Review: “Sleep”

The scary part is the lack of control. When you’re asleep, anything can happen. Your mind can dream up things wonderful and terrible. You can talk out loud. You can get up and move and walk with zero conscious control over your limbs. Recently, I fell asleep at my desk while working on a job […]

Fantastic Fest Dispatch: “What Happened to Dorothy Bell?”, “The Draft!”, “Ghost Killer”

Ghosts and supernatural entities are common threads weaving together these three films that premiered at Fantastic Fest 2024— the annual festival in Austin, Texas highlighting genre films— but those horror trappings also give way to character studies that are accomplished with varying degrees of success. Read on for my reviews of the found footage horror […]

Review: “Blink Twice”

When we first meet Frida (Naomi Ackie), she’s squatting on the toilet in the bathroom of the dingy apartment she shares with her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat), compulsively scrolling through Instagram on her phone. She’s sent down an exposition-heavy rabbit hole after landing on a video apology from billionaire tech mogul Slater King (Channing […]

Review: “MaXXXine”

“To be good is to be forgotten. I’m going to be so bad I’ll always be remembered. The reason good women like me and flock to my pictures is that there is a little bit of vampire instinct in every woman. I will continue doing vampires as long as people sin.” Theda Bara reportedly stated […]

Review: “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person”

It’s always refreshing to witness a new take on a well-worn genre. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, the feature directorial debut of Montreal-based director and co-writer Ariane Louis-Seize, doesn’t exactly contain any vampire movie tropes we haven’t seen before. It’s a little bit of a teen movie, a little bit of a horror film, […]

Holiday Classics: “Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?” (1972)

When we first meet Rosie Forrest (Shelley Winters), she’s sitting by a child’s bed wearing a lavish burgundy gown and white gloves, rocking it softly as she sings. She appears sweet, maternal. But when she finishes her song, we discover that Rosie hasn’t been singing to a human child, but to the mummified remains of […]

Review: “Renfield”

Dracula’s first introduction in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel predates the founding of Universal Studios (then Universal Pictures) by a mere 15 years, but Universal possibly wouldn’t still be around if it wasn’t for the vampire. Financially struggling at the start of the 1930s, Universal’s new head Carl Laemmle Jr. (recently bestowed that title by his […]

Review: “Infinity Pool”

We’re all guilty of indulging in a little self-destructive behavior every once in a while. But while for me the extent of that may be shoveling an entire pizza in my face in one sitting, for James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård), it’s the idea of what he can get away with by throwing some money around […]

Holiday Classics: “Black Christmas” (1974)

Director Bob Clark is likely most remembered for helming the nostalgic 1983 comedy “A Christmas Story,” which has become an annual holiday staple, a tradition for families and the subject of a 24/7 television marathon. But in 1974, nearly a decade before adapting Jean Shepherd’s novel, Clark directed a very different kind of movie set […]

Review: “Halloween Ends”

Walking out of my screening of “Halloween Ends” last week, I witnessed what may be considered a microcosm of most die hard fans’ reaction to David Gordon Green’s final installment in his “Halloween” trilogy: a man, wearing a “Halloween” T-shirt and clutching a Michael Myers mask in one hand, shouting at his friends—or perhaps no […]