Anyone up for a little Violence to kick off FrightFest Saturday? Connor Marsden‘s punk-noir (Canada/ 2025/ 84 mins) debut certainly lives up to its name. A distillation of the restless Canadian’s influences – ’80s hardcore punk, Escape from New York, The Warriors, the DIY aesthetic of Deadbeat at Dawn – it’s a super grimy but ultra sincere shot in the arm. A dystopian vision so plasusible that you’ll need tested for hepatitis after it. The film follows former dealer Henry Violence (Rohan Campbell), who’s now straight-edge and has returned to save his ex, Charlotte Cola (Sarah Grey) from the very person for whom he used to deal, kingpin Jimmy Jazz (Joris Jarsky). He’s not the only one looking to take down Jazz. Militant straight-edge siblings Charlie Rocket (Maddie Hasson) and Bats (Tomaso Sanelli) are on the warpath and to them it appears like Henry is in the way.

Set over the course of one brutal evening, Violence is a short sharp shock of a film. Its characters are as murky as its production design, and there’s a tough fatalism at its core that’s only hauled back from outright nihilism by a streak of doomed romanticism – like Keats if he was clad in a leather jacket emblazoned with the word ‘fuck’ and listened to Minor Threat and Bad Brains. The plot is pure pulp, but the characters are so vivid and played with a clenched-jaw commitment that suits the hard-bitten dialogue to a tee. Jasmin Kar as Jimmy’s splendidly named enforcer Dead Ramone is a particular standout. This has future cult classic all over it because it’s played entirely without irony, and made with obvious care and talent by somone who loves the genre. It’s postmodern in the sense of its magpie eye for the tropes of countless other genre classics, but it’s out to entertain and impress on its own terms. The best punk genre movie since Green Room. 4/5

Bringing back old-school J-Horror in an efficient, albeit not exactly revelatory way is The Convenience Store (Jirô Nagae/ Japan/ 2026/ 99 mins). Based on a video game of the same name, it arrives at FrightFest as the number one film in Japan. Apparently they’re equally as thirsty for the glory days of Ringu. This however, is not up to those standards. The film follows firstly a college girl working nightshift at the store of the title who begins to suffer ghostly goings-on, and then a detective who’s taken up the case after she uncovers a gruesome discovery.

There isn’t really an original thought here. There’s cursed technology as in Ringu, and there’s a preponderance of those familiar tropes we couldn’t get enough at the turn of the Millennium, right down to a little boy under a table sting that should send Takashi Shimizu sprinting to his lawyers. It’s not merely derivative, but it is so twice over, as the plot virtually repeats once the detective takes over the reins. Even the slightly more innovative promise of the action taking place in the first person, as in the game, gets jettisoned very quickly. It’s fine in the moment, but unlike the spirits haunting the snack isles, doesn’t linger long after the event. 2/5

I called a slightly early halt to the weekend with Craig Conway‘s debut Red Riding (UK/ 2026/ 86 mins). Its title evokes the fairy tale, but it uses its lupine connotations as metaphor for a twisted family dynamic that goes to places as dark as any forest. Another famous title, My Family and Other Animals, would be just as apt. Unfortunately, this rather shaggy affair gets bogged down in its analysis on class and slightly stumbles to a variation on the now-standard ‘eat the rich’ conclusion.

Very much not at fault is a ferocious Victoria Tait in the title role as Redele Riding, who relocates from a delapidated London housing estate to the Highlands to live with her hitherto-unknown grandmother (Lynsey Beauchamp) following the death of her junkie mother. There’s something of Katie Jarvis‘ elemental performance in Fish Tank in Tait’s turn. There’s the sense of her own wildness that’s entirely separate to that of anything lurking amid the gorse and heather. She absolutely anchors the film whenever it gets a little wayward, particularly in some systematic plotting that requires certain characters to act with an unfeasible lack of self-preservation to move the narrative onwards. However, while its flaw are readily apparent during the screening, there are certain aspects, not least some striking imagery, that do achieve some resonance; far more so than The Convenience Store. Craig Conway certainly knows the genre, so a tighter script and a greater sense of his own individual voice could lead to something special. 3/5

All films screened at FrightFest, part of Glasgow Film Festival