While there are a lot of laws enacted (and sometimes still exist) in cities that seem very odd and specific (I read once about a law forbidding people from hiding bees under their hats), some laws that seem strange on the surface have very…
Writer/director Ti West closes out an ambitious trilogy of horror films with the Hollywood-set glam pastiche, MaXXXine. The final chapter in the series headlined by the marvelous Mia Goth, MaXXXine finds heroine Maxine Minx following her…
During VHS’s all-too-brief Golden Age (roughly the ‘80s through the ‘90s), you could step into any neighborhood video store, peruse the stacks of new releases, and leave an hour later with any number of low-budget, straight-to-video action…
Long considered the ur-text for the depiction of vampirism in fiction, Bram Stoker’s Dracula may be the most influential (the “trope-creator”), but it was far from the first. Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 novel, Carmilla, preceded Stoker’s by…
The marauding aliens with the very keen hearing are back in the third installment of the A Quiet Place film series. A Quiet Place: Day One takes us back to the beginning of the crisis that became a surprise hit back in 2018 with John…
Video Vision wears its Videodrome influence on its sleeve. Of course there's the name, but it goes further than that; both are about their central characters becoming one with analog technology and both make fantastic use of practical…
Everybody’s looking for something in Kinds of Kindness, director Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest attempt to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Three tales of lost souls on a desperate search for meaning and wholeness take the…
NOCLIP opens with a silly animated commercial for the Kansas City Missouri mall Crown Center. It's a real mall that's existed for more than half a century now, though I haven't been able to determine whether or not the commercial is a…
For many families, the yearly portrait is not just a ritual, but an custom inviolate. Maybe there's only one person in the family that actually wants the portrait and might even enjoy the process - but it gets done nonetheless. Not the…
While many films, including some of its festival mates at the Chattanooga Film Festival this year, regurgitate some of David Lynch's images and ideas, Sweet Relief offers something comparable to, rather than derivative of the master of…
Angela Schanelec's new, nearly silent film, simply titled Music, is supposedly 'freely' based on the Greek myth of Oedipus. It might be the most enigmatic offering from the esteemed German director. But its depiction of melancholy and…
Czech director Adam Sedlák explores the extremes of addiction and obsession with a raw, visceral approach, balancing dark humor and surreal imagery to deliver a preventative message to a TikTok-driven Gen Z audience.
Directors Tommy Wirkola and Rasmus A. Sivertsen deliver a hilariously heartwarming 3D animation romp that intertwines a wild microscopic adventure with the awkwardness of the first sexual experience.
It's extremely rare for Criterion Collection to produce a television series; so when one does make the cut, you know it's special. And that's just the least of the adjectives that could be used to describe The Underground Railroad, Barry…
Creator Jared Keeso stars in the comic series as the feisty and fiery leader of a hockey team in Northern Ontario. Now streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and Crave in Canada.
Sasha is a bit of a disappointment to her parents. Not only is her body a little slow to catch up to lend the family the survival help they need, she also has no desire to participate in their most necessary, and gruesome, activity:…