MAMA is an imperfect horror film, but one that is highly effective in the moment. Stressing suspense over gore, it is blessed with an original story, elegant direction, a gifted cast, and a suitably unsettling subtext about the pleasures and perils of childhood. Specifically, the vulnerability of children negotiating an adult world that has fallen… Read More »
EVIL DEAD
The original version of THE EVIL DEAD was such a perfect little horror film. Written and directed by Sam Raimi in 1981, it simultaneously sent up the conventions of horror films while also unleashing the sort of nightmares that originate in the id, and then become progressively more terrifying as they percolate up to consciousness.… Read More »
WORLD WAR Z
Throughout the episodic and ultimately annoyingly unresolved WORLD WAR Z, we have the lovely face of Brad Pitt filling the screen. As U.N. investigator Gerry Lane, it is his story that leads us through another zombie apocalypse, starting with the odd happenings during his rush hour in Philadelphia, to his increasingly desperate globe-trotting in an… Read More »
INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2
The fine people who bring us INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2 are very serious about spoilers. While we in the reviewing press are almost always given an embargo date before which we are not supposed to post a formal review and/or any sort of critique in social media, before being allowed to attend the only press screening… Read More »
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY — THE MARKED ONES
And once again we return to the trough of a formerly terrific franchise in order to drain the dregs and make those last few bucks before the well finally runs completely dry. I speak of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES, the fifth installment of the series, and the one that connects to the original in… Read More »
DEVIL’S DUE
DEVILS DUE is a perfectly competent horror flick with a few nice twists scattered among its otherwise unremarkable storyline. The standard plot in not helped by the films indulgence in the latest horror-flick fad, pretending that the film has been cobbled together from bits and pieces of found footage. The films that started it all,… Read More »
OCULUS
There are many good things to be said for OCULUS, first and foremost of which is that is terrifying. As much a psychological consideration of the powerlessness of childhood as a ghost story of striking originality, it eschews cliché in favor of finding new ways to horrify audiences jaded with the genre. The supernatural element,… Read More »
THE QUIET ONES
THE QUIET ONES never really gets around to explaining its title, but it doesnt really matter. Produced by Hammer Films, that glorious British concern specializing in horror films that emphasize terror over gore, it is an elegant little flick, both creepy and atmospheric, that tells its tale of hubris and good intentions gone wrong with… Read More »
DELIVER US FROM EVIL
DELIVER US FROM EVIL is a curious blend of intensity and lassitude. Though rife with images of gory mutilations, animal and human, there is in its decorous pacing the whiff of the better Merchant-Ivory productions of times gone by, where things unfold in their own time and without any unseemly rush amid lush surroundings and… Read More »
DARKNESS FALLS
The best thing about DARKNESS FALLS is the fact that we will be able to settle once and for all whether or not there is a tooth fairy. If he or she exists, there is bound to be a lawsuit over how he or she is depicted in this film. Actually, not so much the depiction, though… Read More »
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