APOLLO 18: The Truth is Out There
Gonzalo López-Gallego’s APOLLO 18 isn’t just a fun potboiler but an unlabeled conspiracy tape hiding in the wrong VHS sleeve, a straight-faced, paranoid political thriller spawned by the unholy union of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and Wikileaks.
COLOMBIANA Can’t Stop
As CONAN THE BARBARIAN represents the nadir of chaos cinema with its unfocused camerawork evoking nothing but a lazy director, Olivier Megaton’s COLOMBIANA represents its potential, finding purpose in the rapid cutting and manic energy that defines the End of Cinema.
SCREAM 4: All About Neve
If you’re wondering what horror tropes are left for Wes Craven, Kevin Williamson, and blonde TV starlets to skewer with the resurrected corpse of the SCREAM franchise, SCREAM 4 isn’t much help.
BLACK SWAN: Hall of mirrors
Just once I’d like to see a film about an artist who achieves his masterpiece by seeking greater control. The popular fantasy is that artists are sensitive feelers who must completely lose themselves and let the spirit of Obi-Wan or whatever guide them to glory, not practicing communicators who ought to pinpoint precisely what they’re [...]
ROSEMARY’S BABY: The Cult of Domesticity
In my quest to determine my favorite horror films, it’s become increasingly clear that I have no idea what constitutes horror. Don’t Look Now? Hour of the Wolf? The Shout? Roman Polanski’s 1968 classic Rosemary’s Baby seemed like a no-brainer to me, but rewatching, it’s slightly scarier than Bride of Frankenstein, and it’s not as [...]
THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE: The Body Politic
When I’m not carving topical jack-o-lanterns and funding my dentist’s third home, I treat Halloween as an opportunity to catch up with the horror greats I spent my adolescence cowering from (thanks to vividly traumatic childhood experiences with The Shining and The Exorcist that may or may not have involved pants-peeing). No longer new to [...]
