Reviews

A collection of 542 posts

Film

The Torment of Laurie Ann Cullom Review (Film, 2014) The Archives

The Torment of Laurie Ann Cullom likes to play with genre expectations. The opening credit scroll is reminiscent of the recent wave of found footage/this is a true story films that overtook horror for quite a few years. The throwback 80’s period styling and sense of humor feels like the rise of meta

Film

Rattlesnake Review (Film, 2019)

Katrina and her daughter Clara are starting a new life with a cross-country move. Katrina has to stop to fix a flat tire in the desert. Clara wanders away from the car and is bitten by a rattlesnake. Fortunately, there is a trailer right off the road. The woman inside promises to help Clara while Ka

Reviews

Don't F With Cats Review (TV Series, 2019)

Don’t F With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer is a three-part documentary series that delivers exactly what the title says. A group of people who only know each other through Facebook find a disturbing video of an anonymous man murdering two kittens. They begin working together to identify the man t

Film

American Mary Review (Film, 2013) The Archives

American Mary is a wild film. It’s a quiet character study of a poor medical student turned extreme body modifier. It’s a modern spin on Frankenstein with multiple Doctor/Monster connections. It’s a revenge/exploitation film from a distinctly feminist perspective with only one clear villain turned i

Film

Deadcon Review (Film, 2019)

In the early days of the Internet, a struggling inventor makes a deal with an independent personality in his computer program to make his work a success. He needs to bring real life friends over so the computer program can make itself a success. Jump to the present and a social media convention is h

Reviews

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness Review (TV Series, 2020)

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness is a true-crime documentary series on Netflix. The central figure is Joe Exotic, a convicted felon who ran an exotic animal zoo and illegal breeding program for tigers and other wild cats out of Oklahoma. The series meanders through a lot of other stories that

Film

The Platform Review (Film, 2020)

In The Platform, Goreng wakes up in a vertical prison. Each floor has two inmates and a giant hole in the floor and the ceiling. Once a day, a platform descends and stops on each floor for the prisoners to eat for two minutes. However, the food is only loaded in at the top of the prison tower. After

Film

Onward Review (Film, 2020)

Onward opens with a montage of historical high fantasy epics in the town. Flash forward to the present, and the town is still populated with high fantasy creatures. They just live like us in modern society. Ian, a shy elf, is celebrating his sixteenth birthday. He wants to be like his dad, who sadly

Film

Pure Review (Film, 2019)

Shay has recently reconnected with her birth father Steve and agreed to join him and her half-sister Jo on a religious retreat. It is a Father/Daughter celebration of purity led by Pastor Seth. He preaches the responsibility of girls to follow the rules set out by their earthly and heavenly fathers

Film

Little Monsters Review (Film, 2019)

At the end of the second act of Little Monsters, David is having a quiet conversation with Audrey about her work. She is a kindergarten teacher, and she is good at her job. He’s taken aback when she actually speaks like a normal adult for the first time in front of him. The audience has already seen

Film

The Autopsy of Jane Doe Review (Film, 2016)

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is medical/body horror, haunted house, home invasion, and thriller combined in one effective horror story. Austin works for his father Tommy in the family morgue. He’s about to leave for a night out with his girlfriend Emma when Sheriff Burke wheels a body into the facility.

Games

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Review (Game, 2020)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is one of the newer Nintendo franchises, first appearing in the transition period between the N64 and the GameCube. You play as a villager, who moves into a new town and is quickly put in charge. You catch fish and insects, gather fruit, dig for fossils, and collect sup

Film

Bird Box Review (Film, 2018)

Bird Box is the kind of horror film that happens when horror is not used as an excuse to ignore good filmmaking techniques. Critically acclaimed filmmaker Susanne Bier steps into the director seat for an apocalyptic horror film with a concept requiring a subtle, sensitive approach to the subject mat

Film

Frozen II Review (Film, 2019)

I will say that I enjoyed Frozen II in spite of myself. The quality of the animation is great. The music is so much more adventurous and tuned into the strengths of the returning voice cast. The expanded mythology has some fascinating elements that can surely pay off when the inevitable Frozen III i

Film

Swallow Review (Film, 2020)

Swallow is a different kind of horror film. It’s driven by feeling and concept more than plot. It’s defined as much by the incredible cast as it is by the use of color and light. Writer/director Carlo Mirabella-Davis crafts a horror film of obsession and deflection.

Film

In the Tall Grass Review (Film, 2019)

In the Tall Grass is playing on a similar idea. If you enter the tall grass, you can’t leave. The world shifts around you, voices echo from the wrong direction, and you will never find your way to the road again. It’s also adapted from a novella by Stephen King and Joe Hill by writer/director Vincen

Reviews

Harley Quinn Review (TV, 2019-20)

Harley Quinn is the exception that proves the rule. It is a good series. It’s just incredibly dark for what I expected from DC animation. I’m used to Wonder Woman buying a little girl an ice cream cone or Green Lantern going down like Wile E. Coyote. I’m not used to shocking closeups of shattered sh

Books/Print

Super Sales on Super Heroes Books 1-3 by William D. Arand Review (Book Review, 2017-2019)

Felix lives in a world where superpowers are common. He has powers, too, but they’re pretty terrible. He can pull up a DnD character sheet for anything he owns and upgrade traits with a limited supply of points. Where he lives (Skipper City), superheroes are illegal and supervillains run everything.

Film

Fueled by Nostalgia: Revisiting Beloved Films in New Animated Forms

Did I ever expect to be comparing a big budget Disney remake with an accidentally absurdist Tom and Jerry film? No. But here we are.

Film

Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn Review (Film, 2020)

Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn refuses all of the superhero genre standards standards. This is a cartoonish crime drama where a grand total of one character has anything resembling a superpower. Everyone else is just really lucky or trained in a specific weapon.

Reviews

Next in Fashion Review (TV Series, 2020)

Next In Fashion is a fashion designer reality series with excellent production design. It’s a gorgeous show. It’s well lit with state of the art equipment available to every contestants. Fabric and notions are provided in a supply room revealed with dramatic lighting after each challenge is announce

Film

Atlantics Review (Film, 2019)

Mati Diop makes quite a statement in her debut narrative feature Atlantics. She crafts an original paranormal drama with romantic elements unlike anything I’ve encountered before. She plays with reinventing the tropes of the literary Gothic in a way that celebrates marginalized people and otherizes

Film

See You Yesterday Review (Film, 2019)

See You Yesterday is a response to police brutality against people of color in America. It’s a time travel adventure story about trying to right society’s wrongs no matter what the cost. It’s a tribute to the optimism of youth and a critique of how often society pushes the next generation to solve p

Film

The Turning Review (Film, 2020)

Director Floria Sigismondi’s spin on The Turn of the Screw is an ambiguous text in a way that can only happen onscreen. There is no easy answer. There is no right or wrong interpretation. It’s a series of events inspired by the Henry James’ story told in a specific but not necessarily chronological

Books/Print

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood Review (Novel, 2019)

The Testaments, the long-awaited but never-expected sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, is an intentionally problematic text. Atwood is expanding the world of Gilead with three very different perspectives from the powerless Offred in the original novel. The three characters tell their own stories of what