GHOST TEAM starts strong with its tropes dissecting the ennui, frustration, and quiet desperation to be found in a life of settling rather than one of following a dream. Indeed, there are moments that are so achingly precise in terms of visually translating those emotions for the screen, and in performances that are not so… Read More »
GHOSTBUSTERS
There are many, many things to love about the GHOSTBUSTERS reboot, and one of them is that it is equally good whether you are a fan of the 1984 version, or if you’ve never heard of it. Director and co-writer (with Katie Dippold) Paul Feig, the man who brought us THE HEAT (co-written with him… Read More »
AS ABOVE SO BELOW
Whatever else AS ABOVE SO BELOW has to recommend it, and it has several things that eminently do so, it has breathed a little fresh air into the found footage genre of horror film. This is a tidy little horror film heavy on mood, light on gore, and bursting with a refreshing originality of story… Read More »
Perry Blackshear, MacLeod Andrews & Evan Dumouchel Insist that THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE
THEY LOOK LIKE PEOPLE is a first-rate existential horror film, as well as a psychological thriller. I got the same vibe watching it that I had gotten watching PI and BRICK, the maiden efforts of Darren Aronofsky and Rian Johnson respectively. Writer/director Perry Blackshear understands more than just how to create evocative, even sumptuous, visuals, he knows… Read More »
CROP CIRCLES: QUEST FOR TRUTH
Sparing the viewer such extremes as the smug condescension of skeptical inquiry and the awful awe-filled wonder of crystal-toting New Age neo-pagans, CROP CIRCLES: QUEST FOR TRUTH, has only one agenda in its exploration of crop circles, listening to people with something to say beyond those extremes I mentioned before and then letting us draw… Read More »
DREAMCATCHER
The good news for all of us who have been seeing the trailer for DREAMCATCHER since the early Pleistocene Era is that it >doesnt< give everything away. There are plenty of twists, turns and surprises in this elegant and sometimes witty horror flick that is full of invention and characters that rise nicely above the… Read More »
WHITE NOISE
As I sit and tap out these words on my computer, it is January 4, 2005 and I have just seen WHITE NOISE, a prime contender for NEXT years Razzie Award. It is inept, it is inane, and it is seemingly interminable. And why shouldn’t it be? The people behind this dreck thought it would… Read More »
CROP CIRCLES: QUEST FOR TRUTH DVD
Last fall, when I saw William Gazeckis intriguing documentary, CROP CIRCLES: QUEST FOR TRUTH, I came away wanting to see more. Now that CIRCLES is out on DVD, I get my wish. Though, to be honest, I still want to see more, but then Gazecki has found a topic that is endlessly fascinating and seemingly… Read More »
James Wan & Leigh Whannell are INSIDIOUS in the Best Sense
James Wan and Leigh Whannell collaborated on the original SAW and with that film proved that they had a keen understanding that a successful horror film is about mood, tone, and using just the right sound effects. In INSIDIOUS, they use just that approach in making a haunted house story into something with fiendishly clever… Read More »
Wayans, Marlon — A HAUNTED HOUSE
Its not often that my heart is broken in the first minute of an interview, but such was the case when talking to Marlon Wayans about A HAUNTED HOUSE on December 3, 2012. As is my wont, I included some of his upcoming projects in my introduction, one of which, a bio-pic of Richard Pryor,… Read More »