyone translate the terrifying and legendary game series into a film that works on a level past ‘campy’ or ‘the director just wants to […]

THE WEIGHT MOVIE REVIEW Long time producer and editor Padraic McKinley (The Good Lord Bird) makes his directorial debut in The Weight, a new thriller set during the height of the Great Depression. Ethan Hawk plays Samuel Murphy, an unemployed widower with a young daughter, Penny (Ava Berry). When Samuel is wrongfully imprisoned, he’s sentenced […]