MARIA DUARTE, FIONA O’CONNOR and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Savage House, Enzo, Madfabulous, and Erupcja
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Shaping up to greatness
Guillermo del Toro's surreal love story marks him out as a film-maker on the road to outstanding achievement, says MARIA DUARTE
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
The Shape of Water (15)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
LITTLE could Guillermo del Toro's six-year-old self have imagined that his discovery of the Creature from the Black Lagoon and subsequent love of monsters would one day result in an Oscar-nominated cinematic wonder.
Creepy yet delightfully charming and touching, The Shape of Water is a spellbinding and visually arresting adult fairytale set in the US in 1962 against the backdrop of the cold war and it's on a par with his great works such as Pan's Labyrinth, Cronos and The Devil's Backbone.
Del Toro, who co-wrote and directed, combines the classic monster horror genre with film noir and encases it in a powerful love story with a musical number reminiscent of The Singing Detective thrown in.
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