If you’re looking for a weed-centric horror film that will make the chillest of pastimes scary, Ariel Vida’s Trim Season may fill your need. After a mysterious murder/suicide leaves a pot plantation without trimmers, five young, down-on-their-luck people are invited to the rural forests of Northern California to work at, what turns out to be,…
The great thing about genre is that it offers fans straightforward and familiar material, but it also allows filmmakers the space to come up with new interpretations within established formulae. This is especially true of horror, and the challenge for the filmmaker is to offer scares within the blend of familiarity and innovation. Bishal Dutta’s…
The case of Lizzie Borden is popular and famous, to the extent of having effectively entered folklore. Taking place in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1892, the murders of Abby and Andrew Borden and the trial of Andrew’s daughter Lizzie the following year that ended in her acquittal, has been the subject of books, theatrical productions,…
The title The Man from Rome evokes the thriller genre, be that spy, conspiracy or crime. Think of “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,” or indeed, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” True to title, The Man From Rome utilizes tropes of conspiracy, espionage, mystery and action. It comes…
Every once in a while, I am glad to watch a movie that I wouldn’t normally watch. This, however, was not one of those times. In the 80 minutes that I sacrificed watching Breaking Infinity, an indie film about time travel, I did wonder if I could use their equipment to go back and not…
The good news about the film Condor’s Nest, an international revenge thriller set in 1950s Latin America that features a surviving WWII American airman Will Spalding (Jacob Keohane, “Halloween Kills”) in search of a sadistic SS Colonel (Arnold Vosloo, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”), is that it conforms to a three-act structure. This is…
“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes” — Macbeth Act 4, Scene 1 Pronouncements telling us that fair is foul, good is bad, and dark is light are what you might expect to hear from the propaganda machine of an ambitious politician or a news organization seeking to sow confusion. In…
