We all love a good haunted house story. A home is a place where we all feel secure and safe, protected from the terrors of the outside world, but what if the terror lurks inside your own home?
Read MoreHappy Face (2018)
In 1932, after the phenomenal success of Universal's Dracula, director Tod Browning used his clout to ensure the release of his pet project Freaks. His insistence in casting real circus sideshow entertainers led to problems at MGM, where the performers were banned from the studio cafeteria and relegated to a mess tent outside, as horrified employees objected to their presence. Surely, we are more enlightened today?
Read MoreBlack Sheep (1996) #RetroReview
Retro review time! While it features a paper-thin and clichéd plot, Penelope Spheeris’ Black Sheep from 1996 works because of the efforts of the force of nature that was Chris Farley. A master physical comedian who was also underrated for his ability to portray earnest, heart on their sleeves types, Farley commands the screen as he pratfalls from one outrageous scenario to the next.
Read MorePsycho Goreman (2020)
We all have fond memories of browsing the shelves of video stores when we were young and pouring over the straight to video movies with the box art that were writing checks those films certainly could not cash. I remember during one video store excursion with my Dad, my eyes became glued to the VHS box to a film called Guyver II: Dark Hero, which depicted a hero in a high tech suit of armor looking like something out of Power Rangers. A quick inspection of the back of the box revealed that this hero in the awesome armor fought equally awesome looking monsters, and despite the fact that I had never seen the first Guyver, or even knew what the hell Guyver was, I asked my Dad to rent it for me.
Read MoreClapboard Jungle: Surviving the Independent Film Business (2020)
The film business is a tough racket. Anyone who’s worked in the movies will tell you how tough and competitive it is just to get a crew job, let alone actually make a movie. While the production phase of a film can be tedious and exhausting in and of itself, there’s a whole slew of headaches that involve development and financing before a film can even get to that step, and then after that, there’s post-production and distribution to worry about.
Read MoreAgent Revelation (2021)
Going into writer/producer/director/star Derek Ting’s Agent Revelation, I had no idea it was a sequel. I saw the trailer and thought it looked like plucky low-budget sci-fi and that was enough for me. While it is that, to be sure, it also feels like a distillation of a sort of new-age-y philosophy.
Read MoreWonder Woman 1984 (2020)
It always felt like there would be a lot riding on Wonder Woman 1984. The first Wonder Woman felt like a big win for DC and WB when it hit in 2017, garnering rave reviews from critics and audiences after the mostly mixed or negative responses to Man of Steel, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Suicide Squad. A follow-up to Wonder Woman seemed inevitable after it performed well at the box office in addition to its positive reception.
Read MoreThe Dark and the Wicked (2020)
“Less is more” is always the old adage that you hear when it comes to storytelling, and it especially applies to telling a horror story. You can show all the ghosts, ghouls, and goblins you want, but at the end of the day, the best weapon you have to use against an audience is their own imagination. There’s always a dark presence lurking just around a corner, but no matter what kind of monster the filmmakers have cooked up, it will never stack up to whatever demonic vision the viewers have concocted in their own minds.
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