Another year, another interview with Trey Edward Shults, one of my favorite up and coming filmmakers. (I should maybe start a list of my favorite up and comers, just for my own edification, but also because I really love web traffic.) In March of 2016, we talked about Krisha, his debut film, which turned out to … Continue reading
I love a good horror movie anthology, and XX is a good horror movie anthology. It’s also a necessary film if you’re bothering with that whole #52FilmsByWomen hashtag, an endeavor I can neither recommend nor condemn; it’s important to seek out movies by women and watch them, but if half of the 52 films by women … Continue reading
If I had to count down the best films in a specific genre, that genre might as well be horror, so that’s what I did: I, in tandem with a handful of my esteemed colleagues as Paste Magazine, put together a list of the fifteen horror movies in 2016 that most deserve your time and … Continue reading
I never got around to seeing Bryan Bertino’s second film, Mockingbird, his follow up to his 2008 debut The Strangers. Based on reviews, I’m not sure I want to, but based on his latest picture, The Monster, maybe I might just. (Who knows! I’m so fickle! That means I’m fun.) The Monster is The Strangers‘ distant kin, a monster film with … Continue reading
Jack Goes Home is a really, really, really bad movie. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Rory Culkin is good. Nothing else to say than that. Spare me the pain of having to revisit my feelings about this damn thing and just go read my review at The Playlist.
Doing something a little different with this season of Ash vs Evil Dead: Instead of reviewing its individual episodes, I’m just going to highlight the best five moments from each one. Whatcha think about that? It doesn’t matter, really, because I’m doing it anyways, so nyah. But the piece I wrote is fun! It is fun. So you … Continue reading
Guys: I interviewed Bruce Campbell. I want you all to know, in case you don’t already, that this is a big deal for me, and I also want you to go to Paste Magazine, right now, so you can read the interview. I’m not wasting more of my energy on preamble than I need to, … Continue reading
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens just came out this past Friday, so you’re probably sick to death of seeing the word “spoilers” bumped around on the Internet like a pop culture volleyball. That being said, it applies very much to Ash vs. Evil Dead’s most recent episode, which ends with a nasty shocker that can … Continue reading
“And here it is: The episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead that Ashley Williams’ diehard fanbase has been waiting for. Sure, the series started off with a bang, setting Ash back to work messing up Deadites and protecting all that is good and living from all that is evil and, well, not living. But past … Continue reading
If you’ve read my review of Drew Goddard’s Cabin in the Woods, you already know I liked it. But even a thousand words can’t fully convey just how much I loved the film, so here’s the first additional two thousand words of an additional four thousand. In this first entry, I discuss the film’s meaning as a love letter and admonishment to the horror genre itself. Continue reading
With Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon have crafted the new yardstick by which all horror films released in its wake will be judged. That analogy’s somewhat mild and unseasoned. More accurately, they’ve saturation bombed the genre with barb-filled ordnance wrapped up in one enormous love letter, launching a payload containing their affections … Continue reading
Bizarre genius. Those two words may best describe Vincenzo Natali’s decade-in-the-making Frankenstein update, Splice, an imperfect movie executed with the exact amount of gusto needed to transcend its own inadequacies. Make no mistake, Splice is flawed, but those aspects that underwhelm never impede the film from being thoughtful and satisfying in all of its weird, … Continue reading
Tomorrow is All Hallow’s Eve. All Saints Eve. Samhain. You know–Halloween, the time of year when youngsters take to the streets in costume and seek out to reap a huge candy windfall from neighbors participating in the spooky celebration of ghouls, ghosts, gremlins, and other such unsavory creatures of the night. For some, it’s an … Continue reading
I wasn’t aware that Halloween was a holiday that needed its own version of A Christmas Carol, the seminal literary classic celebrating that most commodified of holidays. Decades of horror efforts give those into skeletons, spirits, and haunts* plenty of films to choose from to last through the entire month and then some as they … Continue reading
Summer has come and gone, and with it a plethora of truly excellent movies (as well as some truly awful ones). I missed the cut-off point at which composing a list of my favorite movies of the summer season would still be acceptable, and am now in the dreaded “so late that it’s painful” territory. … Continue reading
I’m going to start this review with a basic question: Why are you reading this? Slasher films are notoriously polarizing– either you enjoy them or you don’t, and no review by any critic (“critic” in my case) is going to change that. If you like slashers, chances are you’re either thinking about seeing the latest … Continue reading
