The Abandoned

This low-budget horror film from 2006 revolves around an adopted child who returns to her native Russia as an adult to resolve the estate matters of her late biological family, particularly the remote and creepily run-down property and house. Cue the terror. And I friggin dare ya to watch this one in the dark and […]

Unknown

This mystery/thriller stars Liam Neeson as a doctor visiting Berlin with his wife for a science symposium, who survives a freak car accident to wake up to find that no one seems to know who he is. Parts of this flick reminded me alot of Harrison Fords 1988 film Frantic while others felt torn from […]

House of the Devil

Nice! I love finding gems!. I stumbled across this ‘micro-budget’ horror film from 2009, almost by accident, and I’m glad that I did. Taking inspiration from the myth of the malicious Satanic cult stories of the late 70s/early 80s, the story focuses on a financially hard-pressed female college student who takes on a seemingly benign […]

Source Code

This reasonably clever lil sci-fi thriller wants to have been directed by The Hitch…or maybe to have taken place in The Twilight Zone. It’s a interesting premise done with conviction, especially by Jake Gyllenhaal as the displaced and desperate Army pilot tasked with averting a terrorist incident on a Chicago commuter train. The small budget […]

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

This is a very mature, realistic and deliberately paced espionage story. It is definitely not cut from the same cloth as the Bond or Bourne films. It takes its time with the complexities of the narrative and its look at the international ‘spy game’ of the Cold War in the early 1970s. The cast are […]

Apollo 18

As ‘found footage’ movies go, this one is handled FAIRLY well. The ‘actors’ do a credible job, the NASA props and moonscape sets flow seamlessly into the actual archive footage and the location and situation lends perfectly to the genre. On the down side, there was a point where it was hard to overlook the […]

The Divide

This IS the ‘Feel Good Movie of the Year’! This intense, nihilistic and ugly film from 2011 focuses on a group of survivors who escape the outbreak of WW3 by retreating into the basement of their apartment building as the nukes fall. Once there, it’s a steady decline as they start to lose grip on […]

The Company of Wolves

This retelling/hybrid Little Red Riding Hood-werewolf movie from 1984 is a good example of ‘style over substance’. The story is too fragmented for its own good and has some high-school level acting tossed in the mix. On the plus side, it boasts a very detailed Gothic style and atmosphere that Tim Burton would be right […]

Special Forces

This French/English/Arabic language military thriller from 2011, despite being saddled with a horribly generic, ‘Direct-To-DVD’-sounding title, is actually really well done. The fact the the filmmakers had the full cooperation of the French military goes a long way as the equipment, the tactics and the vehicles all feel legit with no CG enhancements. Stylistically, the […]

The Monster Squad

So after 1990’s TMNT, I felt brave enough to try another childhood fave, this time from ’87. And…2 for 2!!! This flick is still a hoot! It’s surprisingly well done with some cool ‘slants’ style-wise on the classic Universal monster styles and a noticeable mean streak, which I appreciated. Another reason that I dug this, […]