Luke Buckmaster

Saccharine is yet another boldly directed and intoxicatingly creepy production from James; it is stuffed with weirdly unsettling depictions of food, beginning with extreme closeups of a person gorging on jam doughnuts, the footage unfolding in reverse.

There are times when the writing and staging lay it on a little thick, though Beast never becomes too heavy-handed or on-the-nose, marking a significant step up for Atkins after his cheesy, Byron Bay-set 2022 drama Bosch & Rockit.

This is a powerful, memorable film.

The whole affair feels slick but soulless, with no personality or – despite the lush settings – any real sense of place.

Things eventually escalate, the pressure valve of pent-up emotions building and releasing. But it’s a long and demanding ride to get there, full of solemn looks and thousand-yard stares.

Bring Her Back is lighter on thrills and spills for the midnight movie and heavy with thick, abject horror and despair, featuring an intensely disturbing performance from Sally Hawkins.

Tamahori builds a largely credible aura, supported by uniformly strong performances and Gin Loane’s classy cinematography. But The Convert is one of those films with occasional moments that make you go “huh?”

The Way, My Way is hardly riveting viewing – but its softly inquisitive, life-affirming spirit is hard to hate.

You’ll Never Find Me builds a profoundly creepy and spiralling momentum before everything comes together in a shockingly brilliant final act with twists that nobody will see coming – or be able to forget.

This film drips with pot boiler-ish twists and turns, and is saturated with genre machinations – engaged, like many mystery scripts, in surprising and one-upping the viewer. But developments in the last act especially – and there are no spoilers here – contain some tough pills to swallow.