Broadcast Signal Intrusion is built on used parts, but Gentry executes his vision with queasy dread and necessary ambiguity. Working late nights transferring tapes of old broadcasts to disc, James comes across a strange pirate broadcast in the middle of a 1987 newscast. The images…
Coming Home in the Dark isn’t breaking new ground and its ending is a bit too tidy, but it’s a film that feels genuinely dangerous for most of its runtime. As more than a few commentators have noted, the specter of Michael Haneke — that…
Prisoners of the Ghostland is neither Sono nor Cage’s finest work, but it’s a good enough fix for those in need of either’s madman energy. If there’s any director working today that understands what Nicolas Cage means when he describes his style as “nouveau shamanic,”…
Cryptozoo is both technically and thematically potent, but it’s the film’s third act which cements it as an exceptional and surprising animated work. In Cryptozoo, artist and animator Dash Shaw concocts an unusual story about cryptids, which, for cryptozoological initiates, are mythical creatures of…
On the strength of Gunn’s outré humor and filmmaking sensibilities, The Suicide Squad is nothing less than the most enjoyable comic book flick in a quick minute. With David Ayer’s 2016 Suicide Squad being roundly considered an abject failure (despite heavy studio meddling) and the…
Rob Schroeder’s Ultrasound exists on an uneasy continuum between genuinely unsettling weirdness and J.J. Abrams-style mystery-box storytelling, where plot exists solely as a twist delivery system to jolt an unsuspecting audience. It leans more towards the former than the later, for the better, but…
Integrating the texture of noir into a feminist revenge flick — tilting towards, but not exactly near an exploitation film — Catch the Fair One mines discursive topicality in its tale of a female boxer, Kaylee (real-life world champion Kali Reis in her debut,…
Prolific Oklahoma underground filmmaker Mickey Reece is out there blowing up everyone’s spot again with another affecting and deeply idiosyncratic work that — like previous films such as Climate of the Hunter or Alien — is as specific as it is almost uncategorizable. Agnes…
At this point, it’s fairly useless to ascribe Studio Ghibli qualities to any new anime release, so diluted have such comparisons become, but there’s an undeniable touch of that familiar eco fabulism to Studio 4°C’s latest, Poupelle of Chimney Town. Based on a children’s…
The Spine of Night is a whole lot of movie. Despite the film’s relatively straightforward fantasy logline — sorcerer goes mad with power, attempts to take over and/or destroy the world, unassuming hero saves the day — both its narrative and animation feature a…
