Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

Fargeat's camerawork and editing works to make us fear for their well being on an internal if not external level. Review

But for all of Roberts' good work behind the camera, there's still that lack of interesting characters to prevent Prey at Night from joining the ranks of the best horror movies of recent years. Slasher fans however should find enough thrills in Roberts' creative staging of sequences - along with his nods to genre staples like Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes and Christine - to get their money's worth. Review

Lean on Pete is very much a movie of two halves, one populated with engaging and intriguing characters, the other with a succession of crudely drawn, white trash stereotypes. Review

Arteta and Shawkat are credited as Duck Butter's screenwriters, but the film has an improvisational nature, particularly the intimate scenes between Naima and Sergio during their experiment. Review

Many of Obey's scenes feel like reenactments of those seen in better past dramas of young working class men, like Rocky or The Wanderers, but occasionally Jones' film finds its own feet... Review

For most of its running time, Beast deals in delicious ambiguity, but in its final 10 minutes it begins to provide answers to questions I would have preferred to leave the cinema still asking, and its climax feels transplanted from a more conventional but far less interesting thriller... Review

Tyler's likeable turn will make you wonder why we don't see her on screen more often, and Dourif delivers the sort of skin-crawling performance he's honed through years of practice, but Wildling adds little of note to either the 'wild child' sub-genre or the monster movie canon. Review

Bombshell does a good job of making Lamarr's scientific achievements accessible for a lay audience, breaking down complex concepts like frequency hopping through the use of graphics and animations. Review

Aside from its gender politics, it's odd to see Denis give us a film with such bland, privileged, middle class characters, given how she's been France's great chroniclers of the working class in the past with films like Beau travail and 35 Shots of Rum, a milieu that she seems far more comfortable in, and one I hope to see her return to following this unsatisfying digression. Review

With his suspect politics but undeniable presence, Johnson has established himself as the John Wayne of our times, and regardless of the quality of the material he's given to work with, he always delivers a fully committed performance with an infectious charisma that papers over a lot of cracks. Review

Truth or Dare has the bones of a compelling movie, but it adds too much fat and gristle with an overwritten, over-complicated script that quickly ties itself into knots trying to tell what should be a simple story. Review

The film's portrayal of Palestinians and Israelis is by contrast, decidedly one-note. Review

In delivering a social drama through the grammar of the horror film, Legrand hammers home the real life horrors of human relationships turned sour. Unfortunately his film's final act takes a wild tonal escalation that explicitly references a famous horror film's climax, and it all gets a little silly. Review

For all its flaws, and in spite of its overwhelming tedium, Death Wish is the first Roth film that feels like it's made by someone with something to say, even if he expresses his thoughts in the most obvious of fashion before getting distracted with the glee of smashing a villain's head with a car jack. Review

What keeps us engaged is the quality of acting on display, and Dibb has assembled a group of actors who resemble the sort of thespians that might have played these characters a century ago. Review

Go into Wonderstruck looking for a compelling story and you may find yourself frustrated. Go in for a sensory experience and you'll find yourself...well, the title says it all. Review

It's a movie that follows a tried and trusted formula - take two talented actresses, provide them with a worthwhile script, and find interesting but meaningful ways to shoot their interactions. It sounds simple, and Finley, Cooke and Taylor-Joy certainly make it look simple, but it takes real talent to make a movie that feels as effortlessly composed as Thoroughbreds. Review

A Quiet Place may be headlined by one of Hollywood's biggest stars, but it's a b-movie of the best kind, one that gets into its advertised premise quickly, does its job of inching the viewer closer and closer to the edge of their seat, and gets out without a fuss, leaving us thirsty for more adventures in its world, and more from its talented director. Review

Western is a compelling tribute to our ability to find a soulful connection that transcends the obstacles of language and culture. Review

MacDonald's writing and directing is equally adroit. Review

Were you to edit out everything Ebersole and Hughes have created from scratch for their film, leaving just the talking heads and archive footage, Mansfield 66/67 would prove an informative look at a key figure of mid twentieth century Americana. In its present form, it's a disrespectful piece of snark art that leaves a bitter taste in the viewer's mouth, one which will likely enrage anyone with a genuine affection for its subjec... Review

Greenop's film benefits from talented performers and a captivating backdrop, but it fails to exploit either, resulting in a film that begins as an intriguing psychological thriller, only to climax in a tiresome rehash of horror tropes. Review

Flynn perfectly embodies a young man who has found himself thrown around various systems all his life, any independent spirit he may have once had long since crushed. Review

Pacific Rim Uprising isn't a film I could recommend to anyone over the age of 12, but I found it far more bearable than most modern franchise action movies. It's also that rare Hollywood film that does exactly what it says on its tin, delivering on its promise of huge robots punching giant monsters through skyscrapers. Kids from Tokyo to Taiwan, and maybe even Texas this time, will love it! Review