They Shot the Piano Player (2024)
Spanish director Fernando Truaba is one of those [...]
Horror
The First Omen (2024)
Let me start by saying that I did NOT see Michael Mohan’s IMMACULATE, which came out a few weeks ago and to which my fellow critics have labeled this Omen prequel a less-than stellar carbon copy. Having not seen that film I feel that I can safely judge this movie on its own. So, with […]
Late Night With the Devil
Late Night With the Devil is about as fascinating as it is frustrating. It’s the same problem that I had with GHOSTBUSTERS FROZEN EMPIRE but, even at its flaws, I liked this one a lot better because even with its flaws, it is wildly entertaining and features a star-making performance by David Dastmalchian. Framed as […]
Cobweb (2023)
I come to you now, dear reader with a confession. I am reviewing Sam Bodin’s new horror thriller Cobweb without having finished it. Yes, I bailed on it, probably about the point where the father started barfing and retching gallons of blood all over the kitchen table. This was not a flippant decision. I had […]
The Entire Halloween series (1978-2022) – Blecchh! I’ve see ’em all!
I have a theory that if you stare at enough bad movies, you can see infinity. I mean that’s kind of obvious. Staring at enough bad movies, you’ll find yourself wishing for eternity. This has generally been my experience when I am trapped in a theater between a movie that dares me to be entertained […]
Hypochondriac (2022)
Addison Heimann’s psychological horror drama Hypochondriac is the kind of movie that, as a critic, I find it difficult to describe in words, you watch it, you don’t explain it. That might work in terms of the movie but it does not bode well for a review. I could almost stop here and say, don’t […]
Mad God (2022)
I don’t know what to do here. I just spent an hour and twenty-three minutes beholding Phil Tippett’s Mad God, an ugly, unpleasant dystopian nightmare from which I exit the other side feeling unclean and confused. However, given it’s pedigree, particularly the fact that Tippett – The Oscar-winning special effects wizard who worked on everything […]
The Righteous (2022)
There is so much to love about actor Mark O’Brien’s directorial debut The Righteous, and so much a relief that a first-time filmmaker can engineer a mood piece this deliberately paced and this beautiful. It’s a psychological drama from Canada, spare on characters and heavy on tension, and I appreciated so much of it that […]
They’re (still) Heeeere!: ‘Poltergeist’ at 40
Steven Spielberg doesn’t talk about Poltergeist for reasons that I can only speculate. The last time that I recall that he even mentioned the film was on an AFI special 20 years ago in which he dismissed any suggestion of subtext by saying “Poltergeist was just meant to be a rollercoaster ride. I wasn’t trying to do […]
