Last Night in Soho (2021)

The life of 60s performer Sandie - think nightclubs, cocktails, Cilla Black-types, Dusty Springfield-lookalikes, and lots of leering, lecherous men - and that of fashion student Eloise in the present day - think peer pressure at college, bar-hopping, part-time beer-pulling and rental applications - supernaturally collide with the help of reflective surfaces, an impressive series of effects that is this psychological horror's pièce de résistance, but if there is anything to learn from Eloise's bunny hop into so elaborate a Swingin' 60s fandango, it seems just to be the idea that no matter how much women are used and abused over decades by lecherous men, in the end they'll always trump men with their own villainry.

★★★☆☆

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Old (2021)

No, director M. Night Shyamalan doesn't have an excuse for yet another lame ending because although this time his movie, a beach-based Picnic At Hanging Rock (a group of people lug picnic baskets to a beach only to discover they are trapped and inexplicably ageing there) is based on Sandcastle, a graphic novel by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, Shyamalan actually changes the ending of the kooky Lost-like events, so the lame ending is his again, but up to that late point when the story turns rusty, he delivers a captivating fantasy horror thriller full of great acting, weird and wonderful ideas, a beautiful confined location like the stage of a theatre production, and of course his trademark cameo and camerawork, sweeping and overhead and long-take.

★★★☆☆

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