(Double Feature is a series of “double length” (400-word) posts where I’ll discuss two related pop culture artifacts) William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now have a great deal in common: both are supernatural horror films released in 1973, both now regarded as genuine classics. They’re each impeccably directed and feature rightfully…
Evil Dead isn’t a movie. It’s a rollercoaster. Typically the metaphor of a rollercoaster is used to describe something with extreme highs and lows. But good rollercoasters have a slow accumulation of tense anticipation during the rickety ascent to the highest point, then the terrifying exhilaration of the descent – and that exhilaration doesn’t just…
What, exactly, is there to recommend My Bloody Valentine? Perhaps it would’ve been worthwhile seeing it in actual 3D, in the cinema. The film has certainly made plentiful concessions to the gimmick – eyeballs popping out of people’s skulls and so forth – which might have been exciting back in the ‘80s. To achieve this…
(Double Feature is a series of “double length” (400-word) posts where I’ll compare two related pop culture artifacts) The best scary movies impress themselves upon you. They resurface as you walk down a darkened corridor to your bedroom in the deep of the night, or as your house creaks and shudders in a strong breeze.…
Most psychological thrillers take great pleasure in pulling the rug from under the audience’s feet in the last act, toying with expectations. The it’s-all-a-dream, no-wait-it-isn’t “twists” that conclude both Audition and Trance are testament to a genre that’s all about the mindfuck. Jacob’s Ladder never pretends there’s a rug in the first place. Early scenes…
Is Funny Games a good film? I’m not sure. It is, undeniably, interesting, and that’s almost as important as “good.” Director Michael Haneke set out to challenge audience reactions to stylised violence and suggest the viewer’s complicity. The film is a provocation, an unsubtle attack on its own audience. I don’t know that Haneke is…
It’s taken me a while to collect my thoughts on the pilot of Hannibal, a show that’s simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. On its surface it’s of a piece of many other shows – it’s an investigative procedural (thankfully avoiding any fancy-schmancy forensic technology) and certainly concerns serial killers, like the critically-reviled The Following. Like Bates…
The recent death of Jess Franco inspired me to revisit his filmography (well, some of it). Like many of his films, A Virgin among the Living Dead is laced with an erotic energy, but it’s built on a seductive, languorous atmosphere rather than just flashes of naughty bits (though there’s plenty of them, natch). Discovering…
Prom Night III may have been an average film, not as clever or funny as it thought it was, but at least it was clear that the producers had a good time making it. There’s no such vibe here, with this third sequel coming across a cheap cash-in (or possibly a rough adaptation of an…
“What relationship? You kill them; I bury them in the football field! This is not your basic boy-meets-girl!” The gradual shift of the Prom Night series into Nightmare on Elm Street is complete here; Mary Lou even comes complete with retractable blade-nails. Except this time she murders not to avenge her unjust death (Prom Night…
ccpopculture 