Body at Brighton Rock (dir. Roxanne Benjamin, 2019) Brighton Rock, published in 1938, isn’t one of my favorite novels by Graham Greene, though it is very representative of his work, at once a crime thriller and a literary exploration of guilt and Catholicism. It’s a story about a gangster, a waitress, and the weight of … Continue reading Body at Brighton Rock

Top of the Food Chain (dir. John Paizs, 1999) An aggressively horny pastiche of a bygone genre full of stylized performances, filmed in the Academy ratio, and deeply Canadian in content? Who made this, Guy Maddin? No, Top of the Food Chain is directed by Winnipeg’s other hometown surrealist, John Paizs. Paisz is best known … Continue reading Top of the Food Chain

Dr. Giggles (dir. Manny Coto, 1992) Dr. Giggles is the sort of movie that you have to admire a little because it waited 76 minutes before our titular unlicensed medical practitioner so much as picks up a pair of defibrillator paddles to kill someone with. Before then, we get see a whole host of medical … Continue reading Dr. Giggles

Fallen (dir. Gregory Hoblit, 1998) I strongly suspect that screenwriter Nicholas Kazan at some point in the early to mid-nineties saw Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. Moreover, I believe that when he saw the ninth entry in the venerable Friday the 13th franchise, he felt the same disappointment and frustration that much of … Continue reading Fallen (1998)

Dracula A.D. 1972 (dir. Alan Gibson, 1972) Hammer Film Productions made a killing putting out horror movies based on public domain characters: Frankenstein, Dracula, the vague and uncopyrightable concept of a resurrected Mummy. Hammer made icons out of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, whose turns as Dracula and Van Helsing in that series of films … Continue reading Dracula A.D. 1972

Ghoulies (dir. Luca Bercovici, 1985) I’m going to save you some heartbreak. At no point in the film does one of the so-called ‘ghoulies’ ever burst out of a toilet like on the poster. I know, I know. Everyone feels that same disappointment after they watch all eighty-something minutes and find virtually no bathroom related … Continue reading Ghoulies

Pumpkinhead (dir. Stan Winston, 1988) Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings (dir. Jeff Burr, 1993) You know Stan Winton. His special effects makeup work earned him four Academy Awards. He collaborated with the likes of James Cameron on Terminator and Aliens and Steven Spielberg on the Jurassic Park series and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Among his other indelible … Continue reading Pumpkinhead and Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings

C.H.U.D. (dir. Douglas Cheek, 1984) Homer: And that’s when the CHUDs came at me… Marge: Oh, Homer, of course you’re going to have a negative view of New York if all you focus on are the pimps and the CHUDs. -- “The City of New York versus Homer Simpson,” The Simpsons C.H.U.D. has certainly had a … Continue reading C.H.U.D.

Mandy (dir. Panos Cosmatos, 2018) Every single review I’ve read of Mandy mentions that Panos Cosmatos’s father was the filmmaker George P. Cosmatos, director of Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra, but only one critic--Nathan Rabin late of the AV Club and the much missed The Dissolve--identifies what’s interesting about that on his website: … Continue reading Mandy (2018)

Pontypool (dir. Bruce McDonald, 2008) The opening of Pontypool--a monologue about a missing cat, linguistic drift, and Norman Mailer’s theory about synchronicity--is what I wished listening to the radio was like. Podcasts can provide content like that, certainly, but they lack the crucial component of spontaneity: that you just happened hear a voice on a … Continue reading Pontypool (2008)