Sometimes They Come Back: Bob Clark’s Deathdream (Blue Underground)

By Thomas M. Puhr. Much more than an interesting time capsule…it’s also a minor horror classic in its own right, one well-deserving of a spot alongside Clark’s superior genre work.” Movies like Bob Clark’s Deathdream (aka Dead of Night, aka The Night Andy Came Home, 1974) operate by blunt-force symbolism. […]

Interdisciplinary “Others”: The Monster Theory Reader

A Book Review by Caroline Joan S. Picart. The edited collection aspires to supply a set of ‘tools’ for researchers and students – that is, common approaches and vocabularies for theorizing monstrosity – and then provides an interdisciplinary selection of important readings theorizing monsters and monstrosity….” The Monster Theory Reader […]

A Comedic Journey into Tragedy: Joel Potrykus on Vulcanizadora

By Jenny Paola Ortega Castillo. The goal, really, was to keep the audience off balance and unsure of how to feel.” –Joel Potrykus Joel Potrykus has crafted yet another unforgettable cinematic experience with his latest chilling film, Vulcanizadora (2024). Potrykus weaves a narrative that oscillates between moments of comedic camaraderie […]

Wartime Routine: Murder Company

By Jeremy Carr. The repeated, formulaic structure, lack of development, and its insistence on by-the-numbers genre touchstones make for what is merely a passable war movie….” Murder Company almost immediately recalls many of the war movies produced during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Not the big budget, star-studded epics, but […]

Twisters: Good Ole Tornado Porn

By Elias Savada. A great Dolbyized and super-sized disaster ride.” Youngsters, let me tell you something. Back a generation or so, in the late 20th century, there was a very popular film called Twister (catch it on MAX), an action trembler with a very sexy Helen Hunt and the late […]

The Miyazaki Interlude: The Conscious and Unconscious Intervals of The Boy and the Heron (2023)

By David Ryan. Miyazaki moves beyond illustrating simple contrasts by creating relationships in apposition (not opposition), and this interdependency often encourages experiential growth for his younger protagonists.” Writer-director Hayao Miyazaki’s films are carefully planned adventures into the realms of innocence and experience. His abstract themes and dense stories have garnered […]

A Family Affair: Patrick Dickinson’s Cottontail (2023)

By Thomas M. Puhr. While occasionally touching and buoyed by across-the-board strong performances…the resulting film is excessively earnest at best, and manipulative at worst.” Patrick Dickinson blends the multigenerational family portrait, fish-out-of-water tale, and couple-grapples-with-Alzheimer’s drama to middling effect in Cottontail (2023). It seems the writer-director figured that if he […]