“Miraglia’s deliberate interweaving of castles and glimmering blades taps into the one element that both Gothic and giallo art share: the ability to taffy-pull delight from terror. Both Poe and Bava would tip their hats.”
“Alice, Sweet Alice’s attitude is an unforgiving one. What, Sole asks, is the difference between Alice, who hurts because she’s sociopathic, and the zealous Ms. Tredoni, who hurts out of righteousness?”
“Rob Grant’s ‘Harpoon’ exudes all the sly confidence of a well-prepared and half-in-the-bag wedding table orator.”
“‘Don’t Look Now’ stands as one of the best iterations of the giallo film. It takes the best elements of the commercialized Italian psycho-thriller and presents them with a Hitchcockian flair.”
“Fantasy exists to create a place of greater safety, a rejection of the real world in favour of one that allows for an open, unapologetic queerness.”
“Esterhazy’s direction is consistently flat and uninspired given the nonstop opportunities for twisted weirdness, but the failure of ‘The Banana Splits Movie’ can be pinned almost entirely on the sawdust-packed script…”
“As a kind of grown-up ‘Clue’ in reverse, complete with the tribute appearance of a pepper-box revolver, ‘Ready or Not’ also lays out a motley assortment of Colonel Mustard and Mrs. Peacock-worthy opponents hell-bent on dispatching Grace prior to sun-up.”
“An efficient script and commanding central performance from Sarah Bolger produce a memorable film with mostly intelligently drawn characters.”
“From a technical perspective, ‘Feedback’ is extremely potent for long stretches. However, in aspiring to be relevant to current affairs, the film eschews effective simplicity for confused complexity.”
“Although ‘Come to Daddy’ slightly loses while accelerating to its conclusion, the splatter of dark comedy and dysfunctional father-son dynamics is always engaging and frequently smart.”
weet, Sweet Lonely Girl Movie Essay: Logan Kenny on A.D. Calvo’s 2016 film starring Quinn Shephard and Susan Kellermann.
“What ‘Tigers Are Not Afraid’ doesn’t contain in terms of deep characters and real-world specificity, it makes up for with its supernatural elements, allowing its allegory to resonate.”
“‘Luz’ may be a distancing film, but it’s ultimately a fascinating and genuinely creepy one, forging as it does a bold new vision for the tired old demon possession movie, taking a cue from the demons of the subgenre and putting new life into its subject.”
“While it might be easy to assume that films like ‘Natural Born Killers’ and ‘Funny Games’ simply demonise their audiences as wanting the thrill of violence without thinking about the consequence of it, the films instead ask questions, instead of only providing answers.”
“If part of the horror genre’s mission is to elicit fear through the erosion of safety, then the endings of ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Midsommar’ are the ultimate expression of that mission.”
“‘The Blair Witch Project’ isn’t a horror film experience on par with ‘The Exorcist’ or ‘The Shining,’ but that’s not a fair comparison. It’s an experience all its own.”
“‘Midsommar’ is all steak, no sizzle, and no real lessons are learned other than, maybe, ‘Screw your mansplaining boyfriend.’”
“Coppola’s recent work is not a ‘return to form,’ whatever that means, but rather part of an ongoing exploration of what the form can do, showing an artist increasingly interested in only trying things he hasn’t done before.”
“Brice and company get too tied up in the character comedy for ‘Corporate Animals’ to work as a satire (or to really say anything at all), and the televisual filmmaking isn’t helped by a plotline that could have been a single episode of ‘The Office.'”
“Hazarika’s is a voice that comes from outside of the Bollywood canon and reverberates sharp and hard throughout the cinemascape of the country. May it grow only louder.”
