Tag Archives: slow-burn

There are so many ways you can tell an alien story. Often, it’s from a place of fear. The aliens are some kind of threat. Sometimes it’s from a place of wonder that ultimately ends up going wrong. First Contact takes a little bit of a different approach embedding its story in …

Strong Trailer, But the Movie Was a Different Story When it comes to excellent movie trailers, I’m skeptical. It feels like more often than not the best parts of a movie are put into the trailer. I’m disappointed to say this was the case for me with ‘The Tank‘. I …

As a reviewer of horror films, I’m used to seeing depravity depicted onscreen in many ways, but I was still taken aback by the depths of cruelty in Barak Barkan’s (Killing the Fiddler) new film, Silence & Darkness. Synopsis: Blind and deaf sisters, Anna and Beth, live happily in a …

Lore, written and directed by Christian Larsen (Another Time 2016) and Brock Manwill (White Salamander), is a visually spellbinding, slow burn thriller. It stars Lyndsey Lantz (By Day’s End 2020), Max Lesser (Ashby 2015), and Sean Wei Mah (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee 2007). Synopsis: A woman searches for …

The reign of blue and orange color grading in movie-making is slowly fading away. As Hollywood leaves behind the tried-and-true contrasting color scheme, indie filmmakers have picked it up, rung it out, and pinned it up to dry. Director Brayden DeMorest-Purdy’s (Compulsion 2017) Beyond the Woods wears that rust and …

There have been a ton of movies about people being stuck out in the middle of the ocean with a broken boat and no way to contact help. Besides the obvious problems of drowning and sharks, the reason these movies terrify us so is because we like to be in …

Horror is, first and foremost, a genre defined by its agenda. Whether the impression of horror manifests as fear, dread, revulsion, or unease, the project has to do its job. More often than not, these duties are performed by the ever-evolving bouquet of blood and gore special effects. We see …

Gerard Butler is the mall Chinese food of action stars, and I don’t pay that compliment lightly. He may not be to everyone’s taste. Some might turn their nose up at the mention. But if you’ve got the taste the sheer animalistic hankering of the stuff, nothing hits the spot …

What defines a horror movie? Is it how much blood is shed? How big the kill list is? How many jump scares they can pack in? To me, horror is that, but also so much more. There have been many debates over subgenres like psychological horror and questioning if they …

Based on the horrifying true 1993 murder of two-year-old James Bulger, Bartosz M. Kowalski’s Playground sets the story in a stark, bleak Polish town. The movie revolves around three very different characters, each with their own very personal and sometimes terrible secrets that will propel them towards a shocking conclusion. …