[8] Pools of water are often used as symbols of our collective subconscious. Since Creature from the Black Lagoon is about a humanoid creature who emerges from the depths to kidnap a beautiful woman, you might then say the Creature is a symbol for male sexual desire. And then you might have a B-movie monster I can really sink my teeth into. Sure, it’s just …
[8] Imagine Twin Peaks from a child’s perspective, paired with the visual austerity of Days of Heaven, and that might give you an idea of what to expect from this odd but utterly compelling little movie. Jeremy Cooper stars as young Seth Dove, a boy whose friends die one by one while the sheriff searches for their killer. The sheriff thinks the killer is Seth’s …
[7] Barbara Hershey plays a single mother who is repeatedly sexually assaulted by an invisible force. I was impressed with how brutal and explicit the attacks are, right down to some creepy special effects that simulate the squeezing of Hershey’s breasts by unseen hands. Though the rapes are supernatural, they’re among the most terrifying I’ve seen on film, due largely to Hershey’s fearless performance. The …
[4] Just six years after directing The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, director Eugene Lourie goes back to the well for another giant lizard movie, only this time the monster is radioactive. While production values are high for a low-budget British production (British B-movies put American B-movies to shame, really), the resulting film is a far less successful one. Willis O’Brien’s stop-motion animation in the last …
[7] Emma Bell (Final Destination 5), Shawn Ashmore (X2: X-Men United), and Kevin Zegers (Wrong Turn) star in this claustrophobic thriller about three friends stranded on a ski-lift. Writer/director Adam Green (Hatchet, Holliston) winds the tension nicely, introducing wolves, frostbite, and paranoia to up the ante at regular intervals. The three leads all do well in their fairly juicy roles, especially Emma Bell, whose character …
#12: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) [2] This is the worst of the Fridays. The subtitle is a misleading marketing gimmick, as Jason only arrives in Manhattan for the last twenty minutes. Those twenty minutes are okay, if only to see Jason put a few New Yorkers in their place. But the rest of the movie is interminably boring and the …
[8] Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim) serves up an old-fashioned gothic romance the likes of which we haven’t seen on the big screen since Roger Corman last dabbled with tales from Edgar Allen Poe. Heavily inspired by the Bronte sisters and Hitchcock’s Rebecca, Crimson Peak is the story of Edith, a young turn-of-the-century American woman (Mia Wasikowska) wooed into the dangerous embrace of …
[3] I enjoyed the blend of dark humor and horror that Eli Roth brought to his first film, Cabin Fever. And even though it was pretty much torture porn, I thought Hostel had merit, too. But The Green Inferno is a mess to me. I instantly hated the characters. Granted, I think we’re supposed to hate them, but since the whole cannibal thing doesn’t really …
[7] When a high school class boards a plane for a field trip to Paris, one of the students (Devon Sawa) has a premonition that the plane will explode. He freaks out and unboards, bringing a few others with him (including Seann William Scott and Dawson’s Creek costar Kerr Smith), and sure enough — boom! But the kids find out that fate doesn’t like to …
[7] I think Kevin Smith (Chasing Amy, Red State) is a much more interesting filmmaker now that he’s making horror films. Tusk is a controversial move for the director — it’s too silly for die-hard horror fans, but too off-putting to be a comedy. Justin Long stars as a podcaster who travels to remote Canada to interview a strange but alluring old sea dog, played …
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