Rumbling out of the mumblecore movement (or a splinter of it dedicated to horror referred to as, wait for it, mumblegore), writer/director partnership Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard have caught some limelight recently for their work in short film, providing notable sections for the V/H/S movies and for their contribution to The ABCs of Death. Asserting themselves … Continue reading Review: You’re Next
Year: 1979 Director: Werner Herzog Stars: Klaus Kinski (Count Dracula), Isabelle Adjani (Lucy Harker), Bruno Ganz (Jonathon Harker), Roland Topor (Renfield), Walter Ladengast (Dr. Van Helsing) Genre: Horror In 1976 Werner Herzog reportedly had his actors hypnotised for their performances in his somnambulist movie Heart Of Glass. But for his 1979 remake of F.W. Murnau's silent masterpiece … Continue reading Why I Love… #53: Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
The year is 2154. Earth is overpopulated and under-resourced. Los Angeles looks like a cross between a war zone and a never-ending shanty town. The poor are the population. Up above, orbiting the Earth, the rich minority live in comfort aboard space station Elysium; a shining white band of luxury not dissimilar to silicon valley … Continue reading Review: Elysium
When I flippantly used the word "upskirt" in a piece about Fast & Furious Tokyo Drift, it became the top search that led people to this blog. A test a couple of weeks ago to see if the word "creampie" would have a similar effect in a review of Red 2 proved just as successful. What … Continue reading Review: Lovelace
Like Someone In Love, the latest film from Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, opens at a trendy-looking nightspot in Tokyo. The camera remains static inside the busy establishment as we hear a woman talking on the phone. We peer into the scene, trying to distinguish who is speaking. It is only when we cut to another … Continue reading Review: Like Someone In Love
Goro Miyazaki, son of Studio Ghibli's grand master Hayao Miyazaki, has been unfairly wearing the millstone of Tales Of Earthsea around his neck for over half a decade now. Earthsea was not a bad movie, but with the expectation that comes from passing the torch to a family member, coupled with Ghibli's explosion in popularity, it was … Continue reading Review: From Up On Poppy Hill
Year: 2009 Director: Ti West Stars: Jocelin Donahue (Samantha), Greta Gerwig (Megan), Tom Noonan (Mr Ulman), Mary Woronov (Mrs Ulman), AJ Bowen (Victor Ulman), Dee Wallace (Landlady) Genre: Horror In theory The House Of The Devil shouldn't work. In theory, this is the kind of walk down misery lane that plagues modern horror, keying into past glories … Continue reading Why I Love… #52: The House Of The Devil
Not everything is always about movies here at thelosthighwayhotel. Some stuff's about TV. TV, especially American TV, is increasingly indistinguishable in quality from feature films. True, there's still an awful lot of dross out there, but over the last 20 years or so we've seen TV aspire to greater things. Indeed, the serial drama offers … Continue reading List: 15 Top Episodes Of US Telly
Upgrading a TV character or show to feature film status is often a tricky if not misguided affair, especially in the realms of comedy. Fundamentally the two formats serve different functions, and where half an hour of something can be just about right, 90+ minutes can see certain jokes wear crushingly thin. And whilst Steve … Continue reading Review: Alan Partridge Alpha Papa
First thing's first, and a crucial caveat for Only God Forgives; this is not Drive 2. Whatever you may think based on the advertising campaign, or whatever you may be wishing for, this is not that movie. Give up on that one for the time being. The second collaboration between auteur director Nicolas Winding Refn and … Continue reading Review: Only God Forgives
Red was fun. Something of a sleeper hit, it managed to travel by word-of-mouth, offering light-hearted action backed with a spitfire script and some very appealing characters. Evidently it did enough business to make a sequel commercially viable, which ought to be good news for everyone. With so many comic book adaptations gunning to be … Continue reading Review: Red 2
Putting aside for a minute the barrel-scraping title (which sounds like the name of a filler episode of Angel), the new movie from James Wan offers little inspiration up front. From the trailer, which has been doing the rounds rather heavily, it looks like a predictable mix of haunted house scares and stale riffs on The Exorcist. … Continue reading Review: The Conjuring
