RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION – Reviewed by David
Milla Jovovich still looks great and still kicks butt like nobody’s business as super-powered zombie slayer Alice in Retribution, the fifth flashy film to be based on the best-selling Resident Evil...
View ArticleTHE POSSESSION – Reviewed by David
With so many possession thrillers having been released in the last decade (The Last Exorcism, The Rite, The Devil Inside), you’d think any fresh angles in the sub-genre would be exhausted. The makers...
View ArticlePARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 – Reviewed by David
Paranormal Activity 4 has a single, solitary scary scene that occurs early on, a quick jolt of a moment in which a character gets yanked off a bed, but not by whom you’d expect. Otherwise, this fourth...
View ArticleJOHN DIES AT THE END – Reviewed by David
OK, so a co-worker and I were talking about John Dies at the End and how we might describe it to customers and my co-worker decided that this fun, whacked-out horror comedy is basically what would...
View ArticleMAMA – Reviewed by David
Guillermo del Toro may have produced Mama, which, like Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone, revolves around children dealing with the supernatural, but it’s Jessica Chastain’s name that will most...
View ArticleAMERICAN MARY – Reviewed by Sirkland (hyperbole much?) Algoston
It seems late in the day to remind the culture at large of (RE)search publication’s Modern Primitives, or perhaps more obscurely Kathe Koja’s early 90′s novel Skin, but the Soska sisters’ American Mary...
View ArticleTWIXT – Reviewed by Bruce
This was really meant to be part of an appreciation of Elle Fanning, who I now think is the best actress in film today. However, I’ll leave the review of her other film to arrive on dvd this week,...
View ArticleTHE PURGE – Reviewed by Noah
Ethan Hawke plays a security system salesman, who along with his wife and two kids, are settling in to dinner. They have pretty normal problems. The daughter is dating someone the father doesn’t like....
View ArticleTHE CONJURING – Reviewed by David
James Wan has very quickly become one of my favorite horror directors. From the first Saw to Dead Silence to Insidious, he consistently succeeds in scaring me silly. I credit this to his favoring...
View ArticleBYZANTIUM – Reviewed by David
Byzantium is director Neil Jordan’s second foray into bloodsucker territory, after his 1994 adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, and though not nearly as pricey as that blockbuster, it is both...
View ArticleINSIDIOUS CHAPTER 2 – Reviewed by David
I don’t know how he keeps doing it, but director James Wan, the Malaysian-Australian mastermind behind the first Saw flick, Dead Silence and The Conjuring, has created yet another effective fright...
View ArticleWE ARE WHAT WE ARE – Reviewed by Stanislaw (the in crowd is wearing French...
Evil has the face of a parent. In upstate New York, the rain is coming down in sheets. Bridges have washed out, people are stranded and a mother says a prayer for her children, then goes out in the wet...
View ArticleCARRIE – Reviewed by David
It’s always risky re-imagining a story that’s been made into an iconic piece of cinema, but the timeliness of the premise and a surprisingly smashing finale raise Boys Don’t Cry director Kimberly...
View ArticleODD THOMAS – Reviewed by David
If the kid from The Sixth Sense grew up and became a fry cook, he might look something like Odd Thomas (Anton Yelchin), who can see dead people, but by God, to paraphrase Odd, does something about it....
View ArticleONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE – Reviewed by Stanislaw (the lower left quadrant on...
So. Jim Jarmusch has un-blamed Anne Rice for us. At least Jarmusch fans can thank Rice for his return to form, Only Lovers Left Alive. Who knew? Vampires. Because it makes a sort of hipster sense when...
View ArticleOUIJA – Reviewed by Tovah
The movie opens up with two little girls playing ouija on the floor of a bedroom. Jump to present day, Girl number one pulls out the game and plays it and plays by herself. She lets her friend Laine...
View ArticleTHE BABADOOK – Reviewed by Stanislaw (full fathom five my burnt toast lies) Boyd
A book that wasn’t on a shelf before is opened by a mother. A pop-up book, intense and disquieting. Not one for coaxing sleep they opt for another and usher in demon days. The moral of The Babadook?...
View ArticleMAGGIE – Reviewed by David
Maggie is a most unusual movie. For surreal starters, it’s what one could justly label a “somber zombie drama,” a potential new subgenre with first and last words that don’t normally apply to films...
View ArticleIT FOLLOWS – Reviewed by David
A main subtext generally read into horror films of the ‘70s and ‘80s is that if you’re a teenager, sex will kill you. That is, having sex makes you less than virtuous and therefore instant prey for...
View ArticleWHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS – Reviewed by David
We finally get our first vampire mockumentary (and first Kiwi vampire flick, so far as I know) in What We Do in the Shadows, and it’s an absolute riot, a very funny and very clever little movie with an...
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