This month, Stan and Screen Queensland celebrate the release of a milestone production – The Second. As the first feature film project developed for the streaming service, The Second is a shining example of not only an Australian film in its best, unfiltered form, but it’s also a cracking ride. A sexy psychological thriller featuring a selection of…
Read More
After the success of his first season and his recent stint in The Defenders late last year, Luke Cage (Mike Coulter) returns to protect the people of Harlem caught in the middle of an explosive gang war between the nefarious Mariah Dillard (Alfre Woodard) and the new kid on the block, Bushmaster (Mustafa Shakir). Luke…
Read More
Spoilers for the Ash vs Evil Dead finale to follow It was only a week ago when the news dropped that the beloved The Evil Dead (1981) followup series Ash vs Evil Dead would not be returning for a season 4 and this season 3 finale all of a sudden became the series finale. As heartbreaking as…
Read More
The Undead, Serbian vile, Nazi Lobsters and an ancient taskforce against the supernatural are all stories we hear about on a day to day basis, (are they not?) but when watching Netflix’s Santa Clarita Diet‘s second season, they make so much more sense than that entire paragraph I just wrote. Check out the trailer! We…
Read More
Ash vs Evil Dead has returned for its third season, proving that this classic franchise still has a lot left in it as long as Bruce Campbell’s Ash is blasting away Deadites. When this season opens, Ash, Kelly, and Pablo have been somewhat moving on with their lives since supposedly ridding the world of evil,…
Read More
In 1982 the film Blade Runner by Ridley Scott brought to audiences a new genre of movies – the neo-noir science fiction thriller that paved the way for many to follow its style. In 2017 the sequel Blade Runner 2049 by Denis Villeneuve was heralded a successful return to that, bringing a blend of a…
Read More
As it has done well over its past three seasons, Black Mirror has surprised me. However this year, the surprise hasn’t come in the form of a deadly plot twist halfway through the narrative’s third act, or a realisation that comes in the form of sad ending. No, this year it was the episode that I had,…
Read More
The Australian outback has provided the Wolf Creek universe with a terrifying, swallow-them-whole landscape across both film and TV for the past 12 years now. When director, producer and writer Greg McLean first unleashed his horror concept (and debut feature film) to the world back in 2005, word-of-mouth was swift and excitable, championing Australian horror…
Read More
I’m not quite sure what I just watched, and I find it hard to imagine a team of writers turning that script in and thinking that it would make for a satisfying, entertaining or even reasonable Mid-Season Finale. I love The Walking Dead, honestly, but “How It’s Gotta Be” was truly poor form for a…
Read More
Eugene is a broken man. With his loyalty and decisions a major focus of “Time for After”, the penultimate episode before the Mid-Season Finale, we get to explore this character in a much more meaningful way than before. There’s some real depth here as he visibly struggles against his own conscious and deals with the…
Read More
“The King, The Widow and Rick” is an episode title that suggests a clear and deep focus on all three leaders of the war against Negan and The Saviours. I mean, at least that’s the logical interpretation, right? Wrong. This sixth episode in The Walking Dead’s eight season took certain liberties to slow things down…
Read More
“The Big Scary U” was The Walking Dead’s finest outing so far into Season 8, revisiting the premier’s cliffhanger and further exploring The Sanctuary as Negan was presumed dead by his lieutenants. Time is again splintered so the episode can jump between various happenings as All Out War is slowly pieced together, which means some…
Read More
Building King Ezekiel’s regal facade has been given little screen time on The Walking Dead. The “king” with a knack for role-playing to build a sense of escapism and confidence for his “Kingdom” only took on a pivotal role deep into last season, and with the way the show is structured the writers have had…
Read More
“Monsters” is very much a direct continuation from last week’s “The Damned”, and on the surface that is very wise choice for The Walking Dead, treating these as installments in a wider thread rather than thematically distinctive “episodes”. This week, we were dropped right back into the all-out assault against The Saviours, coming from Team…
Read More
Complaints that The Walking Dead has tipped the scales away from action as of late are not unfounded. Previous seasons have been dragged down by a modest sprinkle of muscle that are few and far between, eschewing the more meaty and direct throws of conflict for cartoonish grandstanding and careful, often nauseating, build-up. Sure, build-up…
Read More
The Walking Dead hasn’t lost sight of its impressive history nor it’s central cast, and “Mercy”, the landmark 100th episode of the juggernaut survival-horror drama, is a well-rounded declaration of that. The start to what will hopefully be a return to form following a haphazard seventh season, it’s an episode imbued with the kind of…
Read More
Attention Planet Earth: The Wild Blue Yonder has arrived; The front line in the seemingly endless list of franchises that fate and television executives have seen fit to revive. Amazon Prime subscribers, you face … The Tick!
Read More
In a move to rival the sheer scale and CGI glory of “Hardhome”, Game of Thrones have just presented what is probably its most epic battle yet, even outranking the “Battle of the Bastards” in some ways by pitting Jamie, Bronn and the Lannister forces against Dany, Drogon, and the Dothraki army. Like all of…
Read More
In the 1980’s, Romanians would gather in record numbers in front of their TV sets to watch Comrade Detective. Fronted by Florin Piersic, Jr as hard-nosed police detective Gregor Anghel, the series promised to be an action-heavy event that would both entertain its citizens whilst promoting communist ideals. Sadly, after the collapse of the Berlin…
Read More
The transfer of power to those most capable of running an ever-changing world tends to only happen when traditions fly out of the window. That’s always been one of the primary messages of Game of Thrones, and watching it unfold with power moves and converging character arcs is where the show’s major strengths lie. A…
Read More
An episode sandwiched by a brutal storm, one literal and one figurative, “Stormborn” was a momentous series of events which has moved this narrative further then many would have expected. As I mentioned last week, the time for economical storytelling is upon us, and so every – well, most – sequences are going to count…
Read More
That was one hell of a way to open up Game of Thrones’ seventh season premiere, wasn’t it? Rarely does the show dabble in cold openers, but an enormously satisfying ribbon-cutter was certainly the perfect way to usher in what is now the final 13 episodes (split into two seasons) of what has truly become…
Read More
Steven Knight is the creator and writer of some amazing award winning shows, such as Peaky Blinders and even Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. His writing and directing for film has been praised, too, such as the acclaimed Locke with Tom Hardy and the recent Brad Pitt film Allied. And this praise looks set…
Read More
The worldwide phenomenon and modern cult-classic Stranger Things has finally teased its return, and OH MY GOD are we excited. Netflix has just released a mysterious teaser video on Twitter, as well as a brand new poster with the release date. The creature pictured is another look at what we saw in the teaser for…
Read More
Fear the Walking Dead’s double-episode finale took the necessary steps to reveal just how far Madison is willing to go protect her family, especially after Travis and everything else that they have gone through since the infection began. It’s a success in that respect, nicely paced while it worked towards one pivotal moment – and…
Read More
“Red Dirt” continues Fear the Walking Dead’s vast improvement over its previous seasons as Broke Jaw Ranch is thrown into a panic in response to news that the show’s latest villain, Walker, is coming to claim the land by force. That’s some great material for the show to start exploring, leaving the walking dead out…
Read More
Coming off one of their strongest episodes, the self-contained “100” with the focus solely on a returning Daniel (Rubén Blades), Fear the Walking Dead pull us back into life at the supposedly safe Broke Jaw Ranch where Madison is holed up with Nick and Alicia, trying to prove their value to the suspicious community. “Burning…
Read More
In our first impressions piece of American Gods we examined why this show even in its first episode had the makings of being one of the hot new television series for 2017. Adapted from the Neil Gaiman book of the same name, helmed by showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green and starring a ridiculously talented…
Read More
It has been an extremely busy few weeks for The Iris, with the video game world stuck in the lunacy of E3, Supanova in Sydney and the Sydney Film Festival, we have finally calmed down a little and sunk back into some great couch time with some excellent TV and it gave me some time…
Read More
“100” just may be the best episode Fear the Walking Dead has done to date. Daniel Salazar (Rubén Blades) was always one of the more interesting characters – that isn’t saying much though – in the show, up until the point where the writers made the terrible decision to randomly send him into “crazy” mode…
Read More
