Return to Silent Hill (2026)

I will accept that I am not a Silent Hill fan. I never played the games and now next to nothing about what is going on and what things mean. I went to see it with a mate that has played the games so he would have a better idea of what was going on.  The set up of the film is that James is a painter and is driving along when he meets Mary and they decide to visit Silent Hill. A short time later James wakes up and sometime has gone by when he receives a note from Mary asking him to return to Silent Hill. That is basically the plot and that is basically all that I understood.

There was a worrying sign when I saw the cast list for this film and saw that I didn’t recognise a single name. NO-ONE. Not even someone who used to be a big name 10 years ago and is looking at this film as a quick payday. I am happy to report that despite the lack of star power, the performances were pretty decent. I thought that Jeremy Irvine did a good job especially considering that for a good 20 minutes or so he was the only person in the film if you don't count the CGI monsters. Another good point for the film was the atmosphere. They clearly spent a lot of time making sure that the film felt like the game. Even with my limited knowledge of the games it felt like this was the highlight of the film. 

I understand that things have to happen for the film to happen but they could have been done better in working them into the film. So after James helps Mary get her luggage back in the suitcases, the coach arrives and it is clearly pulling into the side of the road to stop and yet she acts like it is about to drive off. Then moments later one of her suitcases open up and about a second later she tells the driver to move along. It would have only taken 20 seconds (if that) to get the suitcase packed again. I know an argument could be made that it was part of her plan to lure James to Silent Hill but it could have been done in a better way. Then at the end of the film they replay it again just to highlight how dumb it was.

This is by far the worst film of the year (worse than Mercy). It was better than I was expecting but given that my expectations were at rock bottom, it was always going to be easy to beat them. There are things about this film that work very well but the main problem with the film is that very little of it makes any sense. This is definitely a film aimed at fans of the series and it does feel like a standalone film but if you went into the film not knowing anything then you would be completely confused. I went on a Saturday night and there was decent number and I would bet that they were all fans of the game series and i think that if they want to make the films more successful then they need to try and make them more accessible to non-Silent Hill fans.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

The Bone Temple was filmed back to back with the previous part and this film follows Dr Ian (Fiennes) as he encounters Jimmy from the end of the previous film. The film starts with Jimmy making Spike fight someone to the death and this shows that this little cult that he is now a part of isn’t the best thing to be a part of but he has no choice.  Nina DaCosta did the Candyman reboot which I enjoyed a lot and then she did The Marvels which was truly terrible so it's nice that she has come back to horror and showed that The Marvels was a blip. She shows that she manages to make a horror film that doesn't rely on jump scares and despite a few iffy editing moments the film makes this a horror film that manages to be about something.

The scene where the people from the house are being flayed by the Jimmy’s was a truly nauseating moment and made me look away. The film has an 18 certificate from the BBFC and it did deserve that because apart from the flaying, we get a head being pulled from the body which we see up close. This is definitely one of the goriest films in the 28 series.

The idea of making Jimmy a parody (of sorts of Jimmy Saville) was a bold choice. The Jimmy in this film is a monster and Jimmy Saville is a monster but when the virus raged through the world comes a time when the terrible things he did hadn’t come to light

The moment when I knew that I really enjoyed this film was when Ralph Fiennes’ Dr. Ian dancing to Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast. It was such a fantastic moment because it seemed to come out of nowhere. Fiennes seems to be channelling his younger self and doing the sort of things that people wouldn’t expect him to do. I do think it was a shame to kill off his character but he was great in the previous film and was outstanding in this.

I was worried when Ian started dancing with Samson because I thought that  the film was going to undo all the good work of the previous film but it shows why this film works as well as it does because the friendship between them works because of the performances from Fiennes and Chi Lewis-Perry. Lewis Perry doesn't really have much to say but still manages to bring humanity to a role that just grunts and runs around.  

Ralph Fiennes is great as Dr. Ian and he carries the film which is impressive given that for most of the film he only interacts with two people. Jack O’Connell shows that he could play a character more horrible than what he played in Sinners. Alfie Williams is quite central to the plot because it's more about Jimmy and Ian but he is still pretty good and Erin Kellyman is very good as Jimmy Ink and comes across as the more likeable of the Jimmy’s which isn’t really that hard to achieve.

It has been confirmed that we will get the final part of the trilogy after the first two have done so well which I am over the moon about. Not just because we get another installment in this world but the return of Cillian Murphy’s Jim and a young girl who appears to be his daughter return and they spot Spike and Keli. Also I am not convinced that Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal is dead. He is still breathing when we last see him so there is always the chance that he will return in some form. 

I didn’t think that this was going to be as good as the first part but I am happy to say that I was wrong. Weirdly it doesn't seem as downbeat as the previous installment yet there were tough moments throughout but the next part has a lot to live up to and I hope that it can match what has come out of this one.  

28 Years Later (2025)

28 Years Later is my most anticipated film of 2025. I came to the 28 universe if you can call it that quite late cause gory horror wasn't my thing until quite late in life. I really like 28 Days and think that it deserves the praise that it got. It is perhaps Danny Boyle’s best film if not in his top 3. I quite like 28 Weeks Later even though it's not a patch on ‘Days’. 28 Years Later follows the growing recent trend of long time sequels. This is the first of an intended trilogy, we are getting Part 2 in January 2026 and on the basis of this film we will get the third one probably in late 2026. 

The film starts off with the Teletubbies playing and it reminded me of Warfare (co-directed by Alex Garland) where the soldiers are dancing to ‘Call on Me’ and it was that film saying that this was about as upbeat as the film would get (which was true) and I felt like the Teletubbies was Danny Boyle’s version of that. The film says straight away that they are going to pull no punches because about 8 kids are killed by the infected. Only one manages to survive and this was the first of many times that I found myself saying ‘bloody hell’. 

The film centres around Spike (played by Alfie Williams) who along with his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are on a little island with other residents that can only be reached by a causeway. Whoever thought that Alfie Williams was the right person to play such an important role deserves a huge bonus because he is brilliant. When he has to place his recently dead mother’s skull on the big pile it was such a sad moment and if you dont feel something for him then you might need to check for a pulse. He has to carry the second half of the film and when Spike is being trained to go hunting but he is very young and doesn't quite make it work but by the end of the film he has grown and becomes better with the bow and arrow. I have never been the biggest fan of Aaron Taylor-Johnson. I don't think he’s terrible but he just seems to pick terrible films (i’m looking at you Kraven the Hunter). He starts off quite likeable at the beginning as he is trying to teach his son how to survive in a world that must be quite scary and the film then makes you change your opinion on him when he sneaks off with another woman and then strikes Spike when he tries to stand up to him. He doesn't feature in the second half so it will be interesting to see where his story ends up. His mother Isla (played by Jodie Comer) is not well and spends the first half of the film in bed and its the second half where Comer shows how good she is. The role isnt the strongest but Comer makes it feel genuine and you feel more sad for Spike when she keeps calling her son Dad. I am slightly disappointed by the fact that she doesn't make it to the end of the proposed trilogy but it does serve as the main reason why Spike grows up and becomes a man even though only a few weeks have passed by the end of the film.

Ralph Fiennes is very good as Dr Kelson. He is painted pretty much like a certain US President and it did generate some giggles in my screening. He is portrayed by the islanders as a madman but he is anything but and he has built the skull display that you see in the trailer. He gets very little screen time but it is suggested that he survives so he may appear in future installments. I hope so because Fienes is fun to watch as Kelson and his skills might be useful to the inhabitants of the island. Edvin Ryding plays Erik who is literally introduced so that after a few minutes he is killed and his skull is ripped from his body. He is a little bit annoying for the brief time that he is on screen but at least his death is quite good.

It is worth pointing out Chi Lewis-Parry who plays Alpha who seems to be the main villain of the film and is way more powerful than most infected and he can only be stopped with a tranquilliser. It’s a performance with no dialogue yet is very menacing. He is responsible for a couple of quite gory deaths and I do mean gory because he rips people's skulls off their bodies with their spinal column still attached. 

The film ends with the young boy from the beginning now a grown up and we get a bizarre fight scene which did remind me of A Clockwork Orange and we have seen references to Jimmy throughout the film and he is clearly going to feature quite heavily in the next one (maybe the third). This is the second performance from Jack O’Connell in 2025 that I have thought was really good. Unlike Sinners, he is only in this briefly and I cant wait to see what O’Connell does in the next one. 

I think some people might be disappointed with the fact there is no Cillian Murphy (even though he is credited as an Executive Producer). Danny Boyle has said in repeated interviews that Murphy isn't in this film and whilst there was always the chance that Boyle and Alex Garland were trying to do a bluff but Murphy is definitely not in it and that works in the films favour because it means that we can focus on new characters and by the time that he does appear then we have characters that we care about and are interested in. Overall I really liked this film. I don't know whether it's better than Days because it was made at a different time but this is definitely one of my favourite films of the year. I had high expectations and they were definitely met. It's a good thing that we only have six months to wait for part two and I really hope we get part three.

28 Weeks Later (2007)

 I do like sequels when they decide to do something different from the previous installment. There is no Cillian Murphy and no Noamie Harris so we don't know what becomes of those characters and there is no reference to them in this film. Instead of Cillian Murphy, 28 Weeks Later uses Robert Carlyle so as disappointing as it is not to have Murphy involved, having Carlyle is a very good replacement. Instead of getting Danny Boyle to directed we get Juan Carlos Frenadillo and whilst he is no Danny Boyle, he does give it a good go a makes the film feel different enough from the last film to feel like some time has moved on and yet close enough to the last one so it feels like it is in the same world.

The opening scene is often touted as one of the best opening scenes in a movie and it's not hard to see. The start sees Robert Carlyle’s Donald seemingly going about things as normally as possible with his wife Alice before things go absolutely chaotic and it ends with Donald abandoning his wife. Fast forward in time and Donald is reunited with his kids and he tells them that their mother has died. I genuinely like the twist that Alice had in fact survived.

With a clearly bigger budget they are able to do things that they could never have done in 28 Days Later. There is more stuff on the road to suggest that something bad had gone on instead of just a few bits of rubbish all over the roads. Here we get cars turned over and rubbish bags piled high. Also the names are bigger and it's quite surprising how many famous names are in this. Not just Carlyle but we have Idris Elba, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner & Harold Perrineau. Everyone is pretty good but its clearly early on im of their careers so they all would go on to give better performances later on

If I had an issue with the film it would be that the second half of the film doesn't quite live up to how good the first one was. Once Carlyle is infected and isn't in the story as much the film does just feel like a generic horror film. Things move along fine but I was never as invested in the first as I was in the first half. The end of the film sees the action move to Paris but of course this doesn't lead to anything which is a shame but bearing in mind that it took 18 years for us to get another 28 film then it would suggest there were issues. 

This might go down as a bit of a nitpick here is that scene where Andy and Tammy are about to be picked up at Wembley Stadium but in fact it is actually the Principality Stadium in Cardiff. Most people outside the UK probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference but it's the sort of thing that I spot. 

Overall I like 28 Weeks Later but dont think that it is as  good as Days. The attempt to do something different is a big reason why this film is worth watching again. I initially didn't like it BECAUSE it wasn't like the previous one but as the years have gone by I have appreciated it a bit more and it is till worth watching if you are a fan of the series.

28 Days Later (2002)

With 28 Years Later coming out, it seems like an opportune moment to see the previous two installments. 28 Days Later is a film that reset the zombie horror genre even though they aren't zombies in this film but infected. The film starts with a trio of animal activists who release one of the chimps that are being infected with rage and things go quickly wrong. If only they hadn't done that then the next three films would never have happened. The film then moves along appropriately enough 28 days and we see a naked Cillian Murphy wake up. I’m not quite sure why he’s naked. I saw this after The Walking Dead and it's weird to see how similar they are. The film sees Jim walk around a deserted London which is strange to see and then comes across Naomie Harris’ Selena and Noah Huntley’s Mark and they go to Jim’s family home but then Mark gets killed then Jim and Selena carry on and come across Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Hannah (Megan Burns). Together they decide to go to Manchester and see help but when they get there then Frank is infected and killed and the soldiers do help but they become really sinister when Christopher Eccleston’s Major West says that he promised his soldiers a woman and that is when things go really wrong and then the infected take over the house.

This is one of those films that had a cast that were not particularly well known at the time but would go on to be big names. Cillian Murphy would go on to win an Oscar, Naomie Harris would go on to find fame and most recently played Miss Moneypenny in the Bond films, Brendan Gleeson is great in pretty much anything and was especially great in The Banshees of Inisherin. Christopher Eccelston is the one that stands out for me because he played the Doctor in Doctor Who back in 2005. Probably one of the most underrated actors to play the Doctor in the new era. He is horrible as Major Henry West. He is the leader of the army soldiers and is playing the nice guy hiding a sinister bully and he’s very good in the role although I do find the posh accent strange coming from Eccleston. Cillian Murphy is good as Jim. I think he does much better work in later years so I can't be too harsh about his acting because he does a good job, just not a great job. Naomie Harris is hard to like at first but once the story progresses she gets better and becomes a nice supporting performer next to Murphy. Brendan Gleeson like Eccleston does an accent that is slightly distracting (this time a cockney accent) but he is the father to Hannah and is the likeable supporting person that he would do in countless other films. I always dislike the fact that he dies because a drip of blood gets in his eye. I just wish he moved to one side as it fell but it's because I like Gleeson.

There is a TV show from the 70’s called Survivors about a pandemic wiping out the world (bit far fetched) but in that there is a scene where they go to a supermarket for supplies and there is someone hanging from the ceiling with a sign saying that looters would be killed and I felt that the scene when they go shopping needed a a darker moment although I understand why they did what they did. The film has plenty of dark moments in this film and the gore still seems effective even after all this time. The camera work is a bit ropey because it is hard to see what is going on especially during the final act when it's the middle of the night and there is very little light.

From a 2025 point of view, the worst thing about this film is the quality of the picture. I know that it was made in 2002 before HD was invented but would it have killed Columbia or Sony to spend a bit of money upgrading the image. There were a couple of shots that looked very grainy and some that looked a bit blurry. The worst part came in the early stages when things looked so dark I thought it was a joke. Also (and this is more of an observation), when this film came out in 2002 it was an 18 but now in 2025 it is a 15 certificate and it shows how far horror has come over the last 23 years. The important thing though is that this film still holds up and is in one of 100 favourite horror films. It would blow a lot of modern horror films, especially Blumhouse films out of the water.  It’s a horror film so it should be scary and there are still a lot of things that are scary and it ends with an upbeat ending which doesn't feel like it seems out of place. I missed this film when it came out in 2002 as it was years before my film appreciation improved to where it is today and I am so glad that I saw it on the big screen. I am very much looking forward to 28 Weeks Later. 

On a related note, there was a sneak peak scene of 28 Years Later and it does very much feel like its in keeping with 28 Days Later. It's a bit from the trailer where Aaron Taylor-Johnson and the kid come across the body hanging from the ceiling where ATJ is telling his son (????) to kill the body as a test. It was short but sweet.

IT Chapter Two (2019)

IT Chapter 2 takes place 27 years after the events of the first movie. This doesn’t mean like I thought that it would just feature the losers as adults but there would be a mixture of the two. It’s a strange start to the film because within 10 minutes we have had a homophobic attack and a domestic violence attack.

There are problems with this film and its largely narrative. Its 35 minutes longer than chapter one and yet there is very little reason for it. Overall these films run to 5 hours and 4 minutes which is about two hours longer than the 1990 version. Ok the 1990 is meant to be terrible (minus Tim Curry) but we spend five hours doing what could have been done in three. We have to spend an age seeing the losers as adults and they all react differently. It felt at times like they were padding things out to hold off the final act for as long as possible. There are a couple of moments where someone wants to leave and gets talked out of it.

It really doesn’t get going until they arrive at the chinese restaurant. Then what happens from that moment are a series of moments which are done well but then there is a gag that undermines it a little bit. Its first noticeable in the restaurant and then happens a few times. I’m not sure whether they felt it needed a bit of humour but I found it distracting. Also there a moment where young Eddie is covered in black goo and play Angel in the Morning for no reason. There are also a couple of moments which caused laughter in the screening I was in and I cant say that I was surprised or bothered. It was hard to take them seriously at times.

There are good things and they are largely the cast. I thought that all the people in this are on top for and I believe they are the same character that they were in the first film. I’m not the biggest James McAvoy fan and yet actually found him to be quite good. Jessica Chastain was equally as good as the grown up the Beverly. However everyone is overshadowed by Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise. I thought that he was really good in the first one and is equally as good in this one. Some people have commented that when he is out in daylight then he loses his menace but I disagree. I thought that every time that he was on screen he was scary and chilling.

The jump scares were quite good. The one scare with the giant statue man with the axe did make pretty much everyone in the screening I was in jump (including myself). Normally they are quite forgettable two seconds after they appear, but on this occasion they are well done. Also the fact that they have managed to degage the younger cast was done quite well. For a while I thought they must have filmed it during the first one but then I thought they can make people look younger like they did in the Avengers film and most of the time the de-aging effect is well done. There are a few moments where its quite obvious but overall its done well.

I don’t think that Chapter 2 is as good as the first. But its not terrible and bearing in mind I was worried that this film was going to disappoint me, thankfully it didn’t and that was a relief.

It (2017)

IT is one of those novels that people hold in quite high regard. Never read the book but only aware of it because of Tim Curry’s version of Pennywise the Clown from 1990. The film explores the group of friends known as the losers as they are haunted by a creepy looking clown. The film does a good job in establishing each of the kids with a fear. This is the way that Pennywise can get involved in their lives.

The bullies are all completely unlikeable as they should be. Most times they start off evil and over the course of the film either get their comeuppance from the good guys or they meet a grizzly ending but on this occasion they never get much comeuppance but that gets dealt with in part two but in 2017, there was no guarantee that this would have led to a sequel so it was a brave thing not to have the bullies meet a definitive end. 

There are some good effects mainly the blood bathroom scene where Beth gets drenched in what appears to be blood. That scene looked incredible and the idea that her father cant see it and fair play to the actor for pretending that there is no blood. There are some other good effects but they mainly take place inside Pennywise’s lair. 

The performances from the kids are quite good. I thought that they all worked well with each other although I thought Mike was the least fleshed out and I never really thought that he was as involved in the group as the others. I think that Mike has a greater role in the second one. Bill Skarsgård is really good as Pennywise. Of all the roles that you could take on, there are less daunting ones that Pennywise which is arguably one of the most well-known roles in horror. It reminds me of Jared Leto after Heath Ledger played the Joker, but Skarsgård manages to pull of the seemingly impossible. It’s a very different version of Pennywise to what Tim Curry did and yet its still creepy. There is more of a child-like vibe in his performance compared to Curry’s. 

I really liked this film when I first saw it. Having watched it again, I don’t think it’s as good as I first thought. I still enjoyed it and think that its better than the second one but my opinion has changed in just a few years. The final act of the film was very good but that’s because everything went completely crazy and still holds up. Chapter One is the better film.