film
by Keiron Self
HORNS ****
THE MAZE RUNNER ***
Dir: Alexandre Aja (15, 123 mins)
Daniel Radcliffe continues his journey away from wizardry with another strong
leftfield choice. Joe Hill’s novel was a cult success a few years back, he has horror
forbears as his father is Stephen King, and this adaptation will hopefully capture
its spirit if not all its excesses. Radcliffe plays Ig Perrish, a man suspected but not
prosecuted for his girlfriend’s murder. Ostracised from society, he finds himself
growing horns. Now the people who shouted abuse at him tell him their darkest
secrets instead. Believing his new-found powers can help him find who really
killed his girlfriend, played by Juno Temple in flashback, Radcliffe soon discovers
things aren’t all they seemed, and the horror grows. An unlikely genre mash-up
that veers from comedy to heartbreak to out and out gory scares, Horns is a
winning combination of them all. Radcliffe acquits himself with relish, grabbing
the bull by the, ahem, horns, as his nastier side grows and David Morse shines as
his girlfriend’s grieving father. Director Aja veers away from the schlock that made
his name – The Hills Have Eyes remake and Piranha – to offer something more
thoughtful and idiosyncratic. It may veer about wildly but Radcliffe anchors the
proceedings ably in a diverting black comedy horror. Opens Oct 29
Dir: Wes Ball (12A, 113 mins)
Another Young Adult dystopian sci-fi thriller comes to the cinema, but this time
there’s no Katniss or Tris: there is instead a boy at the heart of this futuristic
Lord Of The Flies. Thomas, played by Dylan O'Brien, is dumped into a community
of boys with his memory erased. They are trapped in The Glade, at the heart of
a giant maze and there’s no apparent way out. James Dashner’s book, in the
hands of debut director and SFX whiz Wes Ball, is hoped to be a franchise starter.
Dashner wrote a trilogy, but its fate remains dependent on how audiences respond;
for every Hunger Games there’s a Beautiful Creatures. The initial premise
is simple, a rag-tag bunch of boys trying to escape from a maze guarded by
biomechanical horrors The Grievers who have a woman placed in their midst in the
shape of Brit actress and Skins veteran Kaya Scodelario. Also amongst the cast
are fellow Brits Thomas Brodie Sangster and Will Poulter, playing the quiet one and
the tough one respectively. The infighting amongst the group forms t H