'Miller's Girl' (2024) Movie Review

Say what you will about writer/director Jade Halley Bartlett’s debut feature, Miller’s Girl, and we’ll get to that in a moment, this movie truly understands the cinematic power of cigarettes. Smoking looks cool and dammit, people look hot smoking—even if I don’t want to be around them afterward. Something as seemingly innocuous as offering a light becomes encoded with erotic subtext, they’re an excuse for characters to isolate themselves and break apart from the prying eyes of the crowd and exchange secrets, or hell, they offer an excuse for the camera to linger on a character’s mouth. 

'Unsane' (2018) Movie Review

Since kicking off retirement, Steven Soderbergh has crafted a hillbilly heist flick (Logan Lucky), helmed every episode of a period medical drama (The Knick), created a weird interactive movie/app thing (Mosaic), and produced a ton of other projects. And just to prove he has more creative energy that the rest of us combined, he found the time to use an iPhone to shoot the low-budget, throwback horror thriller, Unsane.

'Annihilation' (2018) Movie Review

Talking to fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation, if you venture to see Alex Garland’s cinematic adaptation, steel yourself, they are very different animals. Both maintain the general sci-fi Heart of Darkness-style journey, and there are a few plot points intact—like the lighthouse and Area X. But aside from that, they go in two different directions.

Steven Soderbergh's 'Unsane' Trailer Messes With Claire Foy's Head

Steven Soderbergh is busier in retirement than I will ever be. Then again, so are my parents—I thought the whole point of retiring was to kick back and enjoy not working, but what do I know, I’ll never have the chance to do it anyway. I’m getting off topic. I’m into Soderbergh’s version of retirement, however, because it means we keep getting things like The Knick, Logan Lucky, and his latest film, and first straight horror movie, Unsane, which just dropped this fantastic new trailer.

'The Killing Of A Sacred Deer' (2017) Movie Review

Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, Dogtooth) doesn’t make simple, straightforward movies. He doesn’t offer easy answers, or often even answers at all. His latest, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, doesn’t depart from this formula, but like his other films, it’s hypnotic, confrontational, and lingers long after exiting the theater.

'The Duke Of Burgundy' Movie Review: A Small Story About Extremes

Forget 50 Shades of Grey, the erotic thriller you need to watch this month is Peter Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy. The Berberian Sound Studio director is back with another lush, giallo-inspired offering that brings along a fair amount of Hammer influences just for the hell of it. Every syllable uttered, every frame of film, is sexually charged and full of meaning.

'Trance' Movie Review

Dark, brutal, hypnotic; these are a few choice adjectives you could use to describe Danny Boyle’s latest psychological thriller, “Trance.” The “Trainspotting” director is no stranger to this shadowy territory—remember the arm-cutting scene in “127 Hours”—but we’re talking an entirely different level here. At one point the top of a man’s head is blown clean off, yet his mouth keeps talking, and there’s a rotting corpse that’s as horrific as anything you’ll see in the most gruesome horror film. And let us not forget to mention the fingernail pulling and the dick shooting, which are both not to be missed. Not for the squeamish, there’s a gleeful layer of the macabre to this noir tale.

'Stoker' Pre-Review

I’m currently embargoed from writing, or at least publishing, a review for “Stoker,” the English-language debut from acclaimed Korean auteur Park Chan-wook (“Oldboy,” “Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance,” “Thirst”). Still, I have a few quick things thoughts on the matter.

'Kill List' Movie Review

Ben Wheatley’s “Kill List” has been a difficult film to pin down. It’s been getting tons of play on horror sites, but at the same time the basic, couple sentence summary makes it sound like an action movie. There are definite elements of both genres, with a heaping helping of psychological thriller thrown in for good measure. If you cornered me and forced me to stuff it into a single pigeonhole, I’d have to go with that last one. “Kill List” fits into a similar space as movies like “The Shinning” and “Rosemary’s Baby”. I even had twinges of “A Serbian Film” at times. There is an element of the occult, of some sinister, unknown outside force encroaching on the narrative, driving characters closer and closer to the brink of madness.