Blog
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Review: Joe
Certain films just don’t quite know what to do with themselves. 1970’s “Joe,” starring Peter Boyle (the monster in “Young Frankenstein” and dad character in the sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond”) as a hippy hating working…
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Review: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
Dario Argento is a well-known Italian filmmaker who did a string of terrific slasher films from the 70s into the 2000s. (He’s also known as the father of the actress/director, Asia Argento.) I went through…
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Wittgenstein for Writers
So I’m currently reading a rather dense introduction to the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. (Or maybe I’m the dense one. I’m not sure.) I’ve known about him for years, and have always been interested in…
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Smile 2
Horror sequels can be tough to pull off. Often the original lays out a series of perplexing events (teenagers dying in their dreams, for example) and then provides an explanation (Freddy Krueger was killed by…
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Book review: “Shallow Depths” by Suzi Wieland
You’ve encountered killer weed, but killer weeds? Cat and her husband take residence in a summer cabin on a lake. Various tensions start to flare (her husband’s a real dbag) and Cat finds herself drawn…
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New blog series: Did they Deserve to Die?
So, just for funsies, I’m kicking off a new series of posts called—as you can see—“Did They Deserve to Die?” Each post will take a horror movie and ask the question about the doomed characters.…
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Review: Angst
Gather round, young ones, and let me tell you about a mysterious bygone era known as the eighties. This was before all your newfangled internet and AI chatbots. Movies were a trip back then. If…
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Review: Companion
AI horror is gonna lure me every time. You might recall my rave review for the critically maligned “evil Alexa” movie “AfrAId” a while back. Stories about the fears of AI just really tickle my…
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Review: Regression
Many people are probably familiar with the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s where at least dozens of people across the country were accused and convicted of committing fantastical crimes – child sacrifices, weird…
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Review: The Call
There’s a timeless premise for horror movies: young people do something horrible and are punished for it. It’s the conceit of “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, “Soriority Row”, “Carrie” and even my new…
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Review: Lisa Frankenstein
This is an interesting one that prompted a variety of thoughts that are still settling in my brain. There’s certainly nothing horrifying or terrifying about it. It leans into the comedy, but for the first…
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Review: Out of the Past
It just sounds like the title to a great film noir movie, right? It’s weighed down with secrets and betrayals, gunshots, and curls of cigarette smoke. Well, the film lives up to its title. The…
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Review: The Toolbox Murders (2004)
Everyone knows that director Tobe Hooper was responsible for one of the all-time great horror films “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.“ What is less discussed about the director is that he sort of lost his way…
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Review: On the Line
Watching a Mel Gibson film these days feels deliciously outré, like you’re doing something naughty. Unfortunately, I also find that most of his post scandal works are of middling to low quality. “On The Line”…
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Book review: Second Unit – Russell C Connor
I’ve been a big fan of Russell C Connor after reading his great novel “Good Neighbors“ some years back. As such, I’d been looking forward to reading a trilogy of novels he did centered around…