Andrew Osmond– Author –

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) Drag Me to Hell is about director Sam Raimi’s long-awaited return to horror after spending the 2000s web-slinging. But let’s be honest. If Raimi really wanted to return to his true indie horror roots, th...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Shrek Forever After is the fourth, and apparently final, computer-animated film to feature the grumpy green ogre who’s been the unofficial mascot of the Dreamworks studio since the first Shrek nine years ago. The ori...

(Neo Magazine, Uncooked Media) Previously, we expressed amazement that Belladonna of Sadness, a 1970s erotic “art” animation, could get a British home release. Momotaro, Sacred Sailors is even further out there. It’s a black-and-white ki...

(SFX Magazine, Future Publishing) You’re reading SFX, which means you’re almost certainly not the target audience for Devil’s Due. This fright film is aimed at teenagers – particularly teenage girls - who haven’t seen many horror picture...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Philip K Dick died three months before the US release of Blade Runner, the film based on his 1968 science-fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. But what he had seen impressed him. He described the fo...

(Neo Magazine, Uncooked Media - I also wrote an article about the production of the film for the AllTheAnime blog and another article that's reproduced below the review.) Picture a world different from ours in intricate, tiny details, ye...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) After the accomplished Carriers at the end of last year – the one in which Star Trek’s Chris Pine was an utter bastard on a plague-emptied world – it’s heartening to see another earnest apocalypse that d...

(I interviewed Lilo and Stitch's directors, Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, for the Animation World Network website; I also interviewed Lilo's animator Andreas Deja. Additionally, I wrote a piece on the Japanese TV version of Lilo and St...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) The Story of Ferdinand was a picture book published in America in 1936, with a story by Munro Leaf and illustrations by Robert Lawson. Amusing and pleasing, it’s the story of a gentle bull, Ferdinand, who loves f...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) “John Carter of Earth? John Carter of Mars sounds much better.” So the titular hero of the planetary-romance screen blockbuster John Carter renounces his birthworld and homo sapiens peers, as Sam Worthin...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a completely different kind of “horror.” Directed by newcomer Jalmari Helander, it’s close – though perhaps not close enough, commercially speaking – to Joe Dante fare s...

(Neo, Uncooked Media - I also add further observations in an article on the AllTheAnime website.) Schoolgirl Hitomi is whisked to Gaea, where there be dragons, princesses, cat-girls and a war waged by an enemy fixated on fate. Protected ...

(Sight & Sound Magazine, BFI) New England, the present. In the town of Blithe Fell, eleven year-old Norman sees ghosts wherever he goes, while his family and schoolmates think he’s deranged. Norman is pestered by his eccentric uncle ...

(SFX Magazine, Future Publishing) A century ago, some of the first stop-motion cartoons were goofy caveman comedies by Willis O'Brien, who later animated King Kong. Now Britain's favourite stop-motion colossus, Nick Park, offers a plasti...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Disney’s new version of The Jungle Book remakes a 49 year-old cartoon – the 1967 Jungle Book – using post-Avatar technology. Directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man), the film was largely made in CGI, with the live-act...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Jack Frost is an ageless boy who delights in freezing the world at winter, but is frustrated that no ordinary people can see him. He’s bundled off to the North Pole to meet the Guardians, protectors of children: ...

My article on the multi-choice Black Mirror film "Bandersnatch", and its potential implications for anime, is on the AllTheAnime website. [amazon_link asins='B07MFFZ3X6' template='ProductGrid' store='anime04c-21' marketplace='UK' link_id...

Involving both Takahata and Miyazaki, The Little Norse Prince is a pivotal part of anime history. Carlos hasn’t seen it before, so it’s time to fix that. Japanese title "太陽の王子ホルスの大冒険" [amazon_link asins='B079P9H2HB' template=...

My favourite live-action films of 2018, not in any particular order. Shoplifters A Sicilian Ghost Story Avengers Infinity War Revenge The Post A Quiet Place The Darkest Hour Leave No Trace A Star is Born Black Panther My favourite anime ...

(SFX Magazine, Future Publishing) Look, just ignore our star rating for the moment, okay? Antichrist is the kind of film that many viewers will give zero stars, or minus five stars, and no doubt the enfant terrible director Lars von Trie...

(SFX Magazine, Future Publishing) If you saw the Frozen trailers and thought, “Meh, a Disney princess film,” then think again. Frozen is flawed but it’s Disney’s boldest cartoon in ages, sometimes more Stephen King than Snow White. Altho...

(SFX, Future Publishing) The granddaddy of silver-screen dystopias, Fritz Lang’s silent epic Metropolis returns to cinemas in a new version restoring twenty-five minutes lost for most of a century. That Metropolis is a colossus of cinema...

(SFX, Future Publishing) In space, no-one should be able to hear other people eating popcorn, or slurping soda, or locking lips with one another. For all these reasons, watching Gravity at home has advantages, removing the multiplex audi...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) Rise of the Planet of the Apes reflects the human/sentient ape condition by being both ingenious and dumb, sometimes at the same time. Directed by Britain’s Rupert Wyatt, it’s a second-try reboot, follow...