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
