School teacher by day. Horror aficionado by night.
Last summer, director James Wan gave us a terrifying dramatization of a true haunting in Burrillville, Rhode Island in “The Conjuring” and scared the pants off summer moviegoers. Yet again, his quality horror moviemaking transformed into huge box office payouts and introduced the world at-large to paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. Renowned in the…
Just in time for the Halloween season comes The Paranormal Diaries: Clophill, another run-of-the-mill paranormal investigation film involving a group of people exploring a haunted locale with cameras that capture a whole lot of nothing until the last 20 minutes of runtime when the obligatory creepy occurrences abound. But while this basic description holds true,…
It’s no secret that the phenomenon commonly referred to as “young adult” has taken over the movies, and it’s also no secret that the girls are kicking butt and taking names in the genre’s linchpin franchises like “Divergent” and “The Hunger Games.” Well, ladies, the boys are back front and center in The Maze Runner,…
The phrase “inspired by true events,” once powerful enough to instill fear into any teenager, now holds little bite in the world of horror. At this point, we’ve all become far too jaded at the idea of a “true story,” especially since most of these tales turn out to be little more than “Hey, there…
What’s a classic love story without some stars crossing overhead? What’s a romantic comedy without family members getting in the way and embarrassing both themselves and the lovers in question? What can a potential bride do when her father insists on more tradition than she’s comfortable with? How can a penniless suitor earn that father’s…
Science-fiction fans are no strangers to tales of artificial intelligence, and even the average film-goer has had his share of computers gone wild. These films range from thought-provoking and thrilling (films like “The Matrix,” “2001: A Space Odyssey”) to enjoyably fun and entertaining (I’m thinking of “War Games” and “The Terminator”) to downright awful and…
I grew up in a time when young adult books were found in the children’s section of the bookstore and were simply fluff used to keep me quiet on long road trips. In recent years, though, young adult literature has found some serious strength, and the chances of finding a quality story are much better…
