Catherine Bray

This is a non-fiction film, but one drawing on a tradition of informing fiction such as A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life, in which the viewer’s empathy for the poor and/or deserving and their struggles is given an additional prod by the festive backdrop.

Alas, you have to sit through a lot of turgid Bible studies dramatisations of bits of scripture to get to the good stuff.

As fun as the boys are, this is Barrera’s show. She is tremendous, and seemingly having a tremendous amount of fun.

This film is a necessary howl of rage, one that argues cogently — via the simple expedient of capturing life as it is lived — that to ignore what it happening in Afghanistan is to condemn half the population of the country to oppression under a dictatorship that is both political and personal.

There are some decent PG-rated thrills and scares for the preteen audience, but adults are unlikely to find it especially convincing, with clunky dialogue and a generic score letting down a solidly traditional spooky mystery.

There are a couple of not-quite holes exactly, but slightly threadbare patches. More importantly, the narrative isn’t really the point; this is first and foremost a tense portrait of a toxic relationship, and a brutally compelling one at that.

The film has so much energy that its overall tone is fundamentally invigorating; this is the cinema of euphoric nihilism, and it’s a welcome return to form for Moreau.

The sight loss the children are experiencing is irreversible, and it’s naturally difficult to find the positive angle on that, but their parents are determined to give it their best shot, and the film follows their lead.

It’s not for everyone, but for gorehounds this film delivers and then some.

It’s encouraging to see low-budget early-career film-making with ambition.

Matters would have been improved from the audience’s point of view, however, if said digging had happened a little sooner; the film takes its sweet time to get to where we sense it’s going, and then quickly runs out of steam when it does.

McAvoy is the most compelling reason to see this one. The original may be darker, but it didn’t have McAvoy.

It’s pretty evident that this is a fairly low-budget film, with that faint sense of hired costumes about the western gear. But it’s entertaining enough and keeps you guessing.

Damaged isn’t trying to be a meme, it’s playing things completely straight, and trying to be a serious police procedural in the vein of 90s thrillers such as Se7en or Primal Fear. That sincerity, and the apparent genuine commitment of top-tier performers like Jackson, is what makes this ripely absurd film at least half-worth watching.

If we’re nitpicking it’s fair to say that neither of the couple’s interior lives are as fully fleshed out as would be permitted in a novel, but maybe they don’t have to be: they function as avatars for romantic hopes and dreams as much as anything, delivering all the vicarious pleasure and pain that we’re looking for when we tuck into a good romance

Existing as a labour of love isn’t enough by itself to earn any film a pass mark, but when the result is a committed piece of indie genre work with a suitably silly sense of the macabre, this gets the job done.

It’s all manically enjoyable, especially for the core demographic (my seven-year-old niece said she would give the film four stars). For general viewers, it may not pack as much of an emotional punch, but like SpongeBob himself, it’s thoroughly absorbing.

From a horror fan’s point of view, this is an absolutely fascinating experiment with form.

Chalk it up to an insufficiently distinctive screenplay and underwhelming plot, but for Travolta, Cash Out feels more like a mercenary case of cashing in.

Kill’s objectives are achieved with an energy and enthusiasm that make it a tasty piece of action cinema which doesn’t pull its punches; it’s finger-cracking good.

The Nature of Love refreshingly centers the female adulterer’s experience, in a richly comic mode.

Audiences hoping for lashings of graphic violence may be disappointed that not all of these problems involve gallons of blood – this is a relatively gore-free thriller – instead, it’s all aboard and anchors aweigh for some larky tension between likable characters who find themselves plunged into a nightmare scenario.

These guys know how to hammer out a riff, with traditional chord progressions underpinning melodies that are easy to listen to but equally easy to forget afterwards.

It drags a little in places, despite the appealing animation style, which really comes into its own during the action sequences.

To a Land Unknown is a film crafted with tremendous empathy.

Veteran actor JK Simmons (Whiplash) is the main reason to watch this basic horror-thriller, which isn’t as horrific or thrilling as one might hope.

Despite quality performances from both leading lads, Land of Bad won’t exactly knock anyone’s socks off.

It’s as if the film doesn’t quite trust its original moments to stand alone, and instead feels the need to signpost everything.