See cinema differently
Director: David Blue Garcia Stars: Elsie Fisher, Nell Hudson, Sarah Yarkin I'm a frequent Texas Chainsaw Massacre apologist, especially when it comes to some of the much-maligned remakes and sequels. I'm ring-fencing Tobe Hooper's original here. It's a visceral classic that might just be the ultimate horror film. It's so inimitable, in fact, that those who've tried …
Director: Rodo Sayagues Stars: Stephen Lang, Madelyn Grace, Fiona O'Shaughnessy Around five years ago, Don't Breathe made a little bit of rumpus as a nasty home invasion movie with a twist. A bunch of youths broke into a dilapidated house to steal from a rumoured cash box, only to encounter Stephan Lang's ex-Navy Seal Blind Man …
Director: Leigh Janiak Stars: Kiana Madeira, Elizabeth Scopel, Darrell Britt-Gibson The latest in the unending is-it-a-movie-is-it-TV discourse, Netflix's time travelling teen horror trilogy/mini-series hops further back than before as it reaches its final frontier - or should that be frontier finale? Largely reusing its extant cast, Fear Street Part Three: 1666 takes us back to …
Director: John Krasinski Stars: Noah Jupe, Cillian Murphy, Millicent Simmonds John Krasinski's A Quiet Place was an unassuming hit. Nobody really expected much from him as a director, let alone a smash sci-hi horror with a wicked gimmick and a heartfelt crush for Spielberg. I remember when I saw the film in a capacity screening for …
Director: McG Stars: Bella Thorne, Emily Alyn Lind, Jenna Ortega Three years on from his apparent career-restart and McG hasn't gotten very far maturing. 2017's The Babysitter had gusto going for it, but not a lot else. Like Steve Buscemi asking how his fellow kids are, it came off as trying a little too hard, rocking …
Director: Johannes Roberts Stars: Sophie Nélisse, Corinne Foxx, Brianne Tju A couple of years ago horror filmmaker Johannes Roberts took the po-faced brio of Bryan Bertino's The Strangers and reconstituted it into the giddily enjoyable slasher throwback The Strangers: Prey at Night. Based on that gorgeous and bloody 90 minutes of nonsense, I'll happily follow him …
Director: Cathy Yan Stars: Margot Robbie, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Ella Jay Basco What to do about comic book movies? They're not going anywhere, at least not for the foreseeable. It's in vogue right now for 'highbrow' directors to vocally shit-talk them, and these comments are not without merit. These flicks are largely very similar to one …
Continue reading "Review: Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn"
Director: Jake Kasdan Stars: Karen Gillan, Danny DeVito, Awkwafina When, in combination, The Greatest Showman and Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle took more money for Sony than the last Bond film, it seemed inevitable that at least one of them would be franchised as quickly as possible. Jumanji was the obvious choice. After all, it was …
Director: Mike Flanagan Stars: Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Ewan McGregor Redefining for yourself what constitutes family is a large part of Doctor Sleep. the belated follow-up to both Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Those two precursors are famously divergent. King hated Kubrick's film, which is widely regarded as one of the horror masterpieces. Kubrick altered the …
Director: Tim Miller Stars: Mackenzie Davis, Linda Hamilton, Natalia Reyes In hindsight, perhaps we ought to be thankful for just how dire Terminator Genisys turned out to be. That movie - which pissed all over a pretty well sodden franchise - ended with the threat of further sequels. Fortunately, those plans have been terminated (ha!). Dark Fate …
Director: Andy Muschietti Stars: Bill Hader, Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy Andy Muschietti's IT felt like a culmination of everything popular horror had been trying to do in the cinema for the past 10 years. It was a grandiose, nostalgia-laced funhouse of jump scares. It moved sleekly, it looked gorgeous and - as with King's doorstop source …
Director: Ric Roman Waugh Stars: Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, Jada Pinkett Smith Seemingly made for the six people left who still think that 24 ought to be a thing, but with half the budget of a standard episode, Angel Has Fallen is the second sequel to silly but harmless action thriller Olympus Has Fallen. Industrial …
This isn't a contrary piece arguing in favour of Jaws 2 being anywhere near comparable to Steven Spielberg's original blockbuster. It's quite in vogue for certain publications to float such edgelord opinions. These articles make for juicy clickbait, but often serve little purpose beyond that. No, Jeannot Szwarc's obligatory 1978 sequel to the monster smash …
Director: Tim Story Stars: Samuel L Jackson, Jessie T. Usher, Regina Hall Gordon Parks' 1971 film Shaft is probably the mainstream's flagship title from the blaxploitation run of the era, but it - and its sequels - are also outliers in the subgenre. The majority of the pictures that fall into this bracket were about vigilantes, …
Director: Christopher Landon Stars: Jessica Rothe, Phi Vu, Israel Broussard One of the many things that Christopher Landon did right with 2017's super-fun surprise Happy Death Day was keep it (relatively) simple. A girl, Tree (Jessica Rothe), finds herself in a time loop after being stalked and killed by a masked slasher. To break the loop …
The Lost Highway Hotel 