The Red Sacrament by Sarah Hinkley - Book Review

 

'Paris, 1869. The Théâtre Saint-Siméon is the place to be, if you can get in. The black slips of paper that guarantee entry are rare and highly desired, and given only to certain persons. The actors on stage are magnetic and ageless, performing only at midnight and never seen during the day…

'Arnault and his clan of vampires have survived for as long as they have by observing a rigid set of rules. At night, they perform on stage at the Théâtre Saint-Siméon, picking off just enough people in the audience to survive. But they understand the city, and how to live in it without being noticed.

'Their peace is shattered first with a visit from Béatrice, a witch who forms a strange connection to Arnault; then with the arrival of Victor de Rouvray and his sister Françoise, vampires from a very different world. And, as Arnault grows closer and closer to the beautiful, enigmatic Victor, he risks becoming distracted from the constant bickering of his immortal friends, from the daily running of the theatre, and worse, from the premonitions of blood, death and starvation that he receives at night.

'For a terrible change is on the horizon, revolt and revolution are brewing in the streets and soon, the city, and Arnault will never be the same again.'

The Red Sacrament is a debut novel that you'd be hard pressed to believe was a debut novel. With many first works you can see where the author is still trying to find their voice and style, you can feel which parts were likely added or changed later down the line in the editorial process, and you can come away satisfied, but sure that the authors next work will be better. The Red Sacrament reads like Sarah Hinkley has been writing for decades. Hinkley delivers a depth of detail and flowing quality to her work that is impressive to see, even if you end up not being a fan of the entire work.

Borrowing inspiration from Interview with the Vampire, The Red Sacrament takes readers to Paris in the 1860's where we discover a coven of vampires that has taken up residence within the tunnels and catacombs of the ancient city, masking their presence and hunting victims by establishing the Théâtre Saint-Siméon, a secretive and exclusive theatre experience. Rather than being open to the public, the vampires, led by the Arnault, invite prospective victims to their performances via black invites, which cannot be purchased, and must be received as gifts. 

The theatre isn't just a cover for the vampires, however, instead becoming an expression of them. Their performances are made for audiences soon to be fed upon, and so the plays and operas they pick to feature become a part of their hunts, an expression of who they are. These are vampires that live and breathe the theatre, and so the book heavily features references to works of the era that fill the early sections of the novel. These early parts of the book are crammed with tiny details and quotes from plays, and it's clear that Hinkley is either a huge theatre nerd, or did a ton of research into what a theatre of the time could have been putting on in order to present it here. And whilst other theatre lovers will probably get a lot out of this, these early parts of the book were some of the hardest to get through for me.

The first half of The Red Sacrament did relatively little for me. Long passages were given over to theatre talk, to discussions about what plays should be put on, who should perform what roles, how the shows went, what should be in the next show, and so on. Despite being filled with characters these moments were so packed with these extra details and long passages that I felt somewhat lost as to who every character was. It didn't help that many of them had little to nothing about their personalities to set them apart. I don't know if this was a deliberate choice, some form of commentary about how a community that's been together so long ends up losing individuality and becomes one homogenised whole, but even if it was it wasn't particularly enjoyable to slog through.

There are some hints at a larger plot scattered through these early few hundred pages, such as a witch who comes to visit the coven, or a pair of vampire twins from outside Paris who arrive at the theatre one night; but these elements are so scattered and light that I'd sometimes forget they were happening or even cared about them. For example, the witch who visits has a deeply disturbing effect on Arnault, and he becomes determined to track her down, but between each small step of the journey to figuring out who she is or where she's from there's dozens of pages of theatre talk; which not only felt like it was dragging out the plot too long, but also made it look like Arnalut didn't really care about finding her.

There is more than happens in the book, but this ends up being much later into the story, and by then you'll be hundreds of pages deep into the book. The Red Sacrament is a long novel, over 500 pages, but if it's taking hundreds of pages to even get interesting it's not going to be a book that I'm going to be able to easily enjoy. If it wasn't for the fact that I had agreed to review the book I would likely have not finished it, bowing out at a much earlier point.

That isn't to say that The Red Sacrament is a bad book, I just think that it's not for me. There will be people who love the slow pace and the focus on the theatre, and for them this will be a perfect exploration of those areas. As someone who likes to find something, even something small, to get interested in early on I was sadly left feeling somewhat deflated whilst reading The Red Sacrament. I think that there's definitely an audience and fanbase out there for The Red Sacrament, and if you're looking for a slower book to really spend some time with then it's definitely worth trying out.

The Red Sacrament is available now from Titan Books. 

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Marion by Leah Rowan - Book Review

 

'NORMAN WAS HER FIRST. Marion is in deep. She's stolen money from the Manhattan ad agency where she works in a desperate bid to help her sister escape an abusive marriage, but the bus breaks down before she can make it to Saratoga Springs. It's late at night, and the only place with vacancies is an old set of cabins on the outskirts of town. She pays for a room in cash, and ends up chatting with Norm, the young innkeeper who's handsome, charming and a touch hung-up on his elderly mother. Back in her room, she steps into the shower, scrubbing off the late-summer heat, when the curtain is pulled back...

'Norm Billings is there with a knife. He raises his arm to strike, but before he does, Marion knees him in the balls, grabs the knife, and stabs the life out of him. Now, she's covered in blood, and she's a woman on the run—not just a thief, but a killer, too. Where will she go? How will she save both herself and her sister? And what mysteries will she uncover as she does?

'In Psycho, Hitchcock shocked audiences when he killed off his protagonist. But what if the leading lady had fought back? Marion offers an alternate history of the most famous dead blonde to ever grace the silver screen. Only this time, the knife is in her hands—and she's no victim.'

The original Psycho is a classic of cinema, not only spawning multiple sequels (which are all really good films too!) but inspiring staples of cinema going forward, such as the slasher genre, and the pretty blonde victim trope. The fact that the film followed its supposed lead, Marion Crane, for the entire first act, and that Hitchcock cast major star Janet Leigh in the role made her sudden murder at the hands of Norman Bates one of the biggest shocks in cinema history, especially at the time. It changed what people thought films could do, and it made the brutal stabbing of Marion Crane a piece of history. 

But, what could happen if Marion didn't die? What if she fought with Norman over the knife? What if she managed to not just survive, but became the only person to come out of that bathroom alive? These questions, built around a modernisation, are what lies at the heart of Leah Rowan's Marion, a novel that turns cinema's most memorable victim into a fierce survivor.

Marion tells the story of two women, across shifting points in time. The main focus of the book is 'Marion', a woman whose real name we never learn over the course of the story. Marion works in New 
York City at a major advertising firm, where her boss brings her into a secret meeting with a rich new client. Agreeing to take $100,000 in cash there and then to work on a new campaign, Marion's boss sneakily tells her that he's doing it off the books, looking to break away from the firm and use this client to set up his own business; a business he wants Marion to come and work for. Giving Marion the money, with instructions to take it to the bank and put it in his personal account, he leaves Marion with the cash whilst he takes the client for a night on the town.

However, when Marion is turned away from the bank and is unable to deposit the cash without her boss present she's left holding the $100,000 over the weekend. To make matters worse, Marion learns that her sister, Lauren, who was staying with her for the week after her husband hit her, has decided to go back home without telling her. Knowing that her sister is in danger, and that she needs a small fortune to leave her abusive husband without losing her business, Marion sets out to save her sister, the stacks of cash in tow. Thanks to a broken down buss, Marion ends up stuck in a small town named New Paltz overnight, where she manages to find accommodation in the Billings Motel, ran by a strange but charming man named Norm. Trying decide what her next move should be, Marion soon finds all of her plans, and her entire future, at risk when Norm attacks her in the shower with a knife. Now Marion not only has a sister to save, a stolen $100,000 in her luggage, but also a dead body to deal with.

Interspersed with Marion's narrative is the story of Hannah Pierce, a private investigator trying to find a missing young woman who may have stopped in New Paltz. Set two weeks after the events of Marion's story, Hannah's investigation into the missing girl leads her into a mystery that involves murder, and the twisted lair of a serial killer.

Those familiar with Psycho will understand how the story is supposed to go, and know that after Marion's death at the hands of Norman her sister eventually comes looking for her at the Bates motel weeks later. Marion takes the structure of the film and plays with it in delightful ways, using the shifting times and different character perspectives to play homage to the original story whilst being hugely creative in its own ways. There's very little that I can actually say about the book beyond the initial set-up and comparing it to the original as the book does so many interesting new things that create its own new narrative that discussing them would spoil parts of a mystery that readers will be wanting to try and solve themselves. All I can say is that I was surprised at how much the novel was able to avoid just being a retelling or a modernisation, and managed to create a story that felt inspired by the film whilst being its own animal.

Leah Rowan does a phenomenal job with the shifting narrative, and creates an interweaving story that adds the twists and surprised that readers get to experience. Every time I thought that I knew what was coming, or what I was seeing, something happened that not only subverted those expectations but took the plot in a new and unexpected direction that made the book so much more fun. There were a few times where I'd find myself yelling 'what?!' out loud, or flipping back to an earlier part of the book to see just how Rowan had managed to mess with me so wonderfully.

Marion was described to me as a 'feminist retelling of Psycho', and I can't think of a better way to sum it up. The book has so many good women characters in it that are not only standing up to terrible, shitty men, but in doing so discovering a fierceness and strength that they never knew they had before. The book showcases these transformations incredibly well, it makes them believable, and it even kind of has you wanting to see them come out on top despite it meaning getting away with murder. It was fantastic to see such strong women not only getting the centre stage, but seeing terrible men get put in their place. 

Marion was an incredibly fun read, one that was filled with twists and turns that keep the narrative from ever feeling stale, yet also serving the characters stories well. If you're familiar with the original story you won't be able to predict what happens throughout the book, and you'll get to have just as much fun as someone coming to this completely fresh. As someone with a great deal of respect for Psycho this felt like not only a brilliant reinvention of it, but a carefully crafted love letter to it.

Marion is available now from Titan Books.

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This is Where the Future Bleeds by Mike Brooks - Book Review

 

'Kitt Carver is one of the best diviners in the business at finding destinies for the rich and powerful. When she’s nearly killed, and her regular broker is murdered, it becomes clear that someone has an issue with the last destiny that she found. 

'Determined not to let anyone else die, Kitt gathers a mismatched group – including Two Tongue Derna, her childhood friend and now a renowned street duellist; Sulian the Swallowmage, powerful but plagued with intrusive visions of futures; and Donal Klae, Kitt’s one-night stand who was accidentally responsible for her near-murder – and sets off across the Timeless Lands to warn the destiny’s recipient.  However, unbeknownst to Kitt, she has her own destiny; one which might spell disaster for everyone.'

Destiny and fate are often used in fantasy stories as a main driving force for heroes and villains alike. Whether it's the chosen one, predicted by prophecy who has to leave home and heed the call to adventure, or the wicked villain who's out to prevent their downfall that fate seems to have engineered the concept of people bound to certain paths in life is a theme that writers explore time and time again. And whilst This is Where the Future Bleeds is all about fate and destiny, it goes about exploring these concepts in wonderfully original ways.

Many generations ago the future was broken. A powerful god used their divine sword to shatter the very concept of fate, breaking the mechanism of destinies finding people; as well as leaving a whole part of the world perpetually frozen in time. For those brave enough, and equipped with magical devices that allow them to exist in this land where time has stopped, the high moors contain some of the most valuable commodities around, destinies. Kitt Carver is a diviner, someone with the magical ability to sense and find destinies, and along with her crew she's able to search the high moors for these valuable pieces of the future and sell them on to the rich and powerful who'll pay good money to secure a grand future for themselves.

Kitt's life is fairly simple despite the constant dangers that going onto the high moors brings, but that all changes when someone tries to kill her. Thankfully, her old friend, Two Tongue Derna, the vicious swordfighter, is around to keep her alive, despite her hatred for Kitt's choice in work. The two of them learn that Kitt isn't the only person involved in the destinies trade who has been killed in town over the last few days, and discover that someone is trying to track down everyone involved with the sale of a particularly powerful destiny that Kitt discovered. Fearing that her life might still be in danger, and not wanting anyone else from getting killed, Kitt sets out to travel across the high moors, something no one has ever done before, and head to the distant city of Derrigsmoot. Along the way she'll be joined by some members of her old team, Derna, the magic wielding Swallowmage, and another diviner who's also been targeted by her would-be assassins. But little does Kitt know that killers are the least dangerous things that she will have to face, and that her actions could end up changing the future for everyone.

This is Where the Future Bleeds is fairly bold, as it drops you into things with little to no background information and makes you keep up with the world as the story progresses. Mike Brooks, who's no stranger to writing stories in complex and fantastical settings, doesn't hold your hand and take things slowly. The very first chapter introduces you to key characters, the concept of the destiny trade, the high moors where time stops, the strange creatures that inhabit it, a number of non-human races, as well as the world that the story takes place in. It would be easy to get bogged down in lore dumps and huge passages of explanatory text, but instead Brooks relies on his evocative storytelling to draw you in and get you invested in the characters, allowing you to instead discover the world as and when things become relevant.

It's this enjoyment of the central characters that made This is Where the Future Bleeds one of those books that I didn't want to put down. As much as I wanted to learn more about the setting and see more of the central mystery it was Kitt that had me coming back, had me reading long beyond the point that I should have put the book down to do something else. Kitt is something of a flawed young woman, someone who's trying her best to get by in a town where she doesn't have many opportunities, nor many friends. She understands why people like Two Tongue Derna might not like the work that she does, how it can be seen as potentially destructive or unfair, yet has to do it because she's someone with very few real opportunities to do much else. Thankfully, she's such a warm, caring person that you almost never think about these parts of her, instead seeing the person who's braving extreme danger to try to save the lives of strangers, who's concerned with the safety of those on her quest with her, and even wants to be liked by people who you can definitely say are much worse people than her; such as Derna.

As the story progresses more and more colourful characters join Kitt on her mission, characters that are absolutely delightful in their weirdness; though they're that much more flawed people than Kitt that they make her look absolutely normal in comparison. Whilst there are a few that I really like, but can't say much about as even their inclusion would spoil aspects of the story, the one I loved the most was Derna. Presented as something of an antagonist in the very first chapter due to her interfering with Kitt's destiny harvesting, she quickly becomes Kitt's fiercest ally and eventual love interest. Watching the evolution of their strained friendship, seeing Kitt realise that she has feelings for Derna, and then her trying to carefully navigate this new awkwardness was absolutely delightful and had me rooting for the two of them to get together. 

Kitt and Derna's relationship isn't even the only queer representation in the book, however, as there are multiple queer characters, as well as non-binary and trans characters throughout the book, integrated in ways that made it clear that this was a world where queer identities and expressions were perfectly accepted and normalised. I absolutely adored this aspect. Yes, more books are including queer characters, and queer leads, in ways that weren't done years ago, but having as many as this book does, and with it never being treated as different or other in any way is the kind of representation that I was screaming out for as a frightened, closeted queer child, and I'm so happy that its on the shelves now for anyone to pick up and experience.

My main criticism of the book is that the pacing in the final chapters isn't the best, and it does feel a tiny bit rushed for the final pieces of the plot. This pacing issue felt even worse as it was a book that I was really loving, and so would have been happy to have it go on for longer so that these moments had longer to breathe, had more set-up time, and even something of an epilogue so that we can see where the characters end up and how their lives are different once the main story comes to a close. As it is, it almost felt like Brooks had a hard cut-off where he couldn't take the time to do that, or he had to wrap things up fast due to some circumstances outside of his control. Like I said, I'd have liked to have had more of these characters anyway, so perhaps this feeling is just a reflection of that, and others won't have any issue with the pacing.

This is Where the Future Bleeds is the first thing of Brooks' I've read outside of the Warhammer IP, and I wasn't sure what to expect as that was my only frame of reference for his work; but I'm happy to say not only was I thoroughly impressed and engrossed with the book, but it felt so thematically different that it really highlighted how versatile and talented Brooks is as a writer.

This is Where the Future Bleeds is available now from Titan Books.

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Cold Prey Trilogy - Limited Edition Blu-ray Review

 

I recently watched my first Norwegian film recently, Insomnia, thanks to the recent release from Second Sight, and now I've been able to expand that number even further thanks to their latest release, collecting together the three Norwegian slasher films Cold Prey. 

Originally released at a time where bland remakes and gory torture porn were the headline horror offerings from big studios, Cold Prey gave viewers something a little different; a smaller scale slasher movie that felt more in line with the iconic franchises of the past, yet managed to deliver it with a visual flare and style that felt refreshing and new to those not used to Norwegian cinema.

The first Cold Prey follows a group of friends who travel to the Jotunheimen mountains in the middle of winter to go snowboarding. One of the group, Morten Tobias (Rolf Kristian Larsen) takes a nasty fall down the mountain and ends up breaking his leg. With the nearest town too far to reach before night falls, the group decide to take shelter in an old hotel nestled in the mountains. The five of them are able to care for Morten Tobias' wound as best as they can, stay warm, and even find some alcohol inside to help while away the long night. 

Disturbingly, however, they find evidence of the lodge having been abandoned decades before after the owners young son went missing in the mountains a few weeks before the parents were killed in an apparent avalanche whilst searching for him. As the group explore the sprawling building someone else is watching them. This hulking, fur clad figure, enters the hotel and begins to hunt the group through its halls, picking them off one by one with traps and his pickaxe. 

The second film picks up almost immediately where the first film leaves off, with the lone survivor of the massacre, Jannicke (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) found wandering the mountain roads, barely alive. Taken to a hospital in the small town of Otta, the police question her as to what happened. When a search party is sent up into the mountains they discover the icy grave of her friends, and the monstrous Mountain Man (Robert Follin) responsible for killing them. When the bodies are brought back to the hospital Jannicke is faced once again with the trauma that she just lived through. But, when the Mountain Man begins to show signs of life the hospital staff work to revive him; a decision that will lead to a new night of terror and the Mountain Man works his way through the hospital, targeting doctors, patients, law enforcement, and Jannicke once again.

The third film decides to move to the past, telling a prequel story instead of trying to somehow justify the return of the Mountain Man a second time (something that would be even harder to explain away following the conclusion of the second movie). The film opens with flashbacks to the Mountain Man's childhood, where it's shown that his parents tried to kill him in the mountains due to his psychopathic tendencies. However, after surviving their murder attempt he returns home and kills his own parents, vanishing with their bodies. Twelve years late, the Mountain Man remains hidden in the wilderness of the Jotunheimen National Park, where a group of young friends are travelling to, wanting to check out the long abandoned hotel with strange rumours attached to it. 

Despite not staying in the hotel, and leaving it almost immediately (a pretty smart choice for horror protagonists), the group still attract the attention of the Mountain Man, and begin to fall prey to the traps he's left out in the wood. As the group realise that someone is hunting them down they attempt to make their way back to safety. Unfortunately for them, the Mountain Man has been hunting in the forest for years, and now that he's decided to switch from animals to humans he won't abandon his prey.

Cold Prey isn't really anything new or original when you look at the bare bones of it. It's a group of friends with very broad, archetypal characteristics who travel to a remote location, go somewhere they shouldn't, and then get picked off one by one. It's adhering to the expectations of the slasher genre, even if it has a Norwegian flavour to it. What makes the film stand apart from other on offer, especially against other horror films of the era, is how visually unique the film feels. Where the US is offering things like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes remakes, and new slasher franchises like Wrong Turn, films set in warm summer locations such as the forest and deserts, seeing a movie shift to the middle of winter, to the cold barren wilderness of the Norwegian mountains feels like the complete tonal opposite.

The new type of setting offers what feels like more realism in some ways too. Our protagonists can't just head for the nearest road and try to get help because the road is miles of trekking over the mountains away, and no one is using them anyway. They have to break into the abandoned building they find because if they don't they'll freeze to death outside, meaning they don't have to go into the obvious murder house simply because they're curious idiots. Where other films have their group of victims making stupid choices because they need to for the story here it feels like the creators are trying to justify why things are happening, which leads to a much more grounded and relatable story. Plus, just having the amazing visuals of the snow covered mountains is such a pleasant change that gives the movie its own character.

I also have to give the franchise points for trying something different with each movie too. The choice to shift location from an isolated mountain resort to a small town in the sequel is a bold move. Yes, there's still a sense of isolation in some ways thanks to the small hospital that's in the middle of closing down so only has a handful of staff for even fewer patients, and the snow and darkness outside gives the impression that it's cut off from the rest of the world, but it's still in a place where our protagonists can literally flee the building, run down the street to someone's house and ask for help, or where a dozen police can turn up to help (something that does actually happen in the movie). Considering most horror franchises will try and stick to the same kind of formula for several films before opening up the world, taking things from a distant isolated location to a more populated one, Cold Prey made the bold choice to do that.

This willingness to change their formula is also present in the third film in the series. Set decades before the events of the first film, Cold Prey 3 changes things up by moving from winter to summer. This simple shift in season changes the bleak white wilderness of snow covered mountains to luscious green forests and grassland. This immediately gives the prequel film a flavour of its own, making it instantly unique from the others just at a simple glance. I found the locations that were used for the third film to be the most gorgeous of the trilogy, presenting an amazing look at some of the stunning wilderness that Norway has to offer. And whilst the third film might be more limited in terms of its storytelling (we know that anyone who sees the Mountain Man has to die as he's an unknown entity in the other films) this simple change in visual style keeps it fresh and interesting. 

Alongside the films each movie comes with brand new audio commentaries on each of the films that feature directors, actors, and film academics who offer some fantastic insight not only into the making of the franchise, but also on Norwegian cinema as a whole. The first film has the most extra features to accompany it, featuring some original behind the scenes videos, an alternate ending, new interviews with cast and crew, visual effects breakdowns, and two short films. The second movie also comes with new cast and crew interviews, cut scenes, and original behind the scenes featurettes, whilst the third film sadly only has some short original behind the scenes features to go alongside the commentary track.

On a whole, I really enjoyed the Cold Prey Trilogy. It was a lot of fun to discover horror cinema from a country where I'd never experienced it before. They stood out against other films of the era, and made me come away wanting to see more of what Norway has to offer, especially in genres that I love. This new blu-ray set offers a fantastic way to either discover these films for the first time, or add an updated version to your home collection.

The Cold Prey Trilogy Limited Edition Blu-ray set is available now from Second Sight.

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All We Have Left by Emily Paxman - Book Reivew

 

'The world might not have ended all at once. But end it did. Kayla Hollins is a survivor. Living in the fragmented wasteland of the Canadian Pacific Northwest, she's outlived a colony, a cult, a paramilitary group, and most of her family. So when her younger sister April falls seriously ill, Kayla will do anything to save her. They trek to Salt Spring Island, a beacon of hope in their otherwise brutalized world, which is rumoured to still have a hospital. But Salt Spring's utopia comes with a price. Not just anyone can enter paradise or access their medical care, and Kayla's past is chequered.

'Desperate, Kayla makes a deal with Sid Charles, an aspiring politician with whom she had a chance encounter before arriving on Salt Spring. If Kayla and Sid get married, it will boost Sid's chances of election, and grant April automatic access to the medical treatment she desperately needs. And in two years, when Kayla is eligible for citizenship herself, they can get a divorce. Simple, right?

'Sid is distant and cranky, but Kayla comes to learn he is also shockingly kind. The more time she spends with him and his ragtag group of rescued boys, the more she comes to admire him. But with April's treatment and Sid's election on the line—and the constant terror of her past being discovered—Kayla isn't sure she can risk trying to change their arrangement. Trapped together in the closest thing left to paradise, Kayla and Sid both know what it means for the world to end. But as they try to rebuild with the people of Salt Spring Island, there may be time left to save—if not the world—themselves.'

I'm not much of a romance reader. This is largely down to not really enjoying genres and settings where it's real-life. The closest I'll come to reading a book that could be set in the real world is a murder mystery type story, otherwise I want fantastical things that I could never get to live myself, such as monsters, aliens, magic and the like. When I do get to read stories with romance in them they tend to be secondary to other events, a little sprinkling of romance in a story that's main focus is elsewhere. All We Have Left, despite being a post-apocalypse survival story, manages to do something of a switcheroo on me where I suddenly realised that the post-apocalypse setting was mere window dressing for a romance story; and I was shocked that I was absolutely loving the book despite of this trickery. 

All We Have Left begins in the Canadian wilderness decades after the world has been ravaged by intense global climate shifts and massive earthquakes that brought civilisation as we're used to to an end. It's here that we meet two sisters, Kayla and April. Kayla is almost a decade older than her teenage sister, and has been her sole caregiver for years now since their mother was killed by other survivors. However, since April has been getting sicker and sicker Kayla has been left with no choice but to do the one thing that she never wanted to do, trust one of the communities of survivors for help.

Travelling to the island community of Salt Spring Island, Kayla and April are taken in as refugees; a process made a little bit harder by Kayla's trauma inspired panic when confronted by their armed border guards that results in her injuring one of them. On the island Kayla learns that April has diabetes, and her plan to get some quick treatment and leave falls apart as she realises that April will have to live on the island for the rest of her life. To make matters worse, Kayla doesn't know how she's going to pay for many future treatments after selling most of her possessions.

As a refugee, Kayla and April are placed with a family on the island as their sponsors, and they end up having to stay with Sid, the man that Kayla injured, after he steps forward to care for them when their future on the island is put at risk because of the injury Kayla gave him. The two sisters move into the huge farmhouse where Sid lives with several younger men and boys, all of whom came to Salt Spring with him and made a life there. As April settles into island life, going to school for the first time and dreaming of a future as a scientist, Kayla struggles to overcome past trauma, as well as a way for her to keep custody of her sister and pay for her medical bills. 

Thankfully, Sid comes up with a plan that can help them and him, if Kayla marries Sid they will get citizenship, and April's treatment will be covered; and Sid gets a wife to help his public image as he attempts to enter the world of politics. With little choice left to her, Kayla enters into a sham marriage with Sid, with the understanding between the two of them that nothing has to happen between them, and after a few years time they can just divorce. However, as time goes on it becomes clear that the two of them have feelings for each other, and now must navigate the complex web of these new emotions, island politics, and past trauma.

All We Have Left drops the reader into a post-apocalypse world, one where these two young sisters are scavenging for food to survive, and the fear of raiders and thieves is always present. However, this is something that soon changes, as Kayla discovers the small community on Salt Spring Island, one that has spent decades rebuilding itself as best it can. It has a government, a hospital, a library, a busy market, and even restaurants; all things that Kayla thought lost to the end of the world. From here the book becomes almost a twisted reflection of the world we know. Instead of fighting for survival in a ravaged world we're seeing Kayla have to deal with political deals, bureaucracy, and perhaps the worst scourge of all, capitalism.

Because we see this shift through Kayla's eyes it took me a while to realise that in many ways I wasn't really reading a post-apocalypse story anymore, and Salt Spring Island and the community there could fit into almost any kind of setting with a few tweaks. The promise of reading a story set in the post-apocalypse was pretty much gone after the first couple of chapters. Luckily, I had become invested in Kayla as a character that I didn't really mind this shift, though it could have been the kind of change that would have ruined the book for me if not written as well as Emily Paxman does here.

The main draw for All We Have Left is the characters and their relationships, even beyond the central romance plot. The several boys that Sid lives with are fun and engaging characters, and seeing how they relate to each other, learning about their past, and seeing how they handle the sudden change of having two women living with them makes for an interesting premise. There's also the subplot of seeing Sid, a former outsider to the community himself, navigate the world of politics to try to change the island for the better and create a bigger, more hopeful community that could have been the focus of an entire book itself.

The romance plot is the main drive of the book, and it's handled pretty well for the most part, relying on a slow burn approach to keep the reader invested and maintain a steady amount of tension as you wonder if Sid and Kayla will wind up together or not. There are times when things don't go well for the two of them in ways that could easily be resolved by simply sitting down and talking to each other, something the characters fail to do, but this is a fairly common trope across a lot of media, so I can't really blame to book for falling into this trap at times. There does come a point where the romance suddenly speeds up, with the two of them declaring their love and talking about babies and their future together that felt way too fast; but then the book does talk about how relationships evolve pretty fast in the post-apocalypse world due in large part because people don't know how long they're going to get.

However, this sudden change of pace does play into my biggest problem with the book; it resolves too fast. Towards the back end of the book a character from Kayla's past appears on the island, someone connected to the weird cult she and her family had to escape when she was a child. This kicks off a whole new subplot about how one of Salt Spring's allies is secretly a cult, and how they've hid this from the island whilst also keeping their own people in the dark so that only those on the top can benefit. This is a big plot, one that could have huge rammifications not just for Kayla, but the entire community. This gets resolved in about two chapters, and mostly off page with the reader being told how it all worked out in an epilogue scene. We also find out how Sid's political apsiratipns go in this scene in a similar way.

The ending feels so rushed because of this. With the amount of different plots going on, the number of relationships that were being explored, the story could have easily been told across two books, with perhaps the second book exploring Kayla and Sid's relationship once they admitted their feelings, whilst also dealing with the more intense parts of Sid's desire to be in politics, and the cult. Instead it's all done very fast and given as a 'oh and this happened between chapters' info drop. I couldn't help but feel somewhat cheated by this, and I think that if Paxman wasn't going to take the time to actually explore some of these things fully then perhaps just not including the sudden cult involvement in the final few chapters would have been better as then the resolution would have simply felt fast instead of very rushed.

Despite these issues with the ending, I still really liked the book. It wasn't perfect by any means, and Salt Spring island was perhaps not the setting I was imagining it would be (I don't know why it was capitalist and that a main plot point in the post-apocalypse was April dying because Kayla couldn't pay for medical bills) but the main relationships managed to make it a really engaging read, one that I kept wanting to come back to. I came out of the book feeling like I'd been tricked into reading a book that was pretty much just all romance, but I didn't mind it at all.

All We Have Left is available now from Titan Books.

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Shadows of Willow Cabin - Film Review

 

The horror genre is a vast and expansive one, one that allows filmmakers and audiences the opportunity to explore through themes than run the gamut of human experience. Horror can be used to explore trauma, personal fears, societal ills, and questions about the future. The genre is a perfect outlet for the marginalised too, for those more often unrepresented groups to tell their stories in ways that elevate the genre. The queer community is one that is often present in horror, though not always in the best ways, with expressions of sexuality and gender outside the accepted norm being given over to serial killers and monsters in ways that further other and dehumanise the queer community.

In more recent years, however, this community has been able to advocate for itself more, and has been gaining more of a positive voice in horror, with our stories slowly seeping into films. Even if the casual audience is unaware they're watching a queer narrative, gay, lesbian, trans, and other filmmakers have been making their voices hears; a recent example would be I Saw the TV Glow, a film that disturbed cisgender and heterosexual viewers for reasons they couldn't quite identify, but in which the trans community immediately saw themselves and their stories represented.

Shadows of Willow Cabin feels similar in this regard, a film that viewers outside the LGBTQ+ community will certainly get less from than it's queer viewers; but a film that is telling an important and very personal narrative.

The film centres on Albert (Bryan Bellomo), an older teacher who has travelled up to his old family cabin, affectionately named Willow Cabin despite the lack of willow trees, so that he can meet the much younger Devon (John Brodsky), who he met online and has been chatting with. Albert is still in the closet, and lacks any real experience with men, and so has turned to the openly gay, confident Devon to experience what it could be like to be his true self. Over the course of the next few days the two men drink, tell stories, lounge in the hot tub, and find a great deal of tenderness between the two of them. Albert gets to experience emotional and physical intimacy with a man, something that he's denied himself for decades.

However, we soon learn that Albert isn't only closeted, but also married with a son. He's snuck off to the cabin for the week under false pretence, and is cheating on his wife. This causes friction between the two men, and son the film also gets to explore some of the less savoury sides of intimacy. The film shows a rather truthful portrayal of a queer relationship, albeit in a very fast, condensed state as the two men experience attraction, lust, comfort, unease, anger, jealousy, and desperation over the course of their time together. But, Shadows of Willow Cabin is a horror film, and as such this slice of normalcy can't last forever.

When the two of them attempt to leave the cabin they find themselves unable to, with the forest around the building bringing them straight back no matter what they do. Not only that, but their food has gone rotten, the water is shut off, and the spectre of Albert's uncle is stalking them. As the two men desperately search for a way to escape this twisted nightmare they end up having to face their demons.

On the whole, despite the fact that ghosts and twisting reality exist within Shadows of Willow Cabin the film hardly felt like a horror film, and much of the movie is a very realistic, honest portrayal of a queer relationship involving two very different men. There's an age gap, one that comes into play as we see how childhood experiences and societal shifts resulted in very different experiences for them growing up gay. They have different positions in society, different expectations placed upon them because of their work and home lives. In some ways the film feels more like an examination of generational differences in the queer community than anything else.

As the film progresses and the paranormal elements are introduced it becomes clear that the titular 'shadows' deal with trauma, repression, and the fears that members of the queer community have, and even continue to go through. In a world where so many of us are forced into the closet, made to repress who we are and who we love, to live a live, it's not hard to see how such trauma can be present in so many of us. And whilst Shadows of Willow Cabin speaks to a more specific part of the LGBTQ+ community, the gay part, I think any one who is queer who watches it will be able to identify with it in some way.

The film, written and directed by Joe Fria, is decently made, and a good portion of it could be lifted out and presented as a drama about a closeted man dealing with his feelings and trying to figure out how to navigate his life. The shift into horror comes somewhat suddenly, and it jolts you into remembering that this is a horror film; yet manages to do so in a way that doesn't throw you out of the narrative. It's two leads, pretty much the only people in the film, bring a great deal of humanity to their roles, and despite the revelation that they're knowingly engaging in an affair that completely destroys the trust Albert's wife has put in him, you still manage to feel something for them even if you should hate them for this choice.

Shadows of Willow Cabin is a carefully crafted queer horror, one that may play a little too light on the horror elements for some, but will win others other thanks to its honesty and attempt to present a realistic representation of queer love and self discovery.

Shadows of Willow Cabin is available digitally in the UK from GrimmVision now.

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Lesbian Space Princess - Film Review

 

Queer media, depending on where you get your media news from, is either woefully underrepresented, or it's everywhere 'taking over normal TV' (the second one is usually the kind of complaint you hear from a boomer who sees one queer couple for three seconds of an advert and makes being angry about it their personality for the next six weeks). I definitely think that whilst there's more representation happening now than there ever has been it's still not at all even considering the size of the queer community, and the range of experiences that we have. It's also important that queer stories from queer creators get given attention over less personal depictions and throwaway representation from cisgender and heterosexual creators.

Lesbian Space Princess is a new queer led animation project from Australia, featuring first time writer/directors Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese. It also has the honour of being the first animated feature film made in South Australia. With queer creators, a queer (mostly) main cast, and it's weirdly Australian sense of humour, Lesbian Space Princess is a fun animated adventure that will appeal to younger adults, as well as those who want a queer story focused on queer joy.

The film centres on Princess Saira (Shabana Azeez) from the planet of Clitopolis, the main planet for lesbians in sector of the galaxy known as Safe Space; even if it can sometimes be hard to find Clitopolis. The daughters of two beloved queens, Saira has had a difficult time finding herself, and being accepted by the citizens of Clitopolis, in part due to her shy and fearful nature, her love of up-close magic tricks, and her inability to find or keep a girlfriend. As Saira's 22nd birthday looms she's sure that this is going to be her year thanks to her new girlfriend, the sexy space adventurer Kiki (Bernie Van Tiel). Unfortunately, Kiki breaks off the relationship, leaving Saira alone on her birthday once again, where she's publicly humiliated by Kiki dumping her, and her continued inability to summon her magical lesbian princess weapon, her cosmic labrys. 

Saira thinks that her world has fallen down around her, and that she'll never be able to win Kiki back thanks to her personal demons and self doubt. However, when she receives a message from the Straight White Malians (voiced by Mark Bonanno, Zachary Ruane, and Broden Kelly), who have taken Kiki hostage in exchange for Saira's labrys, she becomes determined to save her ex; and hopefully win her back in the process. Stealing an old, impounded spaceship from the royal hanger, Saira sets off into the universe. Along her journey she'll meet new allies and enemies, including non-binary singer/songwriter Willow (Gemma Chua-Tran), drag performer/club owner Blade (Kween Kong), and her ships slightly misogynistic AI (Richard Roxburgh).

The plot for Lesbian Space Princess is pretty simple, a girl gets dumped, doubts herself, goes off to save her ex to try and win her back, but learns about herself and gets the chance to grow along the way. At it's most boiled down aspect it's a coming of age story, one where the lead character is forced to deal with life-long trauma and self doubt, and must step out of the shadows to become the person she's always meant to be. This is a fairly common kind of arc for queer fiction, as a lot of queer stories feature characters discovering their queerness and coming out. But Lesbian Space Princess gets to play with this dynamic by having it be a queer story where the character's queerness isn't the driving force, isn't the thing they have to learn to deal with and figure out. Instead, it's feelings of inadequacy and self doubt that anyone can experience; and because of this I think that the film has a big change to connect with a wider audience than just the queer community.

Thanks to the film's bright and weird animation style, akin to things such as Rick and Morty or Adventure Time, and the often absurd nature of the humour used, Lesbian Space Princess is less likely to appeal to a more conservative, stuffy audience, but with younger generations, especially those around the same age as Saira, I think that it'll find a strong audience who love the weirdness. Whilst not every joke landed with me, it was still a great deal of fun, and had some laugh out loud moments. My favourite part of the film, however, wasn't the humorous bits, but a sequence in which Saira had to confront her inner fears and the darkness that had been looming over her the whole film. These moments really stood out against the rest of the film, and helped to connect me with the character in a way that was really missing before.

Lesbian Space Princess is sure to find an audience with younger queer folks, especially those who are into popularised queer media and culture. With a cast that includes queer comedians and performers from Drag Race, it at times does feel like the movie is both trying to appeal to a very queer focused audience (the kind of younger queer people who make queerness a big part of their personality) whilst at other times it feels like it's poking fun at that same audience and the stereotypes around them. As a middle-aged, stay at home disabled queer person who was unable to be openly queer most of my life the film is at times a little too over-the-top to really win me over, but the love that's been poured into it, and the fact that it's putting a queer spin on a genre where it's not usually found ended up getting me on it's side. 

Lesbian Space Princess is out in UK cinema's now.

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Aoashi by Yugo Kobayashi (3-in-1 Edition) Volume 1 - Manga Blog Tour

 

'Volume 1 of the Aoashi Omnibus from Titan Manga collects and translates Volumes 1-3 of the original award-winning Japanese manga series.

'To the world stage! Glory and ambition lie ahead of young Ashito Aoi as he takes the first steps to becoming a pro soccer player. But after being catapulted into a new harsh environment, can he hold onto his spider’s thread and climb his way to the top? A fateful encounter on Futami Beach in Ehime, Japan leads to the meeting between Fukuda Tatsuya; once a rising star and a player on the cusp of greatness whose career ended all too soon, and Aoi Ashito; a brash and hot-headed striker who loves soccer despite his selfish tendencies. 

'After being selected to try out for the Tokyo City Esperion Youth club, Ashito Aoi stakes his future on the chance to create a better life for his single mother and older brother, all while realizing his own shortcomings and dealing with the highly competitive world of J-Youth Soccer. With a mix of competitive high school soccer and a true-to-life representation of soccer and youth academies, Aoashi volume 1 starts the journey of the award-winning manga series.'

I'm not big into sports. Even before the option of being physically able to play sports was taken off the table for me it was never something that really interested me. I was drawn towards the world of fiction and art, preferring to lose myself to the unpredictability of a TV show or book over that of watching or playing a sports game that would give the same kind of thrill. As such, I've never really given much attention to stories about sports, other than the occasional film like Cool Runnings, or Blitzball segments in Final Fantasy X. When I was offered a copy of Aoshi's new 3-in-1 edition I felt like I was taking something of a gamble, having no real world interest in football; however, after spending some time reading through this hefty 600 page volume I'm happy that I took that chance and got to discover a really lovely new series.

Aoashi tells the story of Ashito Aoi, a teenager from the small prefecture of Ehime, where he's the star player on the local school soccer team. He's something of a hot-head, believing he's the best player the team has; a view that the other players tend to support as their main tactic tends to be 'get the ball to Ashito and let him score'. Despite his talent, he loses the opportunity to be picked by a high school scout watching from the stands thanks to his short temper. However, it does grab the attention of Fukuda Tatsuya, the manger of the Tokyo City Esperion youth team, who spends the night teaching Ashito a complex technique to gauge his abilities. 

Fukuda invites Ashito to come to try outs in Tokyo to see if he has what it takes to join the best youth team in the country. This sets Ashito on a path that will test his abilities, his dedication, and his drive to achieve his dreams to the very limit.

One of the things that immediately struck me about Aoashi is that whilst the series is about sports, the focus on football felt somewhat secondary to that of the lead character. After looking into the series a little I learned that Yugo Kobayashi was approached to create the series, and originally didn't want to because he had no interest in making a sports manga. I think that this is perhaps one of the main reasons why Aoashi reads in such a way that someone like myself, who has no interest in sports manga, can come away really enjoying it.

In a lot of ways the sport feels like the element that was needed to justify the events of the book, whilst the main focus is Ashito. The early chapters where we're seeing this young hothead who thinks he's the best find out he's far from perfect give us a fantastic grounding for a character that has a ton of room to grow, and who desperately needs to. Despite this need, Ashito never feels like a jerk, and you can see the decent kid inside him shining through even then. However, as the story progresses and we see him travel to Tokyo and he realises there are people more skilled, and more dedicated than him, he's forced to grow-up somewhat, realising that if he doesn't change he's not going to make it as a football player.

Part of this journey heavily involves the people he meets along the way, whether that's the coaches at Tokyo City Esperion FC, the other kids on the tryout, or the players on the other teams already there, they all either push him to go further than he has before, or give him a valuable lesson such as the importance of making friends and trying to find new ways to express himself. Football might be the reason for all of this, but the story is about this young teen discovering the kind of person he wants to grow up to be, and the struggles he faces along the way; and because of that, I think that it's going to appeal to a much wider audience. 

One of the things that I really appreciated about this first volume is that it's also incredibly grounded. This isn't a series where the characters unlock superhuman abilities, they don't kick the ball and send it flying at high speed wreathed in flames, and there's no ridiculous high stakes and drama such as players trying to kill each other mid-game. It's just teenagers playing football. Whilst I don't know a huge amount about football there's nothing I saw in the book that looked beyond the abilities of a real person, and nothing that happens on pitch that would end up with you getting arrested. This realism really helped to keep the focus on the characters and their very real experiences.

The art on the book is really impressive too, and the moments where we have action and drama on the pitch look fantastic. Kobayashi manages to convey movement and energy incredibly well, and some of the panels where characters pull off a particularly impressive or difficult move stand out as some of the best in the book. It also seems like a lot of care and attention are put into the times when a lot of characters are on the page together, whether running around the pitch or standing in a big group, and you can clearly see who everyone is and pick the important characters out from background characters without any issue. Considering how some big name manga series can sometimes cut corners in these moments, rushing the art and giving readers something of a disappointing experience, Aoashi never failed to impress in its visuals.

Character designs are pretty decent, and whilst none of the characters are too outlandish or unusual, each of them has something that sets them apart from others, whether than be hairstyles or facial structure, that you're never left wondering who's on the page, and can instantly recognise the important people. The only criticism I have with the art is on the pages between the chapters where Kobayashi will sometimes do pin-up style pieces with the books lead female character, Hana. There's one where she's posing in a small bikini with most of her body on display, and another where she's posing in nothing but a football shirt on top of the goal, and the picture is angles in a way to look up the shirt. She's never exploited or treated weirdly in the main book itself, but these pages come away as somewhat creepy and exploitative; especially as she's supposed to be around the same age as Ashito, making her about 15.

With this edition being a 3-in-1 the book is quite big, and covers a really decent amount of set-up for the series that I think makes it a lot easier to get into. The book does show you where each of the three individual three volumes would have ended, and whilst I would have enjoyed reading the smaller editions I don't think that I would have enjoyed it as much because I needed a bit longer to get into the story than other manga I've read. This is likely down to not being a sports fan, but I also think that readers wouldn't get enough insight into the characters in the smaller volumes to really become invested in Ashito and his journey. As it is, by the time this volume came to a close I was wanting to read more, and would have happily jumped into the next book.

Despite not being a sports fan Yugo Kobayashi manages to get me into Aoashi in relatively short time, getting me invested in the central character, his family life, his dreams, and the journey that he was starting. With some great art and a ton of heart, Aoashi will appeal to a ton of readers, whether you're a football fan or not.

Aoashi 3-in-1 Edition Volume 1 is available now from Titan Manga.

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Slither - Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD Review

 

Slither is regarded as something of a cult classic. Horror was in something of a rough patch when Slither was first released, and if we're looking at all time great horror films there aren't a huge number of them coming from the early 2000's, especially in comparison to the 1980s, or even the resurgence in truly well crafted horror that we've seen in the last several years. However, Slither managed to make a mark for itself despite a first-time director, one lead best known for a cancelled TV series and another who was still on the rise, and being a commercial failure. Now, 20 years later it's become a beloved horror film, and is receiving a new Limited Edition 4K UHD release.

Slither tells the story of Wheelsy, a small South Carolina town where residents live quite lives, where the chief of police naps in his car and helps school kids cross the road outside of school. This peace is shattered, however, when a meteorite crashes in the forest outside of town, bringing with it a malevolent parasitic alien lifeform. The parasite soon infects wealthy local resident Grant (Michael Rooker), who begins a terrifying metamorphosis, devouring raw meat as his body changes from the inside out. 

When Grant abducts a woman in town it launches a manhunt for him that sees his wife, Starla (Elizabeth Banks) helping police chief Bill (Nathan Fillion) to track down her mutated husband. However, when Grant unleashes hundreds of parasitic slugs upon the town that infect the residents, turning them into monstrous zombie-like creatures, Bill and Starla must find a way of stopping the infection before it leaves Wheelsy and takes over the entire world.

I haven't watched Slither since it first came out, but always remembers it fondly, liking the way the film combined the horror genre with comedy, and managing to deliver a film that felt somewhat original and interesting at a time when the genre was failing to do so. Re-watching Slither for this release, I realised that whilst I remembered the core story and the flavour of the film I'd forgotten a great deal of it, and it was almost like watching it for the first time all over again. 

I was somewhat surprised with how short the film is, and it's a movie that uses it's runtime well, moving from plot point to plot point with little waste. The downside to this, however, is that the film felt like it came to a conclusion pretty fast, and I'd have been happy with another half hour of runtime if it meant a slightly slower pace, more chance to get to know the characters, and a few more set pieces once the alien slugs entered the story.

Despite the brevity of the film it managed to still be very entertaining, and I feel that it's aged pretty well for a film of the era. The effects work is mostly practical, and the CGI that's used is done so in a way that it doesn't stand out at particularly bad; I've seen much more recent films that have worse effects work than this. I also don't remember it including any particularly awful early 2000's 'humour' that would be considered badly aged by todays standards, such as including ableist or homophobic slurs. This might seem like a strange detail to mention, but going back and watching older film and television today does on occasion end up with particularly awful moments like that.

When I first watched Slither I was only really aware of the work of Nathan Fillion out of the main cast, and whilst I was a fan of his work my appreciation of his acting has definitely increased over the years, and it was lovely to go back and see an earlier starring role of his. Since first seeing the film I've also come to enjoy Elizabeth Banks' work, really like Michael Rooker, and now recognise Jenna Fischer from her time on The Office and got excited to see her in a small role here.

Unfortunately, I wasn't given access to the full release version, and was only able to watch the new HD version of the film, and as such cannot speak to the quality of the extra features that are included. The new release comes with brand new interviews with Director of Photography Gregory Middleton, Editor John Axelrad, Special Make-up Effects Designer Todd Masters, and Composer Tyler. There's also an older interview with Director James Gunn, some behind the scenes featurettes, a blooper reel, a set tour with Nathan Fillion, and deleted scenes. 

Despite my hazy memory of Slither it was fun to get the chance to see it again. I found it to be a pretty short but sweet movie, one that manages to combine body horror and comedy in such a way that you never know what's coming next, and whether you should laugh or be frightened. Having followed the careers of the cast and director over the years and coming to like their work it does feel strange to go back and see an early project with them, but you can definitely see how they would go on to become hugely popular names. Whether you're rediscovering Slither like me, have been a long time fan, or are experiencing it for the first time, this new release is a great watch.

Slither 20th Anniversary Limited Edition 4K UHD Steelbook is available now.

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Insomnia - Limited Edition 4K/UHD & Blu-ray Review

 

Stellan Skarsgård is an actor that has found critical acclaim around the world, and has delighted audiences by camping it up in the musical Mamma Mia!, by helping to ground the god Thor into the MCU, and by inspiring people to stand against fascism and hate in an awards worthy role in Andor. There are dozens of amazing roles in his catalogue that you'd be hard pressed to pick a favourite from; but one that may have slipped by your notice is the 1997 Norwegian neo-noir thriller Insomnia. Thankfully, Second Sight Films are offering audiences the chance to catch this unique piece in a new Limited Edition 4K/UHD and Blu-ray release.

Insomnia begins with a series of disturbing images filmed on an old handheld camera, showing a young woman alive one moment, then dead the next, a hidden figure carefully cleaning her body before putting her inside black plastic bags. From here we join police officers Jonas Engström (Stellan Skarsgård) and Erik Vik (Sverre Anker Ousdal), who are flying to the city of Tromsø, which is located in Norwegian Arctic, where summer is in full swing and the sun won't set for months. 

Arriving in Tromsø to investigate the murder of teenager Tanja Lorentzen (Maria Mathiesen) the two detectives find themselves tested by this surprisingly harsh environment, a place where the blaring white light of day never gives a moments rest. Jonas has trouble sleeping, his nerves pushed to their limit, whilst Erik has trouble remembering things; though this is more likely due to his age than Tromsø itself. When a key piece of evidence is discovered at a remote shack, the police decide to use it as bait, hoping to find the killer returning to the scene to remove anything incriminating. As the arctic fog moves in the police spot their suspect and give chase. In the chaos that ensues one cop is shot and injured. As Jonas tries to find the killer he opens fire on the suspect, but accidentally kills Erik.

Choosing to hide his actions from the other police, telling them that the suspect was the one who killed Erik, Jonas must alter evidence into the investigation to ensure that he's not found to be responsible. Unfortunately for him, there is one witness to the event, Tanja's killer. Jonas finds himself in a complex game of cat and mouse as he tries to keep his freedom, and deals with his ever decreasing sanity in the relentless glare of the never ending sun.

At first I was wondering if Insomnia was going to be kind of Twin Peaks type mystery as it opens with an investigator travelling somewhere strange to find answers about a murdered teen wrapped in plastic; but Insomnia is it's own animal completely, instead taking us on a journey with a desperate, morally grey protagonist. It's not going to surprise anyone that Skarsgård delivers an exceptional performance, as I don't think he does anything else, but the way that he depicts Jonas' descent into sleep deprived, guilt-induced madness is simply sublime in how it elicits both sympathy for him, and disgust at what he does.

This was one of the most surprising parts of the film for me, Skarsgård is a nasty piece of work throughout. We learn that he had to leave a previous position for ruining a case by sleeping with a witness, we watch him murder a dog, kill his partner and cover it up, molest a teenager whilst driving. He's not a character that you'd normally want to spend time watching, other than perhaps in a villain role; yet here he is, our protagonist and 'hero' of the film. Insomnia does a wonderful job at always keeping you unsure what you should be feeling, and you end up feeling conflicted and on edge throughout.

I was also impressed how the usual crime noir visuals were completely inverted for Insomnia. So many films in the genre rely on darkness, for atmosphere, for keeping things hidden, for reflecting the heroes inner turmoil or journey. Insomnia blasts you with a bright light instead, every scene almost uncomfortably so. It's not the warm light of a regular sunny day, it's an invading, insistent glow that drains you rather than invigorates. The constant sun manages to feel more oppressive than darkness, and the never ending day almost becomes a character itself during the course of the film, the entity that has driven Jonas to breaking point. 

The new 4K restoration of the movie enhances those feelings of oppressive brightness thanks to the wonderfully crisp image quality. Alongside the film, which is presented in its original language with English subtitles, comes with an English Language audio commentary from Director Erik Skjoldbjærg and Co-writer Nikolaj Frobenius that offers some great insight into the film. Skjoldbjærg also appears in a brand new interview; as does Producer Petter J. Borgli. There's also a short video essay by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, and a trio of short films from Skjoldbjærg. The limited edition also comes with a 120-page booklet filled with essays and writing about the film, and six art cards.

As someone who's only known Stellan Skarsgård from his English language work it was an absolute delight to get to see him much earlier in his career. Insomnia showed me a very different side to the actor, and offered an unsettling, twisted narrative that entertained throughout. 

Insomnia is available on Limited Edition 4K/UHD & Blu-ray from Second Sight Films on Monday 25th May 2026.

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