Cordelia review – Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Johnny Flynn star in an off-kilter tale of trauma

★★★ CORDELIA Antonia Campbell-Hughes & Johnny Flynn in an off-kilter trauma tale

Psychological drama about a traumatised woman and her weird neighbourhood

There's something deeply uncanny about Adrian Shergold's Cordelia. When the film's poster was released on social media, many mistook it for a kinky period drama with the power dynamics reversed. It definitely isn't a costume drama, but there's some kink.

Blu-ray: Eraserhead

★★★★ BLU-RAY: ERASERHEAD David Lynch's first feature film is a surrealist nightmare

David Lynch's first feature film is a surrealist nightmare

Shot across a period of five years, David Lynch’s creepy debut feature Eraserhead (1977) follows the story of Henry Spencer, played by Jack Nance, an employee at a print factory in a quiet, unnamed town. Henry arrives home one evening to a missed telephone call from a woman named Mary (Charlotte Stewart), inviting him to dinner at her parents’ house. Once he arrives, Mary’s mother breaks the news that her daughter has given birth to a baby, and Henry is the father.

Saint Maud review - creepy and strangely topical psychological horror

★★★★ SAINT MAUD Creepy and strangely topical psychological horror

Morfydd Clark is the troubled nurse with dangerously novel ideas about palliative care

It only takes a few seconds of Saint Maud – dripping blood, a dead body contorted on a gurney, a young woman’s deranged face staring at an insect on the ceiling, an industrial clamour more likely to score the gates of hell than the pearly ones – to make us realise that the film’s title is a tad ironic. 

The Best Films Out Now

THE BEST FILMS OUT NOW theartsdesk recommends the top movies of the moment

theartsdesk recommends the top movies of the moment

There are films to meet every taste in theartsdesk's guide to the best movies currently on release. In our considered opinion, any of the titles below is well worth your attention.

Enola Holmes ★★★★ Millie Bobby Brown gives the patriarchy what-for in a new Sherlock-related franchise

John Lanchester: Reality, and Other Stories review - campfire spooks for the digital age

★★★★ JOHN LANCHESTER: REALITY, AND OTHER STORIES Campfire spooks for the digital age

The hazy line between “reality” and whatever else is out there

What do you do when your phone rings, but you know the person ringing isn’t alive? In many ways, the cleverly named Reality, and Other Stories is a collection of ghost tales. But they are updated for the present day. John Lanchester meets his reader at the point at which the spectral intersects with the digital, all the while dissecting the seemingly simple notion of reality and its contents.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things review - only disconnect

★★★★ I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS Charlie Kaufman's eerie road trip through love and loss

Charlie Kaufman's eerie road trip through love and loss

I’m Thinking of Ending Things ends in a giddying gusher of weirdness, the steady drip of earlier oddness finally bursting its narrative banks, till a horror scene becomes a Gene Kelly ballet, and an Oklahoma! tune is sung in bitter valediction by a male lead now resembling elderly Charles Foster Kane. It’s a Charlie Kaufman overdose, trashing convention to alienating effect.

New Mutants review - superheroes and the supernatural collide

★★ NEW MUTANTS Superheroes and the supernatural collide in delayed X-Men spin-off

The much delayed X-Men spin-off from Josh Boone finally hits cinemas with lacklustre results

It hasn’t been an easy ride for Josh Boone’s New Mutants. Delayed production, reshoots, the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney, Covid-19, and accusations of whitewashing, have all contributed to it being dubbed a ‘cursed’ film.

Lovecraft Country, Sky Atlantic review - Misha Green, Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams take us on horror-driven road trip

★★★★★ LOVECRAFT COUNTRY, SKY ATLANTIC A horror-driven road trip

A timely, pulpy delight full of supernatural and all too real terrors

The timing couldn’t be more perfect for a series like Lovecraft Country (Sky Atlantic) in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.