Neil Marshall

Horror movie fans will find that the quality of Tales of Halloween’s 10 shorts are consistently high and that the overall film is a fun watch that breezes by.

Dog Soldiers is a bit along the lines of Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004) insofar as its story is drenched in horror aesthetic, yet the film itself is not as frightening as its premise suggests. In Wright’s film, the comedy and love story are just as important if not more so than the looming zombie apocalypse. In the case of Dog Soldiers, the action and terrific camaraderie between the soldiers truly anchors the picture, all the while reminding the audience that the occurrences themselves are indeed horrific.

Between its careful handling of the Tooth Fairy’s crimes, its memorable character debuts and reintroductions, and its gentle resetting of so many pieces on the Hannibal chessboard to their pre-“Mizumono” positions, “The Great Red Dragon” is a strong and exciting midseason premiere that promises a confident, more accessible end to a previously divisive season.

Anthology horror films are a tricky beast. The rule of thumb is, usually only half of the segments are generally satisfying while the remainder leave a lot to be desired (save for the few successes such as Asylum, Creepshow, and Trick ‘r Treat). Epic Pictures Group recently announced that they will help produce a new horror …

The opening shot of Constantine is quite rich. It’s a medium shot, straight ahead of the Ravenscar Secure Facility. This is the mental asylum that John Constantine (Matt Ryan) turns himself in to when he inadvertently damns the soul of his friend’s daughter, Astra, to Hell in the Hellblazer comic. Immediately, there is a nod to the source material as well as establishing that our protagonist isn’t right in the head or the ethical department, but there’s a tiny chance he could change. “Non Est Asylum” is all about how John Constantine isn’t at home in Heaven or Hell, but somewhere in between (Even though he is currently damned). He, his best friend and driver Chas (a laconic Charles Halford), and friend’s daughter Liv (Lucy Griffiths) are constantly on the move trying to take on the demon Furcifer, who controls electricity and lightning, and wants to damn Liv because her father angered him a while back. Along with this mobile exorcism plot, writers David Goyer and Daniel Cerone build the world of Constantine, where demonic activity and magic are everywhere. They also dig into Constantine’s sordid back-story. Unfortunately, most of this backstory is spilled out through exposition at the most random times, and it seems like the character of Liv only exists to be told stories about his past. However, she won’t be appearing after this episode, and Constantine more than makes up for it with a charismatic performance by Matt Ryan, who has the bearing of the working class mage, and delivers the snarky dialogue that Constantine is famous for in the comics.

** Spoilers ahead ** I am not a horror film fan. I appreciate the genre but considering that my over-amped imagination will turn a sight of a little girl with long hair in ghostly white attire into a full epileptic seizure within me, I try to stay as far away from scary films as much …

When Black Sails premiered, I welcomed its slow pace and narrative interest. Going the less obvious route, the series has – so far – avoided laying the action on too thick and, instead, has stuck close to its main characters. However, these characters have mostly been conniving and stressing out, wanting to kill certain people but being unable to for whatever reason

How does one make a pirate narrative fit into an arc that could potentially span several years? What about the pirate world is worth immersing viewers in it for that long? These are questions that Black Sails has to deal with and tries to address in its pilot.

  Special Mention: The Fake Trailers from Grindhouse (2007, USA): The four fake trailers featured in the otherwise disappointing Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double-feature: Machete by Robert Rodriguez, Werewolf Women of the SS by Rob Zombie, Thanksgiving by Eli Roth and Don’t by Edgar Wright-are all very entertaining trips down horror/exploitation film memory lane and are …

Game of Thrones, Season 2, Episode 9: “Blackwater” Written by George R. R. Martin Directed by Neil Marshall Airs Sundays at 9pm ET on HBO The Battle of the Blackwater. From book proponents to HBO itself, there’s been a steady stream of hype coming in about the event, and it’s “Blackwater”‘s job to work as …

————– Centurion Directed by Neil Marshall Genre director Neil Marshall is not what you might call an “ideas man.” His best film, the terrifying spelunking creature feature The Descent, thrived not on any elaborate concepts or carefully developed characters, but instead on the shrewd, cunning use of the film’s incredibly claustrophobic spaces to generate naturalistic …

Thanks to Neil Marshall’s 2005 horror film The Descent, about a group of spelunking women attacked by hideous carnivorous bat-boy monsters, my wife is now afraid of caves, Weekly World News covers, and girls’ nights out. If Marshall’s latest film Centurion, in which a Roman legion is attacked by Picts in 2nd century England, is …

Some people don’t like the first Dune by David Lynch, but of course, they’re crazy. With a stunning cast like the effortless Kyle MacLachlan, badass Sting, the mysterious Jürgen Prochnow, the black-goop-dripping Kenneth McMillan, the incomparable Linda Hunt as Shadout Mapes…coupled with the as-cool-and-strange-as-it-gets-for-1984 effects, not to mention the storyline itself… come on, it rocks! …