Film #9: Targets

It's time for us to rethink what constitutes a horror film, especially in this time of exquisitely poured-over daily bloodbaths. I know that, in literary circles, the horror genre has split into “fantasy horror”--Frankenstein, Dracula, ghosts and the sort--and “modern horror,” which considers serial killers, madmen and mass murderers. But why doesn’t this distinction exist as strictly for movies?

Film #8: The Innocents

In 1961, British director Jack Clayton delivered one of the greatest horror movies ever made--the ghost story to best all ghost stories. His exquisite adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw is boldly frightening, sexually suggestive, and beautifully shot (by Freddie Francis). Deborah Kerr, in perhaps her finest performance, plays a repressed nanny whose new charge--taking care of two

Film #7: Night Moves

With Night Moves, director Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde, The Miracle Worker) emerged with his best effort since 1970's Little Big Man and, as he did in Coppola's The Conversation a few years earlier, star Gene Hackman marked his career with another outwardly strong, inwardly crippled character. This time he plays Harry Moseby, an emotionally distant former football star now operating as a

The 80th Academy Awards--overview

The 80th Oscars, of course, were given out on Sunday the 24th of February, 2008. I have been a lifelong fan of the Oscars and their ability to teach us about some of the best the picture biz has to offer in any given year. This is not to say that I agree with their picks as a whole; 60% of the time, I disagree to whatever they picked as a winner, for any given year or category. Yet I still value

Film #6: Blood Simple

I thought I'd include one of my first reviews, written for my college newspaper in 1985, in honor of the Coens finally set, 22 years later, to get the recognition they deserve from Hollywood. By the way, this is largely the way the original story appeared, but I've been unable to resist editing it. I can't tell if this is a breach of ethics or what, but certainly full disclosure is at least

Film #5: The Conqueror Worm a.k.a. Witchfinder General

One of the horror genre’s most criminally overlooked classics is 1968’s The Conqueror Worm. Known in the U.K. as Witchfinder General, this extraordinarily downbeat tale stars Vincent Price as Matthew Hopkins, the real-life henchman for Cromwell in wartorn 17th century England who was assigned to find and prosecute witches hidden within the country’s tiny townships. He’s an intriguing character

Film #4: Thesis

Alajandro Amenabar’s 1996 film Thesis was made a few years before he stunned American audiences with his hallucinatory Open Your Eyes, but his debut, which won six Spanish Goyas (their Oscar equivalents), is more impressive. Ana Torrent is terrific as a film student working on a thesis about extreme violence in the media. While researching, she gets wind of a snuff video shot in Czechlosovakia,