The Last Exit (2023 | United Kingdom | 93 minutes | Matthias Hoene)

Cross-pollination and radical tonal shifts have essentially become their own clichés in modern genre cinema. It’s therefore almost a mandate that The Last Exit starts out as a taut crime thriller before shifting gears into a very different—and creepy—direction. But damned if it doesn’t work famously. Neil Linpow’s script sketches its characters with empathy, and director Matthias Hoene (Cockneys vs. Zombies, SIFF 2013) possesses a sure touch with pacing and suspense. Joely Richardson delivers the kind of full-throttle performance from which cinematic cults (and dare it be said, franchises?) are born.

The Last Exit does not have any more in-person screenings at SIFF, but will be available to stream between Monday, May 22 and Sunday, May 28 on SIFF.tv.

Douglas Sirk—Hope as in Despair (2022 | Switzerland | 76 minutes | Roman Hüben)

Douglas Sirk’s lavish Technicolor weepies wrapped hard truths in glossy Hollywood packages—a duality that’s resonated well into this millennium. Sirk’s life boasted several harrowing turns, so even a by-the-numbers filmic presentation would’ve likely sufficed here. Happily, filmmaker Roman Hüben takes a more impressionistic approach, painting a personal and emotionally fulfilling examination of how Sirk used loss, persecution, and pain as clay to mold some of the most visually succulent movies of the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Douglas Sirk—Hope as in Despair does not have any more in-person screenings at SIFF, but will be available to stream between Monday, May 22 and Sunday, May 28 on SIFF.tv.

Satan Wants You (2023 | Canada | 90 minutes | Sean Horlor, Steve J.Adams)

There’s not much more I can add to Chris’s thoughtful capsule review of Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams’ documentary covering the case that ignited the Satanic panic powder keg back in the ‘80s, except to say:

1. Horlor and Adams demonstrate a concise and fast-paced style that betrays the influence of the great documentarian Alex Gibney, in the best way. They particularly excel at visually conveying the blind, unchecked fear that motivated seemingly rational, upstanding pillars of society to turn into slathering, paranoid animals. 
2. Substitute ‘trans person’ for ‘Satanist’ here, and you have a documentary that’s timely as all get out; and yet more evidence that people never frickin’ learn from history. Never. 

Satan Wants You does not have any more in-person screenings at SIFF, but will be available to stream between Monday, May 22 and Sunday, May 28 on SIFF.tv.