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Pick of the week
Ballad of a Small Player
After Conclave proved to be a ludicrous (and extraordinarily well-timed) piece of Oscar bait, all eyes were on director Edward Berger to see what he’d do next. And what he did was Ballad of a Small Player, which feels like the exact opposite of Conclave. A sweaty, vibrant, Macau-set fever dream of a thriller, it sees Colin Farrell hamming it up beyond all comprehension as an aristocratic English gambler scrambling to pay off his debts while trying to shake off Tilda Swinton, playing a woman who knows his true identity. While the results aren’t quite as satisfying as Conclave, it’s nevertheless very exciting to see a director as elegant as Berger turn his hand to something so trashy. Stuart Heritage
Wednesday 29 October, Netflix
Psycho Therapy
Or to use its mouthful of a full title, Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer. Turkish director Tolga Karaçelik’s English language debut is a black comedy that is absurdly twisty. John Magaro plays a novelist struggling to write a tale about a serial killer. He is then befriended by a real-life serial killer (played by Steve Buscemi) who is mistaken for a marriage counsellor by his wife (Severance’s Britt Lower). To say that things escalate would be a severe understatement. A hidden gem of a film.
Saturday 25 October, 6.35am and 8.30pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
Shabu
In a world of documentary features that actively want to change the state of things, Shabu may feel a little low-stakes. The subject of Shamira Raphaëla’s film is a 14-year-old Dutch boy who lives in a notoriously problematic Rotterdam housing complex. Sharonia ‘Shabu’ Abisoinia has crashed his grandmother’s car and has to spend his summer trying to earn enough money to pay for repairs, until he eventually finds his calling in life. That’s really all there is to it, but Raphaëla manages to fill every frame with a fizzing vibrancy. As charming as filmmaking gets.
Monday 27 October, 2.45am, Channel 4
Hedda
Between Marvel and her 28 Years Later sequel, Nia DaCosta has quietly snuck out an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 134-year-old play Hedda Gabler. It’s far from the first – there have been at least 20 others – but it’s certainly the most modern. Tessa Thompson plays the lead, and the debauchery is ramped up beyond all comprehension. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a review of this film that doesn’t compare it to Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn; if nothing else, it should slake your thirst for sexy period fare until Fennell’s Wuthering Heights comes out in February.
Wednesday 29 October, Prime Video
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Late Night With the Devil
Just when you thought found footage horror had run out of steam, along comes 2023’s absurdly good Late Night With the Devil to revive it. The found footage comes in the form of a Halloween episode of a 1977 talkshow that flies off the rails after an appearance by a 13-year-old possessed girl. The joy doesn’t just come from how scary it is but in the absolute glee it takes in destroying one showbusiness trope after another. It’s a note-perfect reconstruction of a time, now fading, where late night hosts were the most powerful people on television. This is their comeuppance.
Wednesday 29 October, 9pm, Film4
Companion
Jack Quaid has become remarkably good at making nasty indie movies in his downtime from The Boys. Following the riotously gory Novocaine comes Companion, which is either a violent sci-fi or an extremely accurate representation of what life will be like 30 years from now. Quaid plays Josh, a ‘nice guy’ who starts to have trouble when his sexbot jailbreaks itself. On one hand, Companion is a film about the consequences of coercive control; on the other it’s a chilling warning about what will happen when the AI we use realises we aren’t very polite to it.
Friday 31 October, 8.10am and 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
Crawl
Viewers aren’t exactly wanting for horror movies this Halloween, but if you’re looking for something under the radar that delivers actual scares, Crawl is the movie for you. Ingeniously, Alexandre Aja’s film largely takes place in the crawlspace under a home. Upsettingly for those stuck in it, it is absolutely brimming with alligators. It’s a delicate balance, wringing maximum jeopardy out of the premise without becoming preposterous, but Crawl hits it confidently. Happily, a sequel is on the way … though how they up the ante from this is anyone’s guess.
Friday 31 October, 1.25am, Channel 4
