Film

A collection of 523 posts

Film

91st Academy Awards Reaction and Winners

The 91st Academy Awards happened last night. I cannot speak to the broadcast as I opted to dive into Umbrella Academy instead. Yes, a slick superhero series with some…issues in how it portrays anyone except for straight white men felt far more relaxing than a night of awards that could bring serious

Film

Zombie Musicals and You: A Guide to What You Never Knew You Needed More Of

Anything can be turned into a musical. That’s not a signifier of quality. It’s an invitation to try.

Event

Oscar Nominations and Final Awards

The 2018 Academy Award nominations came out last Tuesday and they have me feeling a certain way. I’m going to break down the major categories and share my final nominees and winners in the correlative categories. Let’s get to it.

Film

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch Review (2018)

Black Mirror, more than any other current TV show, attempts to subvert our understanding of media and society in the digital age. Bandersnatch takes everything the series is known for and recontextualizes it in a new form.

Film

Best Films of 2018

2018 was a wonderful year for films across multiple genres, languages, and styles. I did the best I could with this list to present a list I felt comfortable celebrating this year. Even though I appreciated many films released this year, I’m growing increasingly impatient with films that are negativ

Film

First Look: Jordan Peele's Us

On Christmas Day, Universal Pictures released the first trailer for Jordan Peele’s new horror film Us. Jordan Peele is the Academy Award-winning writer/director of last year’s breakout horror film Get Out. He somehow found the time to write and direct another horror film while also developing the la

Film

Dumplin' Review (Film, 2018)

Willowdean Dixon is the daughter of the biggest celebrity in her hometown. Her mother, Rosie, is both a former Miss Teen Bluebonnet and the current director of the longest running pageant in the history of Texas. Willowdean was basically raised by her Aunt Lucy because her mother was too busy fulfil

Film

The 76th Annual Golden Globe Nominations

This morning, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the nominees for the 76th annual Golden Globe Awards. The ceremony, honoring film and television, will be broadcast live on 6 January at 8 pm EST. These nominees tend to be quite different from the Oscars or the Emmys as the HFPA is com

Film

Thoughts on the Dumbo Remake Trailer

Consider Dumbo my problematic favorite. It’s, sadly, not hard to think of times that the Walt Disney Company produced incredibly racist content in its feature and short films. There’s Sunflower, the black centaur and handmaid to the white and blonde centaur in Fantasia, drawn with exaggerated Jim Cr

Film

Little Evil Review (Film, 2017)

Content warning: Little Evil features a scene about suicide in reference to another horror film. Little Evil is a horror-comedy film about the evil child horror genre. Yes, the film is an evil child film, specifically an antichrist film. At its core, it’s a tribute to the absurdity of the genre. Do

Film

Detective Pikachu Trailer

As a Pokemon fan from the start, did I ever think the franchise would be big enough to be adapted into a major Hollywood live action film? No. No I did not. I also didn’t think we’d get seven generations of Pokemon games and over 1000 episodes of the anime, but here we are.

Film

Halloween Review (Film, 2018)

It’s been 40 years since Michael Myers escaped from a mental hospital for a killing spree on Halloween night. Laurie Strode, the young woman who survived, has spent every day since then preparing for his return to Haddonfield. She sacrificed her money, her social life, and even her family to set up

Event

Antibirth Review (Film, 2016) #31DaysofHorror

Content warning: the foundation of Afterbirth is sexual assault implied but not shown at the start of the film. Antibirth is modern weird fiction. There’s really no other way to describe it. It’s a modern psychedelic horror film with a very loose plot connecting a lot of strange imagery meant to sc

Event

The Ritual Review (Film, 2018) #31DaysofHorror

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get into a film. You can acknowledge its merits, appreciate the technical quality of the film, and just get nothing from the overall story. It makes reviewing a film like The Ritual a challenge.

Event

Beyond the Gates Review (Film, 2016) #31DaysofHorror

This will shock any long time reader of this site. I once had an obsession over a board game. Yes, shocking news from your friendly OCD critic here. It was called The Harbingers and was part of a VHS board game series called Atmosfear. I was obsessed with this game. My parents knew that I would just

Event

A Dark Song Review (Film, 2017) #31DaysofHorror

Content warning: A Dark Song features scenes of violence against women and sexual assault. A Dark Song is a film about truth and perception. A woman, grieving the loss of her son, is willing to do anything to feel a sense of relief from the pain of her loss. She hires an occultist to take her throu

Event

American Poltergeist Review (Film, 2015) #31DaysofHorror

American Poltergeist is a horror film inspired by the Lizzie Borden story. A group of five college students move into a too good to be true mansion so they can live off campus while attending Brown University. They are renting rooms from a woman who does not tell them anything about the history of t

Event

Errementari Review (Film, 2018) #31DaysofHorror

Errementari is a retelling of one of the oldest folk tales in the world. “The Smith and the Devil” is the tale of a blacksmith who makes a deal with the devil. Whatever the deal is, the blacksmith uses his new power to trap the devil and torment him until the deal is broken and the smith regains con

Event

Stephanie Review (Film, 2018) #31DaysofHorror

Stephanie is a horror film about isolation and fear from the perspective of a young child. Stephanie is living on her own. We see her try to do the best she can to survive. She cooks with the few ingredients left in her house—some frozen and canned fruits and vegetables—that aren’t rotting. Aside fr

Event

Unsane Review (Film, 2018) #31DaysofHorror

Unsane is a horror film about mental health care. Yes, we’re toying with problematic subject matter here for the horror genre. Somehow, director Steven Soderbergh and writers Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer craft a horror film that doesn’t vilify mental health patients, largely because the main c

Event

The Devil's Candy Review (Film, 2015) #31DaysofHorror

The Devil’s Candy is a possession/haunted house film with a metal soundtrack and edge. A family moves into their dream house, even though they are told their dream house just had two people die in it a few days before. The father starts to exhibit the same signs and troubles of the surviving member

Event

Prodigy Review (Film, 2018) #31DaysofHorror

A psychologist is brought into a secret government facility to perform an evaluation. The subject is a nine year old girl tied to a chair with a straight jacket and kept in a locked room. Her appearance belies a genius intellect and a sadistic streak that led her to kill her own mother with no remor

Event

Tales of Halloween Review (Film, 2015) #31DaysofHorror

Tales of Halloween is an anthology horror film with 10 segments all set in the same town on Halloween night. To say the concept is ambitious is an understatement. The framing device is a radio broadcast (performed by Adrienne Barbeau, a wonderful piece of casting) describing all the dangers of Hallo

Event

Fear, Inc. Review (Film, 2016) #31DaysofHorror

Scream [https://sketchydetails.us/sketchy-details/film/film-review-scream-4-2011?rq=scream] sent the American horror industry in a very different direction upon its release. Forget about the resurgence of teen slashers in its wake or the stunt casting of a bigger name for the sole purpose of a shock

Event

Malevolent Review (Film, 2018) #31DaysofHorror

Sometimes, a film makes so many mistakes, it’s actually impressive that it managed to be finished at all. Malevolent is one of the most misguided, unfocused, and just plain poorly planned horror films I’ve encountered in a long time.