Horror Films
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Let the Right One In (R)
Early in Let the Right One In, a young bully asks his victim, “What are you looking at?” Soon we find the victim, a dispassionate boy named Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), fantasizing about turning the question back on his tormentor. His rehearsed vengeance is overheard by the vampire Eli (Lina Leandersson), and well into her courtship […]
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Halloween (R)
Let’s just get this out of the way: the new Halloween commits a cardinal horror movie sin in that it all feels too safe. In other words, it’s not scary. This latest sequel erases the rest of the canon in favor of being a direct follow up to John Carpenter’s 1978 original. Almost by fiat, this is surely the […]
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Interpreting ‘The Shape’ of Halloween (R)
Originally conceived as The Babysitter Murders, the plot for Halloween is actually about as streamlined as that title might suggest. It features several babysitters, a hulking man with a knife, and some murders. But in the hands of any director other than John Carpenter, we wouldn’t still be talking about Halloween forty years later. It is, in fact, one of […]
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Venom (PG-13)
When I was a very young boy, I thought Venom was pretty cool. I liked Spider-Man, and I liked dinosaurs, and I imagine this is why the idea of a carnivorous Spider-Man held some appeal for me. It is more difficult to pinpoint the source of the morbid curiosity that drove me to the theater this weekend, where I forked over twelve dollars to see Sony Pictures’ Venom under the pretense of “taking one for the FilmFisher team.”
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In the Mouth of Madness (R)
Last month, I had the pleasure of attending a horror triple feature at the Egyptian Theater that was a part of an ongoing series known as “New England Nightmares.” To be perfectly honest, New England has always been the perfect setting for ghost stories and horrifying haunts. It is a landscape where an original way […]
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Hereditary (R)
Horror films are fickle things. The genre has been undeservedly judged as a lower art form, which has led to some perception that the only function horror can have is to produce cheap shocks and minor thrills. Every so often, however, a film comes along and completely challenges that notion. At their best, horror films expose […]
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Upgrade (R)
When did we collectively decide that summer moviegoing should be franchise fare only? Aside from the odd comedy or rare sleeper hit, there’s been this horrible recurrent trend that the summer movie session is ripe for every manner of sequel, prequel, remake, reboot, and intellectual property to dominate the box office. The problem is, these films are becoming increasingly unsatisfying and they never quite feel like the kinds of big crowd pleasers that will stand the test of time.
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A Nightmare on Elm Street (R)
Imagine, if you will, a perfect American suburb. You know the kind, probably only immortalized on the silver screen or through photography. All the houses are colonial style, possibly Victorian, with white picket fences and freshly mowed grass. The neighborhood’s safe enough for the kids to play without adult supervision, and everyone is familiar with who lives on their block. But scratch that seemingly perfect veneer, and there’s decay under the surface.
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Annihilation (R)
Like Alex Garland’s first film, Ex Machina, Annihilation is a tense, well-paced story set in an oppressive environment and haunted by an uncanny terror. The score is dissonant and unsettling, the rules that govern the world are mysterious yet coherent, and its horror scenes are truly chilling. Lena (Natalie Portman) is a former soldier turned […]
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The Witch (R)
Long time readers of this website will have no problem predicting where a review of this film was apt to begin. “Let us not neglect meeting together…” as St. Paul teaches. “…ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is…” as the blessed Jeremiah teaches. Either of these verses ought to do for […]
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The Hateful Eight (R)
2015 was a banner year for westerns. The genre, once one of Hollywood’s most profitable and now one of its least – the financial disaster of 2013’s unjustly reviled extravaganza The Lone Ranger was the final nail in that coffin – seemed doomed to fade into obscurity. However, rather than living on solely through the occasional indie […]
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Drunk gods: Victor Frankenstein (PG-13)
When I remembered that Igor was never a character in the original Frankenstein story, I began to expect less of Victor Frankenstein, which makes Igor its main character. When I discovered that this version’s Frankenstein lives in a steampunk London, my expectations lowered yet more. They would descend much lower still. This is a shame, […]
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The Material Fix Fails The Spiritual Crisis: It Follows (R)
Let me overstate the case: at least so far as Hollywood is concerned, horror is the one genre which yet thrives. I’ll come to back this in a moment. I once had a friend who had the awful job of reading unsolicited scripts submitted to a major Hollywood studio. All the scripts he read were […]
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A Simple Plan (R)
“The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist,” writes Baudelaire. It is the greatest trick of modernity, beginning with the Enlightenment, as well. And, if the various modern social projects from capitalism to communism had anything in common, it was their motivation to convince all of us that […]
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Enemy (R)
Encountering a double, or doppelganger, is an ancient fear with long literary credentials. There’s something primeval about it, the pagan myths are replete with twins, both evil and otherwise, and the Bible has some very famous twins of its own (Jacob and Esau being the primary example), but perhaps the one that connects most readily […]
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Jaws (PG)
When you think of Steven Spielberg’s greatest disciple, you probably think of Robert Zemeckis. You probably don’t think of David Fincher. However, if you were unlucky enough to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or Se7en, you might find the following Fincher quote rather telling: “I don’t know how much movies should entertain. To […]
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Psycho (R)
Only one horror story has ever been written and it is Oedipus the Tyrant by Sophocles. Freud had the story wrong, although he was closer than Rene Girard. Peter Leithart’s account of Oedipus in Heroes of the City of Man is one of the more penetrating I have ever read and the one I prefer […]
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The Quiet Ones (PG-13)
More than other genres, horror movies invite us to pay attention to filmmaking itself. We watch the edges of the frame, tense up along with the music, and hold our breath for the slightest footfall or door creak. As a quick exercise, spend some time watching trailers on the iTunes movie trailers page . You will […]
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300: Rise Of An Empire (R)
Some days call for dumb movies. Every now and then, on a late night or a quiet Saturday afternoon, there’s reason enough to watch something that will advance your psyche in no way. I admit it. I’d even go so far as to allow Zack Snyder’s 300 (the 2006 one) to be such. Maybe. It […]
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Carrie (R)
You can only push someone so far before they break. Based on the Stephen King novel of the same title, Carrie (2013) is a suspenseful and horrific tragedy about a teenage girl who is tortured her entire life by her psychotic mother and relentless peers and ultimately destroys herself and her community with her inherited […]