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[ October 30, 2009; ] Be Sure To Opt Out Of The Large Soda.

Don't Go in the… Oh, Okay, Never Mind: Jocelin Donahue in THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL
Ti West sure digs his retro. In THE ROOST — his tidy little horror film about a group of travelers threatened by some really nasty bats — he added a wraparound featuring Tom Noonan in tacky butler drag, holding forth [...]

If nothing else, Wrong Turn 3 neatly reflects the realities of low-budget filmmaking in the 21st century, with Bulgarian locations doubling for the West Virginia wilderness and a Euro-pudding cast that expends a tiring amount of energy keeping their native accents in check. Unfortunately, this film looses much of the humor that made the previous sequel so surprisingly appealing, and while there’s no law that horror films have to be funny, they do have to be frightening, another column in which Wrong Turn 3 also fails.

Federico Zampaglione’s stunning genre debut SHADOW was well received at Frightfest in August, before moving on to the Sitges festival in October. He’s now being heralded as Italy’s next master of horror, following in the footsteps of genre greats such as Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava. I was lucky enough to catch up with him for [...]

“Lars von Trier doesn’t like to fly.” “Lars von Trier isn’t going to talk to a lot of press.” Yeah, yeah; yadda-yadda. But just because he isn’t talking to us doesn’t mean we can’t talk about him, particularly about his childhood. I have it on good authority that he refused to eat his sandwiches until [...]

On my recent visit to The Bram Stoker International Film Festival in Whitby, England, I was lucky enough to catch the American short subject KIRKSDALE. With classy direction, an interesting story, and a few real cringe-inducing moments, it’s a safe bet that the movie’s writer-director Ryan Spindell is going places.
Based in 1960’s rural Florida, Kirksdale [...]

I have just returned from THE BRAM STOKER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, which took place in Whitby, England from 16th to 19th October. This was the first year for the festival and I was pleasantly surprised at how well organised and professional it was. I had an amazing time and met some great people.
Let’s start with [...]

Talk about being disarmed: one of the fantastically far-out and freaky frightening films at this year’s San Diego Asian Film Festival.

Remaking LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT seemed like a dubious proposition at best; the original was so much a part of its cycnical ’70s era (Nixon, Vietnam, Watergate) that transplanting it to contemporary times seemed as if it could rob the story of vital cultural context. Yet somehow the new HOUSE works much better than expected, perhaps because we had come full circle to a cultural context roughly equivalent to the early ’70s (Bush, Iraq, Torturegate). Consequently, the emake seemed weirdly appropriate – not an anachronisms ripped from its own time and plopped down haphazardly into a new era.

2009 Winners include Rob Zombie, Tobin Bell, and Rick Baker
Every October, on the night they launch their theme park’s Halloween Horror Nights, Universal Studios conducts the Eyegore Awards, honoring filmmakers in the horror genre. For 2009, the awards presentation was re-named “Chiller-Eyegore Awards,” a bit of corporate synergy between the movie studio and NBC (both [...]

A film that fulfills both the positive and pejorative definitions of “sleaze,” Lucio Fulci’s THE NEW YORK RIPPER arrived – believe it or not – on Blu-Ray last week courtesy of the 21st century keepers of the exploitation flame, Blue Underground. The disc easily outstrips all previous foreign and domestic editions of the disc, and [...]

Are You There God, It's Me Larr… Hello? Michael Stuhlbarg (right) and Adam Arkin try to sync with the Great Cosmic Joke in A SERIOUS MAN
The Coen brothers are at it again. They’ve already sicced existential hit men, lunkheaded convicts, and over-ambitious hula hoop manufacturers on the populace, now they’ve gone and recruited God as [...]

[ October 8, 2009; 7:30 pm; ]
In case you missed Fathom Events’ nationwide presentation of RIFFTRAX: PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE last month (mentioned here), there will be an encore presentation in 285 theatres around the country on Thursday, October 8 at 7:30pm local time. The original live broadcast originated on August 20 from the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville, Tennesse, with [...]