I was more than impressed by Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix because beyond being wildly entertaining, it’s an exemplar on how horror can be more than what people typically expect of it, which is to say entertainment that’s well-acted, well-written and visually beautiful. And that’s not at all unusual if you’ve […]
I don’t typically like remakes because most of the time they’re lazy, trading on the name of a property that’s remotely familiar with people, so that film makers don’t have to do something original, running the risk that it might not resonate as well with audiences. Or there’s another slightly – I suspect – more […]
For a long time I didn’t understand the career of Paul WS Anderson. I mean his movies aren’t terrible but neither were they particularly good either and whenever you thought he might be reaching for something more like in Event Horizon (1997) or Soldier (1998), he quickly reminded you that subtext mattered about as much […]
Dylan O’Brien is a good actor, though I’ve only seen him in two of the Maze Runner Trilogy (Maze Runner and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. I haven’t yet seen Maze Runner: The Death Cure because I’m not a glutton for punishment. It’s probably apparent that I didn’t like the two I did see WCKD […]
Ecclesiastes 1:19 tells us: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” That goes double for Hollywood, an industry built out of repeating the same thing time and again though that’s less inherently negative than a statement of […]
Though to be fair that has less to do with the quality of Books Of Blood (2020) – though it is quite good – than because most of the adaptations of Barker’s extensive body of work aren’t particularly worth watching. Hellraiser (1987), Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1998) and Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996) are the best of the […]
I expected to really enjoy Hulu’s Monsterland, after all I really like horror and it’s called “Monsterland,” after all.” And with a name like that it wouldn’t be untoward to expect the presence of plenty of things that go bump in the night (And there’re a few but the main terrors are those of the […]
In watching Rupert Wyatt’s (Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes) Captive State I was constantly reminded of Star Wars (1977) because both movies are relatively simple in terms of their story, yet to very different effect. Star Wars takes works well within the confides of a narrative that is no richer that the typical […]
I REALLY like this trailer! It revolves around a couple who’re immigrating from Sudan and despite the fact that it appears that they’ve escaped from a really violent situation in their former home country they encounter horrors of a supernatural variety that they could never have anticipated. The immigrant experience is ripe for the horror […]
David Cronenberg has to rank among the best directors not working nearly as often as he should though I must admit that I didn’t prefer his shift toward more realistic fare with movies like A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. It’s not those were movies were bad more than Cronenberg appeared to be like […]
