Tag: supernatural
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Madame Web (2024)
You know superhero movies are in trouble when studios start downplaying the fact they’re superhero movies. Sony’s marketing for Madame Web has focused on its supposed properties as a “suspense thriller”, which is a bit like trying to sell I Spit on Your Grave as a screwball comedy. Of course, anyone sensible knows it’s going…
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Night Swim (2024)
Well, I saw my first movie of 2024, Night Swim, and it was a dud, though not at least a painful one. It was a typical January horror film, though of the mediocre school as opposed to outright schlock. It tells a Stephen King-esque tale of a haunted swimming pool in the new backyard of…
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Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1972)
I just saw Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, the last of the local art centre’s choices for Classic Horror Nights, and it was a jewel, so to speak. Based loosely on The Jewel of the Seven Stars by Bram Stoker, most famous for Dracula, it utilises a lot of the elements of British and Hammer…
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The Uncanny (1977)
I just saw 1977’s The Uncanny, an anthology horror film starring Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasance just prior to his role as Dr Loomis in Halloween, at my local art centre’s Classic Horror Nights and it was fantastic. Your mileage with it may vary, depending on your taste for camp and tolerance of cheese in…
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The Exorcist: Believer (2023)
What is it with David Gordon Green and vintage horror reboots? His first Halloween reboot (2018) was fine, probably the best of the Halloween sequels, but the others were trash and now we have this. Why has he gone from such worthy indie dramas as George Washington (2000) and All the Real Girls (2003) to…
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The Exorcist (1973): 50th anniversary Director’s Cut
By way of what I suppose is full disclosure, The Exorcist happens to be my favourite film. I’ve seen it on the big screen twice now, the first time two or three years ago and latterly for its 50th anniversary. It remains an utterly compelling motion picture, about faith and guilt and love, told through…
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A Haunting in Venice (2023)
I just saw A Haunting in Venice and it was first-class junk. I’m not sure what Kenneth Branagh’s motivation is to keep making these Poirot adaptations. He doesn’t seem to like the character much and from what I’ve read he’s not exactly making money hand over fist with them. His Murder on the Orient Express…
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Haunted Mansion (2023)
Based on a theme park ride, Disney’s Haunted Mansion is one of their few live-action films in a while to not be a bastardisation of one of their animated classics. It also has a lively sense of humour and real energy to its storytelling, harkening back to the first Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse…
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Talk to Me (2022)
Directed by YouTube stars the Philippou brothers, Talk to Me is a surprisingly clever twist on The Monkey’s Paw, the 1902 ghost story by WW Jacobs in which the titular mummified paw grants wishes with terrible consequences. This time the paw is an embalmed human hand covered in names like a plaster cast, and the…
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Terrifier 2 (2022)
I just saw FX maestro Damian Leone’s Terrifier 2 finally, and it was pretty okay if you like this sort of thing, and probably the worst film ever made if you don’t. I dithered about watching this one for a while because of its reputation for sadistic violence but pushed ahead because the material I’d…
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