Friday night films

Blood On My Hands opens with Mads Mikkelsen, a frequent collaborator with Refn before they became acclaimed Hollywood names, just released from prison and set on getting his life back on track. Mikkelsen’s portrayal of Tonny – a low-life criminal searching for his humanity in a desolate world – is gripping. While Refn’s most recognized work is overtly stylized, Pusher II is bound with a raw, pulsating energy that feels uncomfortably authentic and brutally honest. A must-watch.

Chaos reigns freely after a group of guerilla soldiers, made up entirely of teenagers, are left to their own devices against the backdrop of war-torn anarchy on a faraway mountaintop. Mica Levi provides the perfect score for this hypnotic tour-de-force that demands your attention.

Small-time criminals who are violent yet philosophical, disillusioned youths, a tired construction and real estate industry are all vividly brought to life through Liu Jian’s stylish and minimalist animation. Both a searing social commentary on the greed and corruption that permeates capitalist China and a witty dark comedy with noirish sensibilities.

A very familiar ancient tale told with vivid sensory intensity and a brooding mood that never lets up. Macbeth revels in the nihilism of its medieval-set tragedy and gothic overtones. Cinematography that conjures an apocalyptic visual landscape – blood-red skies, vistas of gloom and darkness, dread-filled hypnotic compositions – that all aide the film’s nightmarish tone of doom and despair.

Scorsese turned to Nicholas Cage to play his lead protagonist Frank Pierce, an exhausted nightshift paramedic on the verge of breakdown. Set in an early ‘90s version of New York which appears to be on the verge of societal collapse, he is haunted at every turn by a young woman he was unable to save, and further tormented by a long draught of being able to save anybody at all, a feeling he describes as “the best drug in the world”.

A throwback to the sleazy slashers that were so prominent in eighties exploitation cinema, and reminiscent of William Friedkin’s Cruising, Knife + Heart is a sensory feast, shot on rich 35mm with a gorgeous colour palette and an electric, pulsating score by M83.

Criticized for being exploitative and misogynistic, Showgirls fits right into the Verhoeven canon alongside some of his most celebrated Hollywood work like Starship Troopers and Robocop

Rob Zombie’s Halloween remakes have proven to be divisive for deviating so drastically from John Carpenter’s brooding slasher classic. Every inch of Zombie’s films ooze with grit and grain. They’re bloody, brutal affairs that don’t leave much to the imagination with a trailer park aesthetic that is an acquired taste.