We’ve all been around people who have made us feel uncomfortable and pushed social boundaries. And sometimes, there are people who are downright strange to the point of being sociopathic in their inappropriate behavior. This is an archetype executed to perfection by James McAvoy in Speak No Evil. em>. An …
Read More »M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘THE VILLAGE’ (2004) – Twenty Years Later
With his new film Trap in theaters, M. Night Shyamalan seems to have picked up a steady rhythm of success since the critical downturn of his work in the late 2010’s. Since The Visit and Split, Shyamalan seems to have climbed out of the rut in which his string of …
Read More »George A. Romero’s ‘THE CRAZIES’ (1973) – Retro Review
Recently, I watched The original 1973 version of George A. Romero’s The Crazies with a group of friends. The Crazies is a film that has existed for a lot longer than people realize, having been remade by Breck Eisner (Sahara 2005) in 2010, and being one of the better remakes …
Read More »The Case for ‘HELLRAISER: INFERNO’ (2000) – Movie Review
The Hellraiser franchise has been rife with some of the worst, most unwatchable films that have ever been made. The Weinsteins drug it out in the hopes for a reboot that never came, at least not under their supervision. This continued until there were more straight-to-video Hellraiser films than there …
Read More »‘Society of the Snow’ (2023), A Philosophical and Religious Experience
Last month I reviewed Survive! (see the review here). That film was an exploitative depiction of the Miracle in the Andes, the harrowing plight of a rugby team that was stranded in the Andes after a plane crash in which 29 out of the 45 passengers survived. The next 72 …
Read More »‘A Place of Our Own’ (2022) – Movie Review
The Ekarta Collective’s 2022 film A Place of Our Own is a thoughtful and at times emotional and touching deep dive into the lives and struggles faced by Bhopal, India’s LGBTQ+ community. This film is significant in the fact that it is crewed, and acted by people within the communities …
Read More »‘SURVIVE!’ (1976) – Tasteless Grindhouse Exploitation
Early January of 2024 will see the Netflix release of Society of the Snow, directed by J.A. Bayona (The Orphanage 2007). The film is based on the infamous 1972 Uruguyan plane crash in the Andes which carried a team of rugby players as well as their families and other passengers. …
Read More »Damien Leone’s ‘ALL HALLOWS’ EVE’ (2013) – 10 Years Later
After the unexpected, lucrative success of Terrifier 2, (read our review here) and the promise of Terrifier 3, it is important to recognize the significance of 2013’s All Hallows’ Eve, and its introduction of Art the Clown. Much like Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-on series, Art’s creative father, Damien Leone, nurtured this …
Read More »‘LAKE MUNGO’ (2008) 15 Years Later, and America’s True Crime Obsession
We may be moving past the peak of sensational documentaries put out on Netflix and other streaming services. Regardless, 2008’s Lake Mungo serves as a fitting precursor to the true crime wave that gripped the late 2010s. Written and directed by Joel Anderson, a man just as enigmatic as the …
Read More »‘The Collingswood Story’ – The Long-Distance Breakup Tale Involving a Satanic Cult
There is a sense of dread and inevitability from the first frame of The Collingswood Story. This little-known Screenlife thriller from 2002 is perhaps the first of the sub-genre. Primarily taking place on a pre-Skype video chat platform based on a landline, the instability and unreliability of the platform perfectly …
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