Venice 2025: “Frankenstein” (2025)

Rarely does anyone, when discussing Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, refer to it by its unabbreviated title: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan sent to Earth early in its creation to help humanity. But he gives them fire, a tool that begets knowledge, more civilized technology— and destruction. His defiance […]

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: “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 […]

TIFF Review: “Pearl”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Midnight Madness North American Premiere It was perhaps about a minute into the end credits for “Pearl”—Ti West’s prequel to his film from earlier this year, “X”—that the audience at TIFF’s packed midnight madness premiere erupted into applause and cheers. The image that plays over those credits—an extended, live-action freeze […]

Review: “X”

If overt promiscuity is one of the most obvious markers of a potential victim in a horror movie, then you can probably assume the fates of the protagonists in “X,” a group of filmmakers and actors who travel to a small Texas town circa the late 1970s to make an adult film. But while “X” […]