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…
The story of Fury is harsh, straightforward, swift and breathtaking. And it is remarkable to bear witness to Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier (Brad Pitt, “World War Z”) leading a Sherman tank crew through the German countryside toward Berlin in spring of 1945. The aesthetic qualities too are remarkably immersive — from the .50 caliber anti-tank fire…
As a screen icon, Dracula has been reinvented over and over again. And many more overs. He’s been everyone from Bela Lugosi to Judas Iscariot and fought veteran vampire killers that range from the brilliant Buffy to the middling Blade at his lamest. He’s drawn the acute attention of such filmmaking masters as Murnau and…
When Kylie Bucknell is sentenced to house arrest for her part in the robbery of an ATM, she thinks that living with her estranged, overbearing mother will be her biggest problems. The noncorporeal resident of the house, however, has other plans in this horror comedy from New Zealand, Housebound. Kylie (Morgana O’Reilly, “We Feel Fine”)…
Finally, it’s here, the film not a single person has been waiting for, Men, Women & Children, essentially Jason Reitman’s “Reefer Madness” for the digital age, is a decade late tonally conflicted mess that completely misses its mark. The first comparison that comes to mind for this film, honestly, is the beginning of “Troll 2;”…
In The Shower (now retitled “Killer Party”), a group of Los Angeles suburbanites gather for a baby shower, only to find themselves in the middle of a pandemic that appears to change people into roving zombies. Alex Drummond’s directorial debut is amusing, but the plot and action are stretched a little too thinly for a…
The distinction between being a monster on the inside and being a monster on the outside is clearly of great interest to the creative minds at stop-motion animation house Laika Entertainment. The dangers of oblivious parenting and morally wayward adults in general are also wells of narrative possibilities that the Laika masterminds return to often….
