Though an estranged family tackling a bank heist in order to save a sibling is a recipe for interesting discourses by way of “Dog Day Afternoon,” The Vault, unfortunately is not that kind of film. Dan Bush cut his teeth co-directing, co-writing and co-editing the extraordinarily effective thriller/horror “The Signal,” followed by the overlooked yet…
One of the most attractive and thrilling aspects of Tsugumi Ohba’s manga and Tetsuro Araki’s anime adaptation of Death Note, is that the persistent and ever-twisting mind games played against a stylish and neo-noir backdrop always seem to build on the one preceding it until it reaches unfathomable heights. Though there have been live-action adaptations…
Victorian London has been an effective setting since virtually the beginning of cinema, perhaps unsurprisingly since it was during this period that moving pictures first appeared. From the first adaptation of “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” to Basil Rathbone’s incarnation of “Sherlock Holmes,” from Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lodger” to Johnny Depp’s…
Eat Locals begins with a group of vampires convening in an English country farmhouse. Like Mafioso, they’re here to discuss their turf. Saucy Vanessa (Eve Myles, “Keeping Faith” TV series) has seduced a young Romany bloke named Sebastian (Billy Cook, “Trespass Against Us”) and introduced him as a potential replacement for a rogue vampire who’s…
From “Black Christmas” through “Silent Night, Deadly Night” and onto “Krampus,” there is a fine tradition of Christmas-themed horrors running through the decades, and Red Christmas, the feature debut from writer-director Craig Anderson, fits comfortably into the canon. The Christian festival of family and giving is the perfect backdrop for an ultra-violent cautionary tale about…
It is not often that one has reservations about a movie adaptation of an epic Stephen King novel series. Sure, there have been a few misses along the way (bound to happen considering how large King’s bibliography is), but it has been quite some time that a movie-going mishap has registered so profoundly as it…
Unpleasant without being scary, and full of style sans substance, Brian Visciglia’s feature debut, Ryde, comes off as a kind of misogynist “American Psycho.” There’s a hint of Christian Bale’s Bateman in David Wachs’ pristinely chiseled psychotic, but none of Bret Easton Ellis’ satire. Wachs (“The Last Hurrah”) plays Paul, an elusive loner who one…
