Steven Scaife

Select another critic »
Slant Magazine
For 101 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 24% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 74% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 9.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Steven Scaife's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 57
Highest review score: 88 Identifying Features
Lowest review score: 25 We Summon the Darkness
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 50 out of 101
  2. Mixed: 31 out of 101
  3. Negative: 20 out of 101
101 movie reviews
view
per page
    • 77 Metascore
    • 63 Steven Scaife
    Dead Lover
    The can-do spirit of Dead Lover, as evidenced by the way it couples goofy sound effects with cuts and camera movements, takes it a long way.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 75 Steven Scaife
    Heel
    By keeping some of its cards close to its chest, Heel respects our intelligence, which helps it to earn its sneakily moving ending.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 50 Steven Scaife
    Dolly
    One senses that Rod Blackhurst knows that Dolly is undernourished, but his attempts to jazz it up by splitting it into transparently titled chapters only calls further attention to that dearth of imagination.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Steven Scaife
    Redux Redux
    Easy as it may be to imagine a more artful, restrained, and introspective version of Redux Redux, the one we got is satisfying enough that you may want to take it out for another spin.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 75 Steven Scaife
    Mother of Flies
    Despite the affinity the Adams clan has displayed for spooky, goopy imagery in the past, Mother of Flies finds them reluctant to fully exercise those talents for fear of tipping their hand.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Steven Scaife
    WTO/99
    WTO/99 sets out to correct misrepresentation by corporate media about the aims of the movement, but that attempt is hampered by the recycling of much of the same news footage from news broadcasts.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Steven Scaife
    100 Meters
    To get to the primal thrill of racing, Iwaisawa Kenji uses just about every technique at his disposal.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 50 Steven Scaife
    The Ugly
    The film plays a long game with audiences that frustrates far more than it illuminates.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Steven Scaife
    The Toxic Avenger
    Pulled awkwardly in so many directions, this Toxic Avenger all but comes apart at the seams.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Steven Scaife
    Fixed
    The balls-out shock value doesn’t detract from the fact that Fixed is more square than its makers probably think it is.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 75 Steven Scaife
    Boys Go to Jupiter
    Julian Glander powerfully channeling the ennui of his characters with images of everything from vacant parking lots to empty swimming pools.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 63 Steven Scaife
    Ash
    Flying Lotus and his collaborators give Ash enough visual flair to occasionally transcend such limitations as forgettable characters with fuzzy motivations.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 63 Steven Scaife
    In the Lost Lands
    The film provides Paul W.S. Anderson with a sturdy canvas for his unique brand of gaudy, campy cool.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 50 Steven Scaife
    The Rule of Jenny Pen
    The film single-mindedly sees its elderly characters as objects of disgust or receptacles for harm.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Steven Scaife
    Rounding
    A few scenes show glimmers of promise for what Alex Thompson can achieve when he’s more in his wheelhouse. It’s a shame that the horror and tension that make up the bulk of Rounding are so clearly outside of it.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Steven Scaife
    Armand
    By the time we’re watching whole conversations be drowned out by noise of pounding rain, the abstract tendencies of Armand begin to feel like an act of unintentional self-sabotage
    • 76 Metascore
    • 88 Steven Scaife
    The Colors Within
    The film is able to suggest great depths by withholding so much, by having characters express what they feel only in abstract terms during a fraught, transitional period of their lives.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 50 Steven Scaife
    Night Call
    Michiel Blanchart’s film often feels like a patchwork of half-developed ideas, each more loosely and tenuously woven into the whole than the last.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 75 Steven Scaife
    Flow
    Gints Zilbalodis’s animated feature is movingly attuned to its characters’ primal instincts.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 75 Steven Scaife
    Memoir of a Snail
    Adam Elliot, whose work is no stranger to despondency, never allows the film to fully succumb to despair.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 63 Steven Scaife
    Sleep
    Jason Yu’s film may not reach its full potential, but it offers a devious commentary on the all-too-human desire for easy explanations.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 38 Steven Scaife
    Apartment 7A
    Rather than deepening or complicating the original work, Apartment 7A engages with it purely on franchise terms, as in how it foregrounds the Castavets for much of the runtime.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 75 Steven Scaife
    His Three Daughters
    His Three Daughters sneaks up on you, for as chatty, monologue-forward as Jacobs’s screenplay may be, it conveys so much through absence and suggestion.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 63 Steven Scaife
    Only the River Flows
    The craft brought to bear on Only the River Flows is captivating, but when it comes to matters of story, it cultivates a frustrating air of disinterest.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 63 Steven Scaife
    Crumb Catcher
    Chris Skotchdopole’s feature debut is a tantalizing mix of the absurd and the mundane.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 63 Steven Scaife
    Oddity
    Thanks to its expert staging, the film doesn’t lose much in the way of immediacy.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 63 Steven Scaife
    Terrestrial Verses
    The sense of repetition that the film leans into in order to acknowledge the inescapable grip of the state is as much a feature as it is a bug.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 63 Steven Scaife
    Blood for Dust
    The film is held together by the intensity of its haunted-looking cast and the dour atmosphere.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 63 Steven Scaife
    Chicken for Linda!
    However pleasurable and pretty Chicken for Linda may be in its individual scenes, it doesn’t so much achieve harmony through its balancing of contrasting elements as it fully surrenders to childlike whimsy.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 75 Steven Scaife
    Blackout
    As in his prior work, the far-reaching curiosity and fascinatingly conflicted nature of Fessenden’s perspective is still his greatest strength.
prev
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »