Marianne Gordon

The Menu (2022) Warning, spoilers! I recently watched the Menu, directed by Mark Mylod. I have never written a review for a film before, so bear with me if I haven’t used quite the right format for this sort of thing.  We've all read stories about fine dining experiences that go a bit too far. Three course meals, each consisting of one mouthful of food, leaving guests starving and short a hundred quid. The Michelin-starred restaurant that serves citrus foam which guests have to lick from a plaster mould of the chef's mouth. The Menu takes this feeling of ridiculousness and elevates it, mocking not just the chefs who would offer such food, but also guests who take it seriously.  I went into the film knowing there was a twist and fully expecting that the twist would be that they were all cannibals eating either previous guests or the staff. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say I was half right; the phrase 'eat the rich' feels appropriate.  The

  Silver Nitrate, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Warning, spoilers! I really found a gem in this book. Silver Nitrate is a clever, slow-burning horror, which combines old-school cinematography with Nazi occultism in such an effortless match that I’m surprised I haven’t seen it before. You can feel the love of old feature films and ‘90s era technology bleeding from the page, twisted through with hauntings and failed rituals to create a really unique read. The pace was much slower than I was expecting; there’s a steady and considered build-up with nothing particularly supernatural happening until well into the second half. The first part is foundation-laying, and while it could have run the risk of being boring, it kept the balance perfectly between information-gathering, character building and plot momentum. The background film theory, the lore, the film technology of the ‘90s, could have felt like too much exposition, but on the contrary it was one of the highlights of the book for me,