It’s a commonly held misconception that the exploitation cinema of the 1970s and early ’80s was “cheesy,” constituting unintentionally funny, poorly made trash notable only…
Edgar Wright is a man at home in pop culture. Despite a winking self-awareness of the tropes that drive their genres, his first two feature…
Redundant conversations about celebrity culture and nauseating puns about table seasonings are inevitably attached to an Angelina Jolie film entitled Salt. A mix of trite…
Time has had a unique effect on John McTiernan’s 1987 sci-fi action classic Predator. While its status as a genre benchmark has solidified over the…
“What’s the worst that could happen?” The smart viewer, upon hearing this phrase during a film, will cringe. This is always intended as a rhetorical…
The man is pale and severe and gaunt, terribly gaunt. His crisp white lab coat hangs on him as though it has always been there.…
Just four films into an already distinguished career, South Korea’s Bong Joon-ho has established himself as one of contemporary cinema’s most formidable genre directors. His…
For those who’ve spent hours on YouTube viewing parkour clips, there’s nothing more exhilarating than watching l’art du déplacement, the art of moving. Parkour, which…
After a yearlong delay, a replacement director, heavy reshoots, and multiple editors, The Wolfman is probably about as good as it could possibly be. It…
More vampires? Really? Is that what we need? You can’t swing a bat at the multiplex these days without hitting one, though it could be…
In The Road, John Hillcoat’s long-awaited, big-screen take on a most unlikely bestseller, the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper. It ends…
Right from the start, it’s clear no expense was spared and no detail neglected in Tony Jaa’s magnum opus actioner, Ong Bak 2: The Beginning.…
Richard Kelly’s new film is based on Richard Matheson’s short fiction “Button, Button,” in which a man gives a struggling couple a wooden box with…
Paranormal Activity reputedly had its genesis in director Oren Peli’s lifelong fear of ghosts, which led him to do intensive research into haunting, demonic possession,…
A postmodern mash-up of horror movie fun, The House of the Devil is a fascinating, sometimes frustrating homage to ’70s horror films, set firmly in…
Not unlike this year’s other half-baked sci-fi social commentary, District 9, Surrogates begins with a montage of thoroughly phony newsreel footage that forecasts the film’s…
Antichrist is an exorcism of the foulness and unmitigated hatred stewing inside notorious provocateur Lars von Trier. Its production follows a crippling depression which stifled…
Where do women fit in horror films? In a world dominated by Michael Myers, Leatherface, and Jigsaw, how can women identify with the onscreen action…
Adaptation is the medium of our time. For better or worse, appropriation has devolved from oxymoronic theories of postmodernism into a more practical mode of…
Rob Zombie’s die has been cast. In four pitches, he’s had a foul, a hit, and two huge strikes — an average that won’t put…