Douglas Smith

By mashing up so many genres, filmmaker Jerome Sable has made a thoroughly entertaining romp that's impossible to categorise. It may not work fully as a horror thriller, comedy, musical, coming-of-age drama or spoof, but it's hugely entertaining on all of those levels. Yes, this is a movie that scares us one minute, then has us laughing at some surprisingly sophisticated humour the next.

It's been 10 years since Kylie (Minnie Driver) was killed on the night her star-making show opened on Broadway. Now her children Camilla and Buddy (Allie MacDonald and Douglas Smith) are working at Center Stage performing arts camp, run by their guardian Roger (Meat Loaf). And this summer's big show will be a revival of their mother's fateful musical, The Haunting of the Opera, staged as Japanese kabuki by self-proclaimed genius director Artie (Brandon Uranovitz). Camilla is determined to get the lead role, sucking up to a cute crew member (Kent Nolan) who has a crush on her and then engaging in a battle with Liz (Melanie Leishman), her rival for the part. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure is creeping around the camp, and pretty much everyone has a motive for murder.

The film is skilfully shot and edited, with straight-faced performances heightening the subtle comedy that flows through every scene. Some moments are pure pastiche, while the songs merrily blur the lines between the movie we're watching and the stage musical these theatre brats are putting on. And the cast is terrific. MacDonald and Smith engagingly anchor the central plot, while Meat Loaf has a ball as the all-singing ex-producer who wants to get back to Broadway. The rest of the ensemble is like the cast of Glee, representing a variety of types who are willing to break into another bouncy song at the sound of a single note. The killer, by contrast, prefers death metal.

Continue reading: Stage Fright Review

There can't have been a very big demand for a sequel to 2010's The Lightning Thief, but at least this is another adequate adventure for the teen demigods. Much more child-friendly than the first movie, this episode is essentially just a series of heavily animated action set-pieces strung together by the flimsiest of plots. At least it has a sense of energy and some jagged humour to keep grown-ups engaged.

At Half-blood Camp, the refuge for the children of gods with mortals, Percy (Lerman) continues his rivalry with hot-shot Clarisse (Rambin). And when the protective barrier around the camp is poisoned, it's Clarisse who leads a mission to find the healing Golden Fleece in the Sea of Monsters. But Percy knows that he's the subject of a prophecy about the fleece being used to resurrect the destructive Chronos, and that his nemesis Luke (Abel) is up to something evil. So Percy takes his friends Grover and Annabeth (Jackson and Daddario), plus his newly discovered cyclops half-brother Tyson (Smith), and heads off on his own quest.

Despite a few close calls in which characters come close to death, we're pretty sure nothing nasty will happen to these young franchise characters. But director Freudenthal (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) never hangs around long enough for us to realise that there isn't actually any suspense or intrigue in the plot. The film's pace is frantic, as the characters bolt from one crazy scenario to the next, often without bothering to logically connect the two. Several scenes could be cut without changing the story, while others are pure indulgence, such as Fillion's extended cameo as Luke's parcel-delivering father Hermes.

Continue reading: Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters Review

It may be style over substance, but Brandon Cronenberg cleverly blends his father David's love of medical yuckiness with an elusive Lynchian-style mystery to keep us unnerved all the way through this low-key thriller. And the film also works as a dark satire on today's celebrity-obsessive culture, in which fans will go to any lengths to be closer to their idols. So imagine if they had the chance to share a star's illness.

This is the work done by the gleaming, futuristic Lucas Clinic, where clinician Syd (Jones) works. He injects one patient (Smith) with an STD taken from mega-star Hanna Geist (Gadon). But Syd has secretly given himself a more powerful virus, which he learns is killing Hannah. Now everyone wants to get their hands on him, even as he realises that he needs to find a cure before it's too late. So he gets in touch with Hannah's assistant (McCarthy) and doctor (McDowell), and discovers that there's a conspiracy afoot involving his clinic's main rival.

The idea that fans would go to this kind of extreme isn't actually that unbelievable in a culture in which we watch their every move on reality TV and feel like their friends through Twitter. And Cronenberg's idea goes beyond sharing viruses, including cloned skin grafts and even a butcher (Pingue) who sells meat grown from celebrity cells. While the ideas echo some of David Cronenberg's films (mainly Videodrome and eXistenZ), this is also a strikingly original approach. The imagery looks amazing, with all-white surfaces and a spare use of colour, against which Syd's unravelling physicality looks increasingly garish.

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I'm pleased to report that neither was the case... I'm not sure I could bear to watch another one of either of those kinds of films. What State's Evidence is, rather, is an entry into the burgeoning teen violence genre, taking the form of, primarily, a home video confession of a high school student who's determined to commit suicide the next day. In chronicling his last day on earth, word gets out what Scott (Douglas Smith) is going to do, and he soon becomes a minor celebrity in school, as everyone wants to be a part of his last day on earth. But a few of his friends throw a wrench into things by deciding to join in, and a suicide pact is formed. As expected, this takes an even darker tone as the kids realize that, with no consequences facing them, morality may as well go out the window.

Continue reading: State's Evidence Review