DARK SKIES (2013)

With architect dad (Josh Hamilton) having recently been made redundant, and estate agent mum (Keri Russell) seemingly unable to seal any house sales, financial pressures are starting to take their toll on the suburban Barrett household. Relations with their 13 year old son are becoming increasingly strained and their younger son Sam is beginning to worry that dad may be about to move out after hearing his parents arguing at night...

And so far we’re just in an ordinary domestic drama played out against a manicured lawn street in average middle-America. Then things start to turn spooky. The contents of the fridge are strewn across the kitchen floor. Domestic items appear stacked in an intricate formation. All the family photographs on the mantel-piece are suddenly missing from their picture frames. The recently reactivated security alarm system goes off in the middle of the night and it appears the sensors were tripped at all 8 potential entry points into the house. Oh yes, and 3 separate flocks of starlings crash into the house simultaneously.  

The Scala Cinema - A love letter

My first visit to the Scala cinema in Kings Cross was in 1991. I’m not entirely sure quite how this sleazily salacious and gloriously gory fleapit had escaped my radar for quite so long. But somehow it had - and it may have done so for longer still had it not been for an unrated screening of ‘The Borrower’ (John McNaughton’s follow-up to his ferociously stunning debut Henry: Portrait of a serial killer.) I’m pretty sure it was the “unrated” prefix which drew me like a moth to the flame; the allure of an uncensored non-MPAA/BBFC butchered piece of celluloid. If memory serves me well The Borrower wasn’t all that great – but it introduced me to the Scala – and for that alone its importance in my cinematic voyages cannot be underestimated.