Northern Exposure (1991) – The Body in Question, and Roots

Chris (John Corbett) finds a body in a block of ice during one of his fishing trips, and the entire town gets swept up into who it may be. He looks like a French soldier from the Revolutionary War, and his accouterments, and journal seem to support that belief. The Body in Question was written…

When Evil Lurks (2023) – Demian Rugna

The Spanish language film, When Evil Lurks, from Argentina, has found its way into my favourite horror films along with Late Night with the Devil. It’s creepy, has some legitimate scares, and a real sense of menace. Two brothers, Pedro (Ezequiel Rodriguez) and Jimi (Demian Salomon), find themselves confronting true evil when they encounter a…

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) – Andre Ovredal

Andre Ovredal’s first English language film is a very well-crafted and viscerally terrifying film starring Biran Cox, Emile Hirsch and Olwen Catherine Kelly. Cox and Hirsch play father and son, Tommy and Austin Tilden who run a morgue and crematorium. Austin has dreams of getting out of the business and town, and taking his girlfriend,…

Mission: Impossible (1971) – The Catafalque, and Kitara

Paul Playdon wrote Catafalque, which first aired on 6 February, 1971, and features John Vernon as Ramone Fuego, who gets manipulated by the IMF in an attempt to get sensitive information into the hands of the American government. And while most of the story is really engaging, as Phelps (Peter Graves) and his team set…

The Prisoner (1967) – Many Happy Returns, and Dance of the Dead

Number Six (Patrick McGoohan) gets quite the birthday present in this episode written by Anthony Skene and directed by McGoohan (who apparently also had his hand in the script for this episode). It first aired on 12 November, 1967. When Six wakes up, the Village is deserted, there’s no power, no water, and no people….

Lake Crescent: A Creature X Mystery (2021) – J.J. Dupuis

Lake Crescent, J.J. Dupuis’ follow up to his first Creature X Mystery, Roanoke Ridge, feels leaps and bounds beyond his first novel. Leaving behind Oregon, and the hunt for Bigfoot, his protaganist, Laura Reagan, who now hosts a cryptid hunting show that she is determined to infuse with science moves to Robert’s Arm, Newfoundland, hoping…

Rope (1948) – Alfred Hitchcock

I dig into another classic Hitchcock today, and despite the fact that James Stewart gets top billing, he is almost a supporting role, not really taking centre stage until the final act of the film that was adapted from a stage play by Patrick Hamilton, partially adapted by Hume Cronyn. Brandon (John Dall) and Phillip…

The Hunger (2018) – Alma Katsu

There is a sense of dread and menace that seems to ooze off the pages of Alma Katsu’s retelling of the haunting, and infamous Donner Party expedition. Everyone knows, or thinks they know the story, and Katsu uses that troubling knowledge and lets it hang over every page – you know each of the characters…