While we still get plenty of Christmas movies these days, there’s some amount of charm missing from many of them. Titles from the 80s such as Santa Claus: The Movie, Prancer, and Ernest Saves Christmas might not be high art, but there seems to be a genuine effort to treat the subject matter with some magic. It’s not all winking at the audience. Leave it to 80s icon Kurt Russell to return some of that magic. The Christmas Chronicles is not a great movie. Its production values often make it feel like a movie of the week and the pacing…
Author: Justin
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If you grew up in the 80s, there’s a good chance you had a kid in school who tried to convince you Mac and Me was a good movie. They may have even tried to persuade you it’s better than E.T. Let’s be clear—this person was not your friend. Clearly, they hated you, art, and all that is decent. There’s also a good chance they were an employee of the McDonald’s corporation. For the second season of the rebooted Mystery Science Theater 3000, they kick off with the cinematic misfire Mac and Me. This is probably one of the most…
When it comes to teenage horror series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is still the aspirational target. No other series has blended teenage drama with macabre visions quite so successfully. The creators of this new Sabrina series obviously had Buffy in mind to some degree, because this is certainly not the 90s sitcom Sabrina many grew up with. But where Buffy winked at the audience to let them know they were in on the joke (starting with the title), Sabrina feels both more self-serious and silly at the same time. This is a much darker Sabrina with cannibalism, throat slitting, and…
A brief preview of the new book. Table of Contents The Lie: I’m Bad at Cultural Appropriation The Lie: Material Processions Don’t Define Me The Lie: My Children Aren’t Extensions of Myself The Lie: I Don’t Matter The Lie: I Don’t Know What That Sexual Position Is The Lie: I Weigh Less Than Janet But More Than Cindy The Lie: Me Drinking at Ten in the Morning is a Problem The Lie: I’m Slurrring Mai Wurdz The Lie: My Ass Looks Hot in These Jeans, Not The Lie: I Can’t Scrapbook The Lie: Girl, I Can Stop Saying Girl Anytime…
Director Mike Flanagan has been quietly putting together a pretty impressive career in horror films with Oculus, Hush, and Gerald’s Game. In hindsight, however, they all feel like his warmup act to The Haunting of Hill House. Beside the obvious thematic and cast similarities, they all feel like incremental steps to a crowning career achievement. Sort of how you look back on Duel as a sign of what is yet to come from Spielberg. That may seem a high compliment, and it should—The Haunting of Hill house is genuinely that good. Between this and season five of BoJack Horseman, Netflix…
Scary shows generally do not work on television. Even those that are labeled as such are usually remembered for an episode here or there. Everyone remembers the Flukeman episode of The X-Files, but people ignore all the non-scary episodes that came between it and other memorable ones. So, when you set out to adapt a classic novel into a haunted house series you definitely have your work cut out for you. Luckily, the producers of the new Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House are wildly successful in the pilot episode. There’s a bit of Lost to this version, as…
Well, this was a complete surprise. Originally filmed in the Basque (an area straddling France and Spain) language, this fantasy horror film has been dubbed into English for release on Netflix. The dubbing is surprisingly good and will go a long way to this one finding a wider audience. And it definitely should. Errementari is a throwback to the fantasy adventures of the 1980s like Legend, Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and The Neverending Story. It’s scary, funny, and thrilling all at the same time. It’s a retelling of an old blacksmith who makes a deal with a demon during war to…
What if The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was a horror film? That’s at least the very stimulating setup for Seven in Heaven, even if it not pays off to that level. This is the kind of disappointing movie where you feel like they came up with a clever premise but had no idea where to take it. In that way, it almost comes off as a bad Stephen King story. Jude and June get locked in a closet at a high school party while playing seven minutes in heaven. The only problem is, when the door is opened…
Unsane received a lot of attention before release because director Steven Soderbergh filmed the entire movie using an iPhone 7 Plus. So, let’s address that elephant in the room to begin—yes, it is noticeable. It’s especially noticeable early in the film when it simply doesn’t “look” like other films you’re used to seeing. That being said, that distracting very quickly dissipated for me and likely will for anyone who appreciates everything else this film has to offer. Claire Foy stars as Sawyer, a single young woman working in the city that decides to visit a therapist to deal with anxiety…
What is the mindset when writing a film like this? There’s not a single likable character throughout this entire movie. Is the assumption that most people hate sorority girls, even other sonority girls? So, it’s fine to portray them as not only vapid, but actively campaigning for us to cheer on their deaths? Where is the horror in watching people die who we want to die? Do the writers of this film go to World War II films and cry out about those poor Nazis? This shouldn’t be confused with The House on Sorority Row from 1983. While a remake…