A few nights ago, I fired up Brian De Palma’s 1976 thriller “Obsession” on the old Amazon Prime. At the opening shot, I was struck by a thought. “I’ve seen this before.” And I had.…

A fertile concept for dramatic tension is a group of women locked together in some in environment. “Girl, Interrupted” (about a female psyche ward) is perhaps the most famous recent success with this premise, but…

Sigh… What do we do with M. Night Shyamalan? How should we assess his legacy? I was blown away by “The Sixth Sense” when it came out in 1999. The eerie mood and shocking twist…

I was excited at the opportunity to see Gaslight, the gothic melodrama from which the term “gaslighting” is derived. Just so we’re all on the same page, let’s ask ChatGPT what the term means. (Surely…

There are certain movies I watch expecting to hate. I click the play button with part of my psyche screaming, “why are you doing this? You know it’s going to be a hot mess of…

Maybe there’s something seriously wrong with me, but I really enjoyed this movie. It’s another one of those early eighties high school/college horror schlockfests, similar to “Prom Night” or “The Prowler.” The girls of a…

So I have a love/hate thing with Wes Craven. I think “Nightmare on Elm Street” is the greatest horror film ever made and maybe one of the greatest conceits in horror. I also liked Craven’s…

A lot of horror builds off the question of “what if the thing that can fulfill your dreams demands too high a price?” The classic short story “The Monkey’s Paw” did it. So did Stephen…

I tend to review horror films. 1964’s “The Visit” is more of a drama, but sometimes dramas, which hew closer to reality, are the most horrifying stories of all, right? HAWHAWHAWHAW! (Evil laughter fades to…

Wes Craven’s name has lured me to watch bad films before. “They” was intriguing and suspenseful until it ended right at (what felt like) the start of the third act. And he had a few…

Here’s the thing: it’s tough to mix horror and comedy. The two modes are so opposed that you really have to lean into one over the other. When I think of films in this hybrid…

That it was my third viewing of Martin Scorsese’s remake of the film noir classic that prompted this review tells you everything you need to know. I don’t watch crappy films three times. But even…

I was recently drawn to watch “Brain Dead”, a 1990 offering that includes both Bills e.g. Pullman and Paxton. (Together at last!) It was billed as a thriller, but I could tell from the promo…

I recently reviewed “Nightwish.” Now I turn to another movie with a nocturnally themed title, this one a film noir feature from the 50s. “Nightfall” is quite entertaining. Aldo Ray, an actor I was unfamiliar…

The two big questions I had while watching 1989’s Nightwish were “where is the night” (it’s one of those rare horror films that mostly takes place during the day) and “where is the wish”. The…