August 31 2026, 19:43
The Dog Stars
Hig, a mechanic, lives alongside Bangley, an ex-sniper, in a valley in Colorado, several years after a flu-like plague wiped out most of the human race. Bangley is a hard-nosed survivalist, but Hig is a gentler soul who relies on his family dog, Jasper, for company. Violent gangs called Reapers roam the wilderness, pillaging and killing as they go, and when they find the valley, Hig is forced to explore further into the new world.
Ridley Scott is eighty-nine years old, this is his fifth film in five years, and he has another Alien/Prometheus project (with Michael Fassbender) in the works. His energy levels are astounding. His films always wrestle with big ideas. Here, he is asking questions about the collapse of civilisation, being self-sufficient, the value of community, losing loved ones to illness, the importance of dogs as companions, and more.
The pace is pleasingly slow, reflecting the reality of living alone in the wilderness, punctuated with bursts of action. The night sky is rich with stars, and Hig likes to look for the constellations, imagining new ones to amuse himself. When he finds Cima and Pops in another valley, their lifestyle is closer to living in a Western, and we realise Hig has far more luxuries because he can fly his plane to get supplies. Most survivors are not that lucky, but Hig still fantasises about flying his plane into a mountain to put himself out of the misery of losing his family.
The film does an impressive job of reminding us how amazing it is to have simple things like coffee, fresh vegetables, recorded music, and fuel for vehicles. Life in nature without technology is extremely hard, and in our modern lives it’s easy to take these things for granted. The Dog Stars is a mournful, meditative film for long stretches, and those were my favourite parts.
August 29 2026, 19:18
The Beyond
Liza inherits a derelict hotel in Louisiana swampland and, short of other options in her life, decides to repair it and open for business. Fifty years before, an artist at the hotel is accused of being a warlock and brutally killed in the basement. [more...]
August 27 2026, 18:09
Army of Darkness
After fighting Deadites in a cabin in the woods, Ash falls through a time/space hole and lands in a medieval landscape where he is taken prisoner by Lord Arthur. At Arthur’s castle, Ash is thrown into a pit of Deadites... [more...]
August 23 2026, 21:01
City of the Living Dead
Mary is a psychic, and at a New York séance she has a vision of a priest hanging himself in a church graveyard. She breaks the circle and dies, causing journalist Peter to investigate. Visiting her grave as her body is being buried, Peter hears her screams and pulls her out of the ground still alive... [more...]
August 22 2026, 16:35
Insignificance
Four iconic figures meet in a New York hotel room in 1954. They are not named, instead called The Actress, The Professor, The Senator and The Baseball Player, but it’s clear who they are meant to be: Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, Joe McCarthy and Joe DiMaggio. [more...]
August 21 2026, 16:42
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Filmmaker Kris has signed up to reboot a famous eighties horror film franchise set at a summer camp. The studio wants it to be "woke" to attract a young audience, but Kris wants to make something artistic. She sets out to meet the reclusive original final girl, Billy Summers... [more...]
August 16 2026, 08:47
Adaptation
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has writer’s block trying to adapt a bestselling book, The Orchid Thief. He is obsessed with doing the book justice and not letting down the author, New Yorker journalist Susan Orlean. Charlie’s happy-go-lucky twin brother, Donald, is temporarily living with him... [more...]
August 09 2026, 20:24
Little Eyes
People all over the world are buying a new toy, a kentuki, that comes in different animal forms, as a companion. Kentuki can move around, communicate through animal noises, and understand what you say, because behind each kentuki is an anonymous person observing their stranger’s life through a camera in the toy’s eyes. [more...]
August 08 2026, 12:19
Freaky Tales
Four tales set in an admirably accurate 1987 Oakland, California, held together by a through line of a cheesy TV advert for a cult-like group offering a course in Psytopics. [more...]
August 06 2026, 21:09
I, Madman
Book shop clerk and aspiring actress Virginia loves pulpy noir horror and can’t put down a book by new discovery Malcolm Brand. The gruesome details and savage story line excite her, but they also keep her awake at night, and new boyfriend Richard thinks she shouldn’t read them. [more...]
July 31 2026, 19:02
The Hotel
In the opening chapter, a narrator lays out everything that is known about a haunted hotel. From there, we hear voices speak of their experiences, from a woman labelled a witch and drowned in a pond, to a builder who hears voices at night... [more...]
May 30 2026, 18:18
Free play
I’ve been reading a lot of books about the psychological aspects of making art. There’s a tremendous amount of practical wisdom distilled into all these books. [more...]
May 24 2026, 21:43
Authority
A new director of the Southern Reach, calling himself Control, arrives at the border of Area X tasked with investigating what happened to the twelfth expedition. The staff are wary, bordering on hostile... [more...]
May 09 2026, 13:28
She Who Remains
It starts confusingly with word definitions, quotes, and a rush of thoughts about the death of a father. Bekija is the daughter of Murash who has been shot in the head. They live in the “Accursed Mountains” somewhere in Albania with... [more...]
April 30 2026, 20:30
The Palm House
Laura Miller has been friends with Edmund Putnam since university, and Putnam has worked for the same magazine, Sequence, most of his working life. A new editor arrives and upsets the established dynamics. [more...]
April 25 2026, 10:25
A Start in Life
I first heard about Anita Brookner as a literary personality through Andy Miller's love of her on the Backlisted podcast, even though I had read Hotel du Lac many years before. Until then, she was a name, but no more than that. [more...]
April 13 2026, 14:37
Diary of an Oxygen Thief
The question of whether it is fiction, autofiction, or autobiography colours the experience of reading this book from the start. The opening line is, 'I liked hurting girls'. The author is anonymous. And for the next fifteen pages... [more...]