Tag Archives: Horror

Movies in Your Head

One of the “advantages” of having a tedious day job which requires a certain amount of concentration but very little thought is that I can spend my shifts listening to my iPod. I’ve recently been addicted to old-time radio shows … Continue reading

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Miscellaneous Thoughts

I recently picked up a copy of Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of The Devils by Richard Crouse (ECW Press, 2012). It’s a breezy read recounting the production history and subsequent fate of Russell’s 1971 masterpiece (perhaps a … Continue reading

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Blu-ray Review: The Awakening (2011)

In the past few years, something interesting has been happening in the horror genre. After several decades of increasingly graphic movies focused on the torture and destruction of the human body, something more subtle has been re-emerging. Like it or … Continue reading

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The Alligator People: Tragedy in the Key of B

A friend who I often disagree with about movies recently surprised me with a recommendation. His opinions are often very stringent, yet here he was telling me that Roy Del Ruth’s The Alligator People was worth seeing. Del Ruth had … Continue reading

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John Dies At the End … and that’s not a bad thing

I’ve been a fan of Don Coscarelli’s work since the first time I saw Phantasm in 1979. Made when he was just 24, that film followed two “family” features – Jim, The World’s Greatest (1976, co-directed with Craig Mitchell), about … Continue reading

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Additional Recent Viewing …

Beasts of the Southern Wild I watched Behn Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild just before it landed several Oscar nominations, and my reaction was quite mixed. The film has an impressive visceral power, anchored by the remarkable performance of … Continue reading

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Cronenberg, Body-Horror and The Brood (1979)

Kier-La Janisse was in town over the weekend to launch her book House of Psychotic Women at the Cinematheque. To highlight the event, she chose to present a screening of David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979), one of the key films … Continue reading

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Adapting Lovecraft

I’ve recently been reading – or re-reading – most of H.P. Lovecraft’s longer stories since I bought the collected works for my Kindle. There are things about Lovecraft that I really like – his sheltered, bookish protagonists poking through old … Continue reading

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Book Review: House of Psychotic Women by Kier-La Janisse

Kier-la Janisse has had a varied and colourful career as a film and music programmer in various places, including Vancouver, Austin TX, Winnipeg and Montreal; she initiated and ran a festival of horror and fantasy films in Vancouver called CineMuerte … Continue reading

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Recent Viewing 2

Continuing my partial round-up of recently watched movies … The Innkeepers (2011) Ti West is a filmmaker whose work I really want to like, but each film comes as a letdown – except for his second feature, Trigger Man (2007), … Continue reading

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