Sometimes a filmmaker can wear their influences on their sleeve, which can be a good thing, particularly when they take from the people that inspired them and create something uniquely their own. Though what’s often the case is that they end up mimicking the work of someone at the height of their powers, and it […]
I don’t think Jeff Fowler’s Sonic The Hedgehog is by most metrics a “good” movie in that the story is relatively simplistic, yet at the same time not terribly well told though it’s watchable for reasons I don’t think the people that produced it intended. I originally had no intention of seeing this movie, which […]
I really enjoyed The Wretched mainly because it’s evocative of movies produced in the early to mid-eighties by directors like Steven Spielberg and Tom Holland, which is to say it’s a true horror film, but it’s also a pretty charming one. It’s also not a mean-spirited despite the subject matter – a witch preys (literally, […]
I have to admit that I was less interested in House at the End of the Street as a movie than because it was directed by Mark Tonderai, who last I heard was interested in tackling the reboot of Marvel Studios’ Blade. Though let’s look at the movie anyway. House at the End of the […]
When I first saw a commercial for Ben Hernandez Bray’s El Chicano I was thinking to myself that maybe Latinos would be getting a superhero they could call their own, in the same way African-Americans led the way in making Black Panther (2018) into something greater than his comic book origins. Now maybe that’s too […]
I grew up reading comics so seeing the characters I was figuratively weaned on turn up on television and movies is a very gratifying experience. That being said, if you see anything often enough – while the bloom doesn’t necessarily wear off – you do get more critical about it. Which is my way of […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 have never been a fan of remakes, mainly because they often serve no purpose other than money grabs, attempts to exploit the name of a property people are already familiar with. Which isn’t to say that they’re not some that manage to rise above – like Jean-François Richet’s remake of John Carpenter’s Assault On […]
