Author: Michael Williams
Canadian director and writer Brandon Cronenberg’s third film, Infinity Pool, is a critically well-received, bewildering film that lends itself to widespread interpretation. Many reviewers discuss its timely, global topics such as criticism of class systems and wealth inequality, the negative consequences of tourism, and the risks of self-indulgence. On a smaller, personal scale, Infinity Pool
Vampires, the mythical beings that exist between the living and the dead, serve as versatile and useful metaphors for examining the puzzling concerns of life. Themes of dysfunctional families, suppressed sexuality, and addiction course through the veins of many vampiric narratives. Perhaps because they exist in the liminal space between the two spheres of existence,
Francesco Picone’s Dead Bride (2022) is not a live-action version of Corpse Bride, Tim Burton’s animated, family-friendly necrophilic tale. Although it borrows many elements from beloved horror films, such as a murdered bride seeking vengeance, this movie copies but fails to reach the same qualities as the films it emulates. As with many supernatural stories,
Candy Land (2022) is a religious-horror-themed slasher film that upends established genre conventions in unexpected and gripping ways. Writer-director John Swab (Let Me Make You a Martyr) tells the gritty story of a group of prostitutes that live and work in a rural and isolated truck stop. Tension mounts as a killer stalk them and
Jean Rollin was a French director of fantastique films whose films remained obscure throughout most of his career. Thanks to longtime admirers, his haunting and poetic visions are seducing a new generation of fans with their somnolent worlds of spectacle and melancholy. The documentary Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin (2022) explores
In the Fall of 2022, the horror movie community got a jolt when the trailer for director Gerard Johnstone’s and screenwriter Akela Cooper’s sci-fi/horror film, M3GAN, dropped. The trailer’s creepy, dancing doll, at once recognizable both as human-shaped and unhuman in its weird movements and affectless face, became a viral sensation. M3GAN is more
“Yodel me this!” – Heidi Long before home media and even longer before video streaming, the only way to see original movies was to go to the theater. Most theaters concentrated on showing popular content, movies made for their wide box-office appeal from major film studios. Despite the rare “art house” cinemas, the other alternative
Take a group of unhappy people, add a ghost, and plenty of bad life advice, and the result may look something like F. C. Rabbath’s 2020 film, The Waiting. Billed as a horror romantic comedy, The Waiting tries to be many things yet masters of none. Eric Brady, a new hotel employee, stumbles upon an
Christmas Bloody Christmas is an over-the-top slay ride of holiday cheer fear! Writer and director Joe Begos (VFW, Bliss) always delivers a combination of good storytelling and delirious, gory violence to audiences. Digging deep into genres like horror, science fiction, and heavy metal music, each one of his films is unique in content. Viewers can
This Halloween certainly offered up more spooky offerings than usual. Some of the terrible things involve ghastly treats for children, witch hunters looking for victims to torture and burn, and a police force too busy selling the dead to protect the living. All of this and more pours from the mad mind of an author