Why do studios make sequels? The cynical among us, who have sat through too many sucky seconds in a series say it’s a cheap and easy way for the studios to cash in: if it sold once, it will sell again. Why else was Exorcist II: The Heretic made? Then there are those rare sequels […]
Hansel and Gretel is a classic fairy tale we all think we know. A brother and sister get lost in the woods. They get hungry. They find a house made of candy and eat their fill. Too late, they discover the house is the home of a witch who tries to cook them for her […]
With most of the award season films already released and no real big money box office tent poles scheduled to come out until at least March, movie studios have always treated January and February as the dumping grounds for films they don’t have much confidence in. Maybe they’ve been sitting on a shelf gathering dust […]
From the very opening credits, Underwater is an unnerving experience. Along with listing the cast and crew who made the movie, the credits are filled with news headlines and pull quotes that seem to be giving away all the juicy details of the movie you are about to see. You read about some evil corporation […]
A police officer enters a home to find an elderly woman in the kitchen dripping blood from her mangled, fingerless hands. A few seconds later the cop almost falls into the maggot riddled corpse of the man’s wife, propped up in an old armchair in front of the TV. What happens next? Nothing. At another […]
There are many reasons a person goes to see a horror movie. They want to be scared. They want to be thrilled. They want to be grossed out. Above all, they want to be entertained. Not many people go to a horror movie to be lectured, and while there should be no arguing against the […]
Baby Yoda may have taken over the world, but while everyone is reveling in his cuteness-overload I was reminded of an equally precious predecessor. When the adorable mogwai Gizmo popped on-screen during a showing of Gremlins in 4DX, my heart sighed. His furry tiny body, and charming personality easily rival Baby Yoda. He was the […]
First, let’s set aside that old movie fan trope about the novel being better than the book, or vice versa, that gets dusted off every time the “Based on a Novel by Stephen King” card gets flashed in the opening credits. It may be a fun way to pass the time waiting for the next […]
It must have sounded great in the pitch meeting: It’s about an app you download to your phone that tells you how long you have to live. For most people it’s good news — “I’m gonna live to be 98!” – but one girl finds out she’s going to die in 2 days and so […]
Sequels can be such a crapshoot. The good ones take a story you already love and advance it in new and interesting ways. The bad ones simply rehash the original in unoriginal ways, leaving the audience cheated of both their money and their memories of what made the first movie so good. Although there are […]
Maybe if it had a different title such as “Smile” or “The Tears of a Clown” and the main character that wasn’t tied in, however clumsily, with the DC Universe then director Todd Phillips and actor Joaquin Phoenix might have made something special with their tale of a troubled soul’s descent into madness. Because Joker […]
Director Andy Muschietti’s follow up to his 2017 hit, It, debuted this weekend with a bigger and “badder” clown, an older and bolder Losers’ Club, and an even more ambitious story. It: Chapter Two takes place 27-years after the “defeat” of Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) by our heroes. After a few killer clown-like deaths, Mike (Isaiah […]
There is always a temptation to prepare for a movie sequel, or in the case of It Chapter Two a continuation, to watch the last film in the franchise and refresh your memory of what happened before. Well, don’t. Part of the thrill of watching It Chapter Two is experiencing the way director Andy Muschietti […]
And the Oscar goes to… Ok, the chances of Samara Weaving winning an Academy Award statue as Best Actress for her stellar work in Ready or Not are immeasurably slim, but that doesn’t mean her performance isn’t brilliant…because it is. Not only is she compelling and believable, something too many actors have a hard time […]
Two years ago genre fans watched a couple of girls climb into a shark cage and unexpectedly descend 47 Meters Down when the cable broke and the cage dropped to the ocean floor. As their air supply dwindled the girls had to face their fears, and the sharks they had been watching, to try and […]