Consecration review – creepy nuns deliver the classic moves of holy terror very effectively
Grace arrives to identify the body of her brother (Steffan Cennydd), seemingly involved in a murder-suicide, has reasons of her own for being less than a fully paid-up God squad member, and while the reasons may not be much of a surprise if you've seen a few of these kinds of films, this is a very nicely put together example. Sure, it's purest hokum, but real pride has gone into crafting it..
Cocooning the treats of the storytelling in natural splendour, Consecration boasts some gorgeous location work; filmed on Skye and other scenic areas, there are rolling highlands, vertiginous cliff-tops, a tumbledown abbey on the crest of a hill – which you just have to accept as the site of the Knights of the Morning Star, an ancient dark force in the church. The world of the film feels real, a splendid argument for less green screen, more green fields – kudos to veteran British horror helmer Christopher Smith (Severance).
Consecration is on digital platforms from 16 June.
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Daily Mail
18 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Heartstopper's Joe Locke and trans star Dylan Mulvaney put on a VERY cosy display at Sabrina Carpenter concert as actor wears 'Straight 4 for pay' cap after 'hard launching' their relationship with 'couple's post'
Joe Locke and Dylan Mulvaney put on a very cosy display as they attended Sabrina Carpenter's concert together at BST Hyde Park in London on Saturday evening. The Heartstopper star, 21, wore a 'straight 4 pay $' cap as he danced the night away with the trans influencer, 28, just days after 'hard launching' their relationship with a 'couples snap' on social media. Joe, who told Teen Vogue in 2023 that he had been 'openly-gay since the age of 12', was spotted throwing his arms around TikTok star and together shared a drink while chatting intently. The Marvel actor cut a low key figure for the gig in a white t-shirt and jeans which he layered with a black sweater. Meanwhile Dylan put on a very leggy display in a skimpy blue floral mini dress which she wore with matching hair clips and white heels. While the pair seemingly confirmed a romantic relationship in their recent post, many fans were convinced they were just larking around and are only pals. She captioned the post: 'First couples shoot thank you for having us at camp koko,' before Joe commented: 'Hard launch'. Fans went wild by the pair's apparent coupling: 'Wait…. Is this a hard launch?!?': 'Omg omg omg': 'loooove this angel!': 'I can't even with all the hateful comments on here. Ignore them! Love is love': 'Why is everyone taking this seriously. come on y'all use your brain': 'Hot Couple': 'OH MY GOD????!!!'. MailOnline have contacted Joe and Dylan's reps for comment. Joe, who plays gay student Charlie Spring in Netflix's Heartstopper, spoke about sexuality for the first time to Teen Vogue: 'People have assumed [I am gay] and written it, and I haven't ever corrected anyone because I haven't felt the need to. But I've never specifically stated my sexuality'. He told the publication that he knew he was gay from around the age of nine before adding: 'I have been openly gay since I was, like, 12'. 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25 minutes ago
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The best man versus food-style challenges in UK restaurants from world's hottest curry to 96oz steak
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The Guardian
26 minutes ago
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‘I'm scared and my work reflects that': the artist painting heavy questions onto the lightness of silk
It might seem shocking, at first, for an artist to use her own children as models in a work based on Medea, a mother from Greek myth who kills her sons. 'They noticed the likeness in my work,' says Emma Talbot. 'And I had to say, 'Yes, it's you.'' Talbot, whose first large-scale UK show has just opened at Compton Verney in Warwickshire, adds: 'But when I think of 'sons', they're the sons that come to mind. It was inevitable the images would be of them.' There's another reason. The installation in which they appear – The Tragedies – is a tent-like, silk structure painted with intricate, swirling images interspersed with short texts: 'Why should there be war?'; 'Why fill the future with grief and regret?'; 'What does war resolve?' These are the questions Talbot believes we should all be asking ourselves, at a time when the UK has been mooting the possibility of conscription. 'It is a tragedy,' she says. 'When they said that, I immediately thought of my sons, both in their mid 20s. It feels personal. These are my sons they'd be sending off to war.' This is the point Talbot wants to make with her Medea piece. 'Her crime was totally unthinkable – and yet is what Medea did worse than us sending our children off to die in war? I can't see that any kind of war resolves anything.' Talbot, a descendant of Jews who fled 1930s Germany, adds: 'People say, 'What would you have done in the time of Hitler, or over Ukraine?' And I say, 'If we had a system that didn't legitimate aggression, everything would be different.' We can't even imagine how that world would be.' War isn't the only issue this show of fairly recent work tackles: Talbot uses paintings, sculpture and animation to examine other concerns, from our relationship with nature, to how grief affects our lives. Her paintings, all on silk, are colourful, closely packed with flowing imagery. They include a series called Magical Thinking, which explores the ways humans use imagination to make sense of the world. Sculptures include Gathering, which uses fabric, beads and wood to look at the symbolic properties of various animals. Her animation All That Is Buried shows a drawn figure navigating a soulless urban landscape in search of truth. At the root of her work are questions about power. Who has it? What do they do with it? How might they use it differently? The Tragedies has long arms reaching out: they're warning figures, says Talbot, like the chorus of a Greek tragedy. 'They're calling on us to notice what's happening – because humans have the capacity to explore complex ideas. That gives me hope: there is scope to find another way.' All the same, she finds the news now unsettling. 'I'm scared and my work reflects that.' Talbot was born in the Midlands in 1969: her mum was a nurse, her father, seriously injured in a car accident, was her patient. The marriage didn't last long: Talbot's dad moved to Japan, where he still lives, to raise another family. Her mum remarried, but it didn't make for a happy childhood. 'She came from this intellectual German family and my stepfather worked in factories in the East End. It was complicated.' Talbot and her elder brother, three and five when their parents divorced, found their escape in drawing and acting. 'The world was much more parent-centric then. Children had to carve out their own space.' She did an arts course in Canterbury, then studied fine art at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design and did an MA in painting at the Royal College of Art. In the mid-1990s, while teaching art at Northumbria University, she met the sculptor Paul Mason, who she married. Their two sons, Zachary and Daniel, were seven and six when he died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2006. It was an unthinkable turn – but for Talbot, it brought a new direction. 'Paul was the person I shared my stories with,' she says. 'Then he wasn't there any more. And that's what life's about, isn't it? Sharing our stories. Suddenly there was this big void and I started to fill it with drawings – to get out the things I would have said to him.' But still, she had overwhelming doubts. 'I'd pay the babysitter and go to the studio and think, 'I can't do this any more. Maybe I'm not an artist after all.' But slowly, I realised I had this incredible freedom again – just as I did when I was a kid.' Her art – previously paintings created using found photographs – changed. 'I started to paint on silk. I like the contrast between the lightness of the silk and the weight of the stories. I like that silk is so light, so fluid.' Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion Another work at Compton Verney is The Human Experience, two 11-metre long swathes of silk, wrapped around the gallery, taking the visitor on a journey through life, from conception to death. 'It's about how you move through a world that's dangerous and uncertain. Because life experience comes from walking through volatility and uncertainty.' In the midst of her grief, and while coping with life as a single parent, she realised she had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by burrowing deeply into herself and making work that had little need of outside validation. 'I realised I was finding a core version of myself. I could show myself honestly. I wasn't concerned with what anyone would think. I thought, 'This is about doing the work that matters.' For me, art and life are indivisible.' Following a residency in Italy, after she won the 2019 Max Mara prize, Talbot now divides her time between Reggio Emilia, in the country's north, and the UK. Recognition on the continent has come easier than acknowledgment in Britain: she's shown widely across Europe, with solo exhibitions ongoing in Copenhagen, Athens and Utrecht. Compton Verney ushers in a new chapter – but you get the sense it won't change how she works. 'Art is the glue between everything,' she says. 'It's there to help us make sense of the world. And making art is what I'll carry on doing.' Emma Talbot: How We Learn to Love is at Compton Verney, Warwickshire, until 5 October
