THE DEAD DON’T DIE takes the tropes, idioms, and beloved foibles of low-budget zombie flicks and, with a skillful flick of its auteur’s cinematic wrist, recontextualizes them into a stylized gloss on the new normal of 2019. Certainly the “Make America White Again” ball cap sported by the most reviled citizen (Steve Buscemi) of sleepy… Read More »
BRIGHTBURN
What we have here is a dynamite premise fumbled in the execution. BRIGHTBURN gives us a strange visitor from another planet crashing to Earth as a baby and taken in by a good-hearted, infertile farm couple (Elizabeth Banks, David Denman) in the midst of baby fever. As with that other story of an infant from… Read More »
THE NUN
The decline and fall of franchises is a phenomenon that is all too common, and yet still heartbreaking in its own way. For every James Bond or Star Wars, there are countless other series that started strong, usually with a film that was a one-off, the success of which led to studio bean-counters to push… Read More »
HEREDITY
The only thing wrong with HEREDITY is that is bound to spawn increasingly inferior installments in a new franchise that is as inevitable as its protagonists’ descent into madness. That aside, this deeply disturbing horror film does not need the supernatural in order to worm its way into the darkest recesses of your psyche where… Read More »
A QUIET PLACE
Why lob blood and guts when a lamp being knocked over can make you jump out of your seat?
UNSANE
For me, the single most disconcerting image in a Steven Soderbergh film is from CONTAGION. It’s not a panorama of people dying from the pandemic that threatens to end civilization as we know it, instead it’s the silent, dispassionately clinical shot of Gwyneth Paltrow’s head being autopsied. There are people I know who reference the… Read More »
IT
The evil that lurks in the sewers beneath Derry, Maine, has nothing on the evil lurking in the homes of that community.
KILLING GROUND
The end of a relationship is always poignant. Be it an impulsive move made by one person that changes the dynamic forever, or a bullet to the head at close range, the finality is a moment is a time of reflection on the past, and a pondering of the future. The solidly made little horror… Read More »
THE VOID
THE VOID is a beautifully executed horror film that pays homage to the genre’s roots while carving out its own enigmatically creepy mythos. Playing on such familiar tropes as the deserted farmhouse, the dark basement, and an axe swung with abandon, it takes place over the course of one night in a soon-to-be abandoned hospital… Read More »
OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL
I was not a fan of the original OUIJA, which I found to be predictable in plot and pedestrian in execution. Its prequel, however, OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL, is (almost) the exact opposite. Set in 1967, it reveals what happened in that spooky craftsman cottage when Aunt Lina (Annalise Basso) was just a high-school sophomore… Read More »
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next Page »