You cannot find Bacurau on any map of Brazil. That is because the town is fictional. The problem is that the residents of this small community in the northeast corner of Brazil can no longer find their town on Google Maps, or any GPS system either. Other strange things soon begin happening in Bacurau, winner…
Shakespeare’s Richard III famously said I can smile, and murder while I smile. The Joker has long been a character who will smile and cackle while he murders and terrorizes. In previous cinematic incarnations, the Joker has been a crime boss fried in acid (Jack Nicholson), an anarchic terrorist (Heath Ledger) and a pimped out…
Ready or Not was one of the highlights of London’s horror film festival FrightFest. Wonderful in its balance of scares and laughs, it brings together a fine cast with a viciously vibrant script and highly inventive direction. Much of the film’s genius comes from its central device of games, a device that structures both the…
A breathtaking fantastical journey through the height of Hollywood’s most reputable and rebellious era is simultaneously a justified and monotonous way to describe Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. Seeing classic views of the golden age of Tinseltown through the lens of the enigmatic and sometimes overbearing filmmaker is shocking…
On the surface Ari Aster’s Midsommar, is very similar to “Hereditary,” in that it too deals with a grieving protagonist who unwittingly finds herself slipping into the clutches of a murderous cult, but it deviates quite sharply from Aster’s debut feature in two interesting ways: One, it’s clearly a very dark comedy at times, not…
Finally getting a release in English-language regions is Latvian director Aik Karapetian’s follow-up to his grisly “The Man in the Orange Jacket,” Firstborn. Latvia sits between Scandinavia and Russia, so it’s perhaps apt that this stylish, moody thriller evokes some of the black-comic absurdity of the former and the miserablist austereness of the latter. From…
With Brightburn, David Yarovesky presents a welcomed twist to the superhero genre with his anti-superhero/horror hybrid that presents the perfect elevator pitch of what would happen if Superman wanted to hurt people instead of help them. Affiliated with eclectic director James Gunn (credited as a producer), Yarovesky is no stranger to the superhero genre having…
