Following an adventure to get to the fest, partially caused by a drunken GPS and me not realizing I was going in the wrong direction until I was way too far, I missed some of the shorts, but using the listing from the fest’s site, I was able to retrace the films and here are a few thoughts on them.
No other director was able to evoke such feelings of relentless doom and darkness like William Friedkin. “Cruising” is a bold movie from a director that no other studio would touch in this day and age. It’s a movie from a time that’s pretty ancient but also very relevant in modern times. Friedkin squares his lens on the unending darkness and bleak landscape that is New York City, side stepping any and all gloss in favor of unflinching realism. There’s so much to this New York City that’s still so familiar from seedy undergrounds, sub cultures, corrupt police, and a hopelessly broken justice system.
I’m a big fan of James Wan’s “The Conjuring” movie universe as it’s one of the most effective, fascinating, and scary library of horror movies ever produced. While the legacy of Ed and Lorraine Warren is infamous, the fictional Ed and Lorraine Warren are great cinematic horror heroes, and they’ve been the center of one of the more diverse horror movie series to come along in a while. What with “The Nun 2” coming to theaters this week, I ranked the whole “The Conjuring” movie universe from the best to the worst.
Let me know how you’d rank the movies in the comments!
A filmmaker shooting his last film, his masterpiece, is followed by a documentary crew as he works on his horror film all done with practical effects, a bit too practical even.
It’s pretty good to see at least one studio investing in transforming vampires in to relentless monsters once again after so many years where vampires have been watered down and overly fetishized. The vampires in André Øvredal’s interpretation of “The Last Voyage of The Demeter” as well as—well—Dracula in general, are not empathetic, alluring figures. They’re blank, cold and vicious monsters controlled by Dracula who is reduced to his most primal state for this re-visiting of one of the most haunting chapters in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
That’s the thing about this trend with movies based around telling the story of these milestone products: We either get a movie that should just cut the middle man and be a documentary (“Air”), or we get something so completely sensationalized/fabricated that it’s not even really worth watching anymore (“Flamin’ Hot”). With director Jon S. Baird’s “Tetris” I tuned in to see a movie about the creation and acquisition of the iconic video game. Instead what I got was a pretty vanilla espionage thriller about the KGB, spies, terrorists, politics, and warring companies fighting over contracts and whatnot. Exciting…
SYNOPSIS:
Lucy (Edna Fisher), the daughter of tavern owner Riley (Arthur Mackley) is seen flirting with her lover (Fred Church). Riley objects to the relationship, forbids the lover from ever seeing Lucy again and vows to kill him if he is ever seen on his property again. Moments later Broncho Billy (Broncho Billy Anderson) arrives at the tavern to take up lodging for the night. Riley and Billy share a drink and practice straight shooting together.
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