Horror

Identity

By Adam Lippe

This is exactly the kind of psuedo-clever phoned-in-written-over-the-weekend script that reeks of Donald Kaufman (Adaptation). From the first 10 minutes on, where I swore the movie couldn’t have been this bad: Unless it was on purpose? It certainly couldn’t have been more hokey. Indian burial grounds? The number 6 that turns into a 9 when […]

House of the Dead

By Adam Lippe

“You created these things to become immortal!!! Why?” “To live forever!!” “They were Spanish. From Spain.” It’s indicative of this dialogue that all of House of the Dead is pretty redundant. From the need to name the captain of a boat Kirk, so you can make jokes about it, to actually repeating the same song […]

Haute Tension

By Adam Lippe

Though this has been out overseas on DVD for a few months, this French slasher won’t get a US theatrical release until mid summer. Apparently Lions Gate has decided to go with an uncut NC-17 version (Note: it turned out they changed their minds) which is nice seeing as the blood and extreme gore is […]

Dead Ringers

By Adam Lippe

Dead Ringers is certainly the most accomplished film David Cronenberg has made, with all the themes and motifs he’d been building on for 15 years finally hitting their apex, as well as it being a marvelously cold, clinical and unnerving experience. It’s also the first time his concentration on the medical profession and its practices […]

Dark Water

By Adam Lippe

Hideo Nakata (Ringu, Chaos) is an extremely talented director, who thrives on creating dread inducing atmosphere out of simple elements. And when he is working on the mystery rather than the revelation of the story, the movie works very well. Nakata clearly storyboards all of his shots in advance, each frame seems to be taken […]

Critical opinion in the horror genre

By Adam Lippe

What you’ll find from genre fans is forgiveness for the limitations and sloppiness of most horror movies, and no acknowledgment of the glass ceiling in slasher movies. Which would you prefer? Someone who tries to take the genre seriously and criticizes a movie for its shortcomings and doesn’t lend a curve to horror movies? Or […]

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Roadracers

By Adam Lippe

Whenever there’s a genre parody or ode to a specific era of films, such as Black Dynamite’s mocking of Blaxploitation films or Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, the second half of Grindhouse, the danger is that the film might fall into the trap of either being condescending without any particular insight, or so faithful that it becomes the very flawed thing it is emulating.

Black Dynamite has nothing new to say about Blaxploitation films, it just does a decent job of copying what an inept [...]

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Featured Quote (written by me)

On Cold Fish:

Though the 16 year old me described the 1994 weepie Angie, starring Geena Davis as a Brooklyn mother raising her new baby alone, as “maudlin and melodramatic,” Roger Ebert, during his TV review, referring to the multitude of soap-operaish problems piling up on the titular character, suggested that it was only in Hollywood where Angie would get a happy ending. “If they made this movie in France, Angie would have shot herself.”

Well Cold Fish was made in Japan, where Angie would have shot herself and that would have been the happy ending.