As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up. Enjoy! **** 150: Session 9 Directed by Brad Anderson Written by Stephen Gevedon …
The 1980’s were inarguably a “golden era” for the subgenre of monster horror flicks. This decade saw a variety of brave experiments on the silver screen involving ghoulies and ghosts, as well as some amazing plotlines. Here are five films from the era that succeeded at turning the truly bizarre into some bloody good entertainment. …
Horror is a genre of ideas, of what ifs turned into terrifying flesh-and-blood monsters. In the 1980s, David Cronenberg emerged as a renouned horror director for his willingness to explore dark avenues of thought, rather than burying them beneath layers of screaming teenagers and half-baked plots. Despite his genre of choice, too often considered a …
1. Dead Ringers Two Jeremy Irons doing anything would be scary: his turn in 1988’s Dead Ringers as good gynaecologist, bad gynaecologist is truly terrifying. Irons plays identical twin doctors Beverly and Eliot Mantle with dizzying ease and effect: you give up looking for the special effects, because you forget there are any. Genevieve Bujold’s …
The Fly (from 1986) embodies the ultimate profile of a distinctive sci-fi movie monster bursting out at the raging seams through accidental experimentation.
There is, one imagines, a breaking point with exactly how infatuated any of us will be with the modern celebrity. We fawn over them in tabloid magazines, keep tabs on their romantic lives, and get angry when they make choices we disagree with, but how far are we willing to go? Would any of us actually want to be infected with a virus or disease simply because a celebrity got it first?
Jurassic Park, like many of Spielberg’s best films, allows us to be children again, even if this is, ironically, a film most kids would be scared to death by. It’s a movie that indulges in horror-movie tropes while making them feel fresh, layering a patina of intelligence over the intense, earth-rattling action. Though the human-dinosaur face-offs are the stuff of movie legend, the early sections where Drs. Alan Grant, Ian Malcolm, and Ellie Sattler debate the ethics of a theme park full of the living, breathing extinct are strangely fascinating and entertaining, at least to 28-year old me.
A Fantastic Fear of Everything Directed by Crispian Mills and Chris Hopewell Written by Crispian Mills UK, 2012 A Fantastic Fear of Everything is a film that Wes Anderson would make if he didn’t give a flying sausage about storytelling. It has many of his auteur signatures (a twee pop-art sensibility, creative and meticulous set …
Scanners Directed by David Cronenberg Written by David Cronenberg 1981, Canada In the early stages of Cronenberg’s career, he established himself as a prolific director of horror films by splicing his features with science fiction elements. His efforts in creating a new sub-genre went unnoticed until his seventh film, Scanners. At the time of its …
Ok, so that may be slightly misleading, but I had to get your attention. The truth is that remakes and sequels, horror or otherwise, tend towards merely being insipidly contrived shadows of their predecessors; retreading formulas with less impact or merely upping the genre staples whilst degrading the narrative, acting, and soul. But every once …
David Cronenberg is in talks to develop a reboot of the 1986 classic The Fly, writing and potentially directing the remake. The project would represent a chance for Cronenberg to return to a film that helped establish his career, with the technology needed to tackle the effects which wasn’t possible in the 80’s. Strangely Cronenberg …
5 – The Ring (2002) Considering I didn’t find the original scary, it’s impressive that I was thoroughly creeped out by the nearly shot-for-shot remake. There is always something a little more interesting in the exploration of the unknown, so if your senses have been dulled by the formulaic slasher film, then its quieter take …