Shelagh M. Rowan-Legg
London, England

Shelagh is a Toronto-born, London-based writer. She also a programmer for Toronto After Dark Film Festival, and is writing her PhD on contemporary Spanish fantastic film.

Sitges 2011: EMERGO Review
Certain tropes in film can be done to death, especially in genre film. Vampires, zombies, cannibalism after apocalypse, have all become so common that they are usually incredibly dull and/or highly unoriginal. This seems especially true of the found footage... More »
  

London 2011: DARK HORSE Review
Todd Solondz is either a pretty happy guy with a great imagination, or rather miserable and willing to share. Or it could be somewhere in between; either way, he has a knack for creating misanthropic characters who just can't seem... More »
  

Sitges 2011: ANOTHER EARTH Review
What if there was another planet exactly like earth? And I do mean exactly: same physicality, same countries, same history. And the same people. There is another you on another planet, doing the exact same things you are doing and... More »
  

Sitges 2011: VAMPIRE Review
Simon is not an ordinary young man. His seeming innocuous job, as a high-school biology teacher, is an odd a cover for his strange existence as a serial killer. And yet, that is not exactly what he is. The women... More »
  

Sitges 2011: EXTRATERRESTRIAL Review
Julio wakes up in a bed with a hangover and no idea where he is or how he got there. It is the apartment of Julia, whom he doesn't remember. She doesn't remember him either, nor does she recall the... More »
  

Sitges 2011: JANE EYRE Review
I doubt any other literary family has had their work adapted to screen as often as the Bronte sisters. Next to Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre remains a favourite of melodramatic literature of the late 19th century. The story... More »
  

Sitges 2011: MIENTRAS DUERMES Review
Jaume Balagueró is one of the giants of Spanish fantastic film of the past decade. With 3 solo features and two co-directed ones under his belt, any new film by him is going be watched with a great amount... More »
  

Sitges 2011: KILL ME PLEASE Review
Euthanasia is an increasingly relevant topic today, with more and more people advocating for assisted suicide for the terminally ill. So it is perhaps inevitable that a film would come along that explores a clinic that provides such as service.... More »
  

Sitges 2011: 4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH Review
Abel Ferrera is not a director known for overly sensitive work; at least, not sensitivity in the conventional sense. Which is why 4:44 Last Day on Earth is something of a surprise. Like  Ferrera's past work, it delves into the... More »
  

Sitges 2011: THE DIVIDE Review
[With Xavier Gens' The Divide now screening in Sitges we revisit our earlier review.] The apocalypse has never looked and sounded so beautiful. As Eva (Carmen German) looks out on the annihilation of New York, the films makes music with... More »
  

BLACKTHORN Review
Available in the US via VOD tomorrow, and due for theatrical release (also in the USA) on October 7, Blackthorn is part of the new wave of neo-westerns (such as Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man) that... More »
  

FRIGHTFEST 2011: THE DIVIDE Review
The apocalypse has never looked and sounded so beautiful. As Eva (Carmen German) looks out on the annihilation of New York, the films makes music with the bombs, and spends as much on time on this hideously remarkable view as... More »
  

FRIGHTFEST 2011: THE GLASS MAN Review
The most uncomfortable subject is not sex; it is money. Not in political discussions, but personal ones. We don't ask people how much money they make; we don't ask them about their personal finances. It is probably safe to assume... More »
  

CELL 211 Review
Opening in the UK this Friday, the mutiple-Goya-award-winning Spanish feature Cell 211 is not your typical prison riot film. It makes Cool-Hand Luke look like Driving Miss Daisy, and works not only as a gritty action film, but social realism as... More »
  

Fantasia 2011: RED STATE Review
[With the 15th edition of Fantasia in Montreal kicking off today, we have Shelagh Rowan-Legg's review of Kevin Smith cult-focused horrorshow, which happens to be the opening film, and making its Canadian bow after its roadshow tour earlier this year,... More »
  

The Quest for the Undubbed Film in Spain
I'm going to make an educated guess that most of Twitch's readership prefers to read subtitles rather than watched dubbed films. I know I do. It might take your eyes off the main action on screen for a few seconds,... More »
  

ATTACK THE BLOCK Review
Joe Cornish's feature film debut, Attack the Block, is a both a throwback to young teen adventure films of the 1980s, and an update of them, in thrill, chills, and language. Set in a run-down council estate in South London,... More »
  

THOR Review
I didn't know it until I saw it, but I have been waiting for a summer movie like Thor for a long time. It is fun, far more fun than any comic adaptation I have seen in years. Admittedly, I... More »
  

BARCELONA: PREPARE TO BE EATEN ALIVE!
Spanish director Nacho Cerdà and his Phenomena: The Ultimate Cinematic Experience has been bringing back the double-feature tradition to Barcelona with a monthly screening of classic and diverse films from the 1970s and 1980s, such as Total Recall, Aliens, Rambo, and Scarface.... More »
  

HATCHET II Slashing Across The UK
There's no school like the old school. This is true of filmic superheroes and serial killers. Director Adam Green's splatterfest throwback to classic horror, Hatchet II, will be released by Arrow Films in select theatres in the UK this Friday,... More »
  
 
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