There seems to be an ongoing trend of single-word movie titles happening here. Today’s highlight is an interesting little mind-bender in the vein of Memento (another one!) as the main character tries to piece together what appear to be events of her future.
A little levity never hurt anyone. A lot of levity, however, can make you die laughing. I’m not sure anyone watching this movie in its initial release would have predicted its longevity. Born of the improvisational era of the early 1980s, an era that includes Meatballs, Caddyshack and Stripes, Ghostbusters took the loose format of those former films and gave it a solid structure.
A quasi-zombie movie mixed with hints of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, From Dusk Til Dawn, Assault on Precinct 13, and just a soupçon of The Evil Dead. Imagine, if you will, a parasite that resembles splintered wood, killing its host but reanimating it until all of it is consumed.
Unfairly derided by critics, this film may lack the suspense of the first film, but with its tongue delicately planted in its cheek, it manages to poke fun not only at horror films but at the process of turning a real-life tragedy into tawdry terror. The series is completely through the looking glass now, told in parallel with the production of the latest movie-within-a-movie, Stab 3
As clever as its predecessor, with an opening sequence every bit as horrifying. The self-aware references to sequels carry the film throughout and the scares are genuinely frightening and, in the case of the prologue, downright disturbing.
Following on the heels of his very-meta New Nightmare, horror veteran Wes Craven serves up a reflexive revival of the diluted and nigh-dead slasher subgenre. With Scream, he reinvigorated the conventions of horror even as he simultaneously skewered and savored them.
An unheard-of instance of a horror series actually getting progressively better with each episode. Perhaps that’s because this trilogy is told in reverse. This latest installment was astonishingly effective, helped in no small part by some genuine and genuinely funny humor.
When Deliverance meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the result is an unsettling thriller that’s better than it has any right to be. Director Rob Schmidt surprisingly shuns cheap sight gags in favor of mounting tension. It may not be completely unsurprising but neither does it take your viewership for granted.
Local film festival scares up a respectable following. Last year saw the inception of San Diego’s first film festival dedicated to macabre cinema and art. The response was so overwhelmingly positive that a second year was a certainty. On November…
Those of you who followed along last year may recall my affinity for ghost stories. In keeping with the best of them, director and co-writer David Twohy unravels this terrific little mystery that is, aside from being a good horror movie, an exceptionally well done World War II submarine thriller. Bruce Greenwood, always adept at stolid leadership, here overseas a motley gang of ragged sailors.