Best 3 new films: quick links
Best 3 new films
Ash – Prime Video (24 April)
Film (2025). One for the fans of alien-monster-horror-thriller-space-sci-fi films …
On the mysterious planet of Ash, an astronaut called Riya awakens to find her crew slaughtered and her memory mostly absent.
When a man named Brion arrives to rescue her, an ordeal of psychological and physical terror ensues while Riya and Brion must decide if they can trust one another to survive.
So far the critics (73%) seem to rate it far higher than cinema-going audiences (55%) on Rotten Tomatoes, so we’re not entirely sure we’re going to love it on the small screen, but the Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus gives us some hope:
‘Flying Lotus’ Ash delivers the phantasmagorical goods with vivid visuals and a throbbing soundscape, elevating a predictable sci-fi story into a memorably stylish head-trip.’
Directed by Flying Lotus. Starring Stars Eiza González, Aaron Paul and Iko Uwais. Watch the trailer.
Havoc – Netflix (25 April)
Film (2025). A conspiracy thriller with a bit of gun fu thrown in for good measure.
According to Netflix’s Tudum:
‘The high-octane film follows Walker (Tom Hardy), a bruised detective fighting his way through a criminal underworld that threatens to engulf his city. After a drug deal gone wrong, Walker finds himself with several factions on his tail, including a vengeful crime syndicate, a crooked politician, and his fellow cops.
‘While attempting to rescue the politician’s estranged son, whose involvement in the drug deal starts to unravel a deep web of corruption and conspiracy, Walker is forced to confront the demons of his past.
‘When a drug heist swerves lethally out of control, a jaded cop fights his way through a corrupt city’s criminal underworld to save a politician’s son.’
Bruised cop versus the world? Check! Drug deal gone wrong? Check! Confronting past demons? Check!
Directed by Gareth Evans. Starring Tom Hardy, Forest Whitaker, Timothy Olyphant and Jessie Mei Li. Watch the trailer.
Fréwaka – AMC+ & Shudder (25 April)
Film (2024). This Irish folk horror from Aislinn Clarke employs Irish and English and is billed as the first-ever Irish-language horror.
It follows home care worker Shoo, who is sent to a remote village to care for an agoraphobic woman who fears the neighbours as much as she fears the Na Sídhe – sinister entities who she believes abducted her decades before.
As the two develop a strangely deep connection, Shoo is consumed by the old woman’s paranoia, rituals, and superstitions, eventually confronting the horrors from her own past.
Generational trauma is also explored in the context of Ireland, as the director Aislinn Clarke explained in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last year:
‘It could well be the same in many other places, but my direct experiences in Ireland are of historical trauma, and there’s a lot of trauma in Ireland. So, there’s a lot to work with. It’s ever-present, and it’s very hard to shake off. So you can talk about intergenerational trauma and how it can be passed down through generations.
‘There was even a study a couple of years ago about how the potato famine had a physiological effect on the generations that followed because their forebears had lived through starvation. So, there is the physical inheritance of trauma, but there is also what’s given to you, what’s passed down from your parents and grandparents, also in stories and myths. So I think it’s hard to escape it. It’s ever-present, and it kind of tinges everything.’
Directed by Aislinn Clarke. Starring Clare Monnelly, Bríd Ní Neachtain and Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya. Watch the trailer.
