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HeyJared

Phil Hoad

Reporter

Indexed articles, last 90 days
43
Latest publication
Sep 28, 2026
Outlet visibility, for Guardian UK
Top 1K sites
Earliest in this view
Jul 9, 2026

Latest articles

  1. Article · Sep 28, 2026 · Phil Hoad

    Just Play Dead review – Samuel L Jackson and Eva Green punch up switchback crime caper (opens the original)

    Excerpt · Critical tone · English

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    Jackson and Green just about manage to distract viewers from the sub-par Tarantinoesque flourishes, confusing plot points and tired stereotypes Having shot five films since 2020, 82-year-old Martin Campbell is a certified member of the post-retirement director’s club that includes Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen et al. Samuel L Jackson (a mere 77) sports his worst hairdo since Jackie Brown – a grey, crimped ponytail with an undercut – in this overworked crime caper, though he is

  2. Article · Sep 28, 2026 · Phil Hoad

    Just Play Dead review – Samuel L Jackson and Eva Green punch up switchback crime caper - AOL (opens the original)

    Excerpt · Critical tone · English

    Read excerpt

    Having shot five films since 2020, 82-year-old Martin Campbell is a certified member of the post-retirement director’s club that includes Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen et al. Samuel L Jackson (a mere 77) sports his worst hairdo since Jackie Brown – a grey, crimped ponytail with an undercut – in this overworked crime caper, though he is on positively cuddly form by his standards. Interrupting his retirement on a Spanish-speaking Caribbean island with the odd poisoning (seen in the in

  3. Article · Sep 22, 2026 · Phil Hoad

    Heresy review – feminist folk horror summons something scary in the woods with supply of fresh blood - AOL (opens the original)

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    Before fertility tourism, the only option for your average medieval serf struggling to conceive was heading to the nearest foreboding woods and summoning weird, antlered dryads. Or so it seems from Didier Konings’ short but memorable folk-horror debut, in which wide-eyed villager Frieda (Anneke Sluiters) flees into the trees after escaping an attempted rape by local butcher Gelo (Léon van Waas). He has already told her, after scoffing a pig foetus, that he likes his meat weak and defenceless. Th

  4. Article · Sep 16, 2026 · Phil Hoad

    Whisper of the Heart review – Studio Ghibli deep cut is pep talk on how to live the artistic life - AOL (opens the original)

    Excerpt · Positive tone · English

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    While 2013’s The Wind Rises and 2023’s The Boy and the Heron saw Hayao Miyazaki break his wizard’s staff, artistically speaking, this lesser-known Studio Ghibli cut from 1995, based on his screenplay, shows he was dwelling on creative responsibilities from early on. Featuring a typical Ghibli protagonist on the brink of adulthood – aspiring schoolkid writer Shizuku (voiced by Yōko Honna) – this teen romance doubles up as an earnest pep talk on how to commit to the artistic life. It’s not quite a

  5. Article · Sep 14, 2026 · Phil Hoad

    Goody Goody review – intriguing natural childbirth horror lurches into demonic occult blowout (opens the original)

    Excerpt · English

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    After Samantha Robinson decides a forest cabin in deep winter is the perfect spot to bear her child, it’s going to be a very bad shift for the doula and midwife Conception, pregnancy and childbirth are defining human experiences, and so remain perennial themes for horror, from Rosemary’s Baby to the Alien franchise to Prevenge. Occupying a no-woman’s-land between life and death, they’re innately anxiety-inducing, perhaps making it harder for film-makers to supply a truly individual take.

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