Horror Films
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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 […]