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Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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The Soul Eater (2024) |
A chilling mystery about an isolated community who capitalism left behind, The Soul Eater is a thrilling, thoughtful addition to the serial killer film tradition. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Aug 05, 2024
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Hell Hole (2024) |
With one eye on the real life horrors of looming environmental collapse and another on the enduring power of the classic monster movie, Hell Hole is another feather in the already plume-abundant Adams Family cap. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Aug 05, 2024
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Infinite Summer (2024) |
Infinite Summer might lack the immediate ‘wow’ factor of Llansó’s earlier work, but at its core it is just as charming – and just as thoughtful – as anything he has done previously. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Aug 05, 2024
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The Dead Thing (2024) |
This is a refreshing and emotionally intelligent film, an exercise in style that never holds back on substance. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Aug 05, 2024
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Bookworm (2024) |
Aside from being a really lovely, fun little family movie with all the freshness and authenticity that marks the best of the genre, Bookworm is also an impressive calling card for one of the most exciting young actors working today - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Aug 05, 2024
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The Beast Within (2024) |
The Beast Within isn’t a terrible film, but sadly it is not a particularly great one either, so ham-fisted is its approach to its central themes. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jul 30, 2024
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Oddity (2024) |
While the story of Oddity is a fascinating one, it is less the tale itself than the particular way McCarthy chooses to tell it that renders it one of the year’s best horror movies - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jul 27, 2024
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New Religion (2022) |
This is an impressive, ambitious film that succeeds as much as a tone poem as it does a story about grief, identity, a society spiralling out of control, and the volatility that rumbles underneath the assumed indexicality of the very image itself - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jul 08, 2024
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Killer of Men (2022) |
Killer of Men is a taut, elegant low-budget feature where a confident grasp of the visual language of cinema speaks as much – if not more so – than narrative nuts and bolts like dialogue - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 24, 2024
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The Weekend (2024) |
All hail the mighty Daniel Orihai, who bursts out of Nigeria with a pounding, intoxicating instant horror classic, The Weekend. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 19, 2024
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Brief History of a Family (2024) |
It might not have the climactic whistles and bells of Parasite or Saltburn, but in this instance anything else would feel almost dishonest; this is a careful, considered film of enormous intelligence and emotional resonance - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 18, 2024
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Wake Up (2023) |
It may not exactly reinvent the wheel, but no one can doubt the dedication to their craft and the undisguised glee this team takes in their approach to making genre movies that demand to be experienced in a cinema - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 18, 2024
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Kill (2023) |
The film issues a kind of acrobatic masculinity that would make Burt Lancaster blush, all shot through a bloody lens that would make Peckinpah proud. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 18, 2024
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Memory (2023) |
Memory is a remarkably humane film that avoids any obvious missteps that would see it collapse into movie-of-the-week social issue melodrama terrain - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 18, 2024
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She Loved Blossoms More (2024) |
She Loved Blossoms is an all-too-rare treasure, a sumptuous beast that both dazzles the eye and joyfully, playfully and willfully befuddles the brain. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 15, 2024
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Vulcanizadora (2024) |
Vulcanizadora is a dark, sombre film, and yet it speaks of something so genuine in such an urgent way that the courage driving it brings with it an implicit kind of hope. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 15, 2024
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Beacon (2024) |
A watertight encounter with the lighthouse-set horror trope that fully serves the film’s deeper gender political thematics, Beacon does exactly what it sets sail to do. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 13, 2024
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Witches (2024) |
This film shines the most when Sankey uses the history of witches in cinema as a kind of paintbox with which to craft her own deeply moving story of being a woman who herself has at times failed to adhere to the socially acceptable model - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 13, 2024
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The Devil's Bath (2024) |
As impressive as their past work has been, nothing they have done previously comes even close to the courage, emotional intelligence, stylistic ambition and ferocious intent driving this, their third feature. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 11, 2024
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The Wasp (2024) |
A confident portrait of how the tiny humiliations of childhood can fester, The Wasp is a delicious, dark delight - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 11, 2024
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A Desert (2024) |
A Desert should be best celebrated as a Choose Your Own Adventure film for sickos. It has so many dynamic moving parts that are all meticulously and soulfully orchestrated. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 11, 2024
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Stress Positions (2024) |
Stress Positions feels like a movie that is orchestrated as much as directed and Hammel’s intuitive grasp on the rhythms of everyday conversation are a thing of wonder, granting the film an extraordinary energy and almost palpable freshness - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 11, 2024
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The Moogai (2024) |
Not everyone has understood exactly why this is such a brave, confident movie, but everyone needs to know that – despite this – Jon Bell is exactly the kind of filmmaker Australia is lucky to have right now, and desperately needs. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 10, 2024
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Veni Vidi Vici (2024) |
Veni Vidi Vici is at its strongest when it turns away from its portrait of power-gone-mad embodied in the figure of Maynard himself and looks instead at the kind of world that has enabled him - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jun 06, 2024
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13 Gantry Row (1998) |
13 Gantry Row doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, but in its defense, it doesn’t seem to have any interest in doing so; rather, Millar instead seems much more focused on making a fun yet fairly color-by-numbers popcorn movie. - Fangoria
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| Posted Jun 01, 2024
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Amityville Witches (2020) |
It’s a fairly simple set up, but there is such a pervasive sense of joy in this film that its spirit of fun is almost contagious. - Fangoria
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| Posted Apr 09, 2024
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A Demon in My View (1991) |
Anthony Perkins - here in one of his final performances before he would pass away in 1992 - makes A Demon in My View well worth the effort to track down; it remains one of the last great performances of a true horror icon. - Fangoria
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| Posted Mar 10, 2024
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Molli and Max in the Future (2023) |
Litwak brings his strange, quirky vision of the future to life with a stylish patchwork of VFX and live action, a cast that fully understands the assignment, and the kind of creative clarity, originality and focus that feels increasingly far too rare. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Feb 02, 2024
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Love and Work (2024) |
Painted in bold, charming and unapologetic strokes, most films made with bigger budgets and bigger names could never dream of achieving what this confident, strange little treasure of a film does. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jan 25, 2024
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Darla in Space (2024) |
Marked by a premise that you need to read twice to make sure you haven’t hallucinated it, the dazzling, silly Darla in Space is everything that indie film does best. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jan 22, 2024
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Chaperone (2024) |
Chaperone is not an easy watch and it does not shy away from the often uncomfortable ethical terrain its storyline demands it explore, but it is also thoughtful and humane. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Jan 22, 2024
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Blood & Donuts (1995) |
Blood and Donuts doesn't savage masculinity like a lot of feminist horror, it does something quite different; it embraces it, allows it a space to be soft, and Holly Dale does it all with grace, humor, and charm. - Fangoria
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| Posted Dec 22, 2023
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Stopmotion (2023) |
Aside from just being a good old fashioned horror movie, there is an intelligence and ferocity at play here that speaks to much grander things than just simple genre thrills. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Oct 26, 2023
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When Evil Lurks (2023) |
When Evil Lurks is a shocking yet highly accomplished horror film, and Rugna’s name is one that demands to be up there with Cronenberg, Romero, Carpenter and Argento – this is a true master of the genre. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Oct 26, 2023
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The Uncle (2022) |
A dark delicacy that offers film weirdos a new favourite Christmas movie, The Uncle is a twisted yuletide nightmare brought to life. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Oct 23, 2023
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The Vourdalak (2023) |
A dark, delicious fairytale fantasy brought to life with profound emotional integrity, The Vourdalak breathes new life into the far-too-often pedestrian vampire movie - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Oct 23, 2023
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Last Straw (2023) |
Last Straw is as much about the journey as it is the destination, and there’s a genuine feeling of delight as protagonist Nancy’s night from hell takes us to places its otherwise seemingly generic set-up might not prepare us for. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Oct 23, 2023
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UFO Sweden (2022) |
There’s a joy and sincerity to UFO Sweden that is infectious, a charming little film with enormous spirit. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Oct 23, 2023
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Appendage (2023) |
Appendage is first and foremost a lot of fun, and Zlokovic clearly delights in employing older horror movies as a palette through which she can tell her own story of the nightmare many women face as they struggle to live up to impossible expectations - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Oct 23, 2023
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The Deep Dark (2023) |
A taut genre exercise in fear and tension, The Deep Dark in its best moments leaves us as breathless as it does its motley collection of desperate, trapped miners. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Oct 23, 2023
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Sister Death (2023) |
Strong enough to be a satisfying watch but not quite able to stand on its own without its superior predecessor, Sister Death is regardless a fun Halloween Netflix essential. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Oct 23, 2023
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Dream Scenario (2023) |
Dream Scenario also provides a satisfying and effective English-language calling card for Borgli, who is without doubt one of the most singular and fascinating filmmakers working today. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Oct 23, 2023
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Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism (2022) |
Godless is a film made with enormous integrity and deep emotional intelligence, and brings to the table something we don’t see too much of in contemporary horror: compassion. - The Blue Lenses
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| Posted Oct 19, 2023
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Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023) |
An exquisite and thoroughly singular portrait of both an individual in transition and a country in motion, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is one hell of a calling card for Phạm Thiên An. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Sep 15, 2023
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Limbo (2023) |
Fiercely political and starkly beautiful in a way that has become Ivan Sen’s signature, Limbo only further consolidates his position as one of Australia’s most important contemporary filmmakers. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Sep 13, 2023
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Club Zero (2023) |
There is no doubt whatsoever that Hausner has a clear artistic vision that she has successfully remained unwaveringly true to here, and while that is in itself impressive it sadly does not make Club Zero any the less impenetrable - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Aug 21, 2023
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Walk Up (2022) |
Walk Up is a formally cheeky, confident film from one of contemporary cinema’s true masters. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Aug 21, 2023
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Stone Turtle (2022) |
Blending the feminist revenge thriller with supernatural time hopping, Stone Turtle breathes new life into the old-fashioned Groundhogs Day formula, incorporating regional folklore into a powerful story of vengeance and identity. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Aug 21, 2023
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How to Have Sex (2023) |
A significant and much-needed conversation starter regarding the grey areas of sexual assault that screen culture as a whole tends to shy away from - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Aug 21, 2023
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La Chimera (2023) |
It’s hard to fault La Chimera, a film made with such dedication to its own bit that even if we aren’t entirely on board with it, it’s hard not to be swept away. - AWFJ.org
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| Posted Aug 21, 2023
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