A Faustian thriller that drips with dread, The Spiral is fantastic TIFF fare. It will not only appeal to the Midnight Madness crowd for which it was selected, but also countless film lovers as it plays within the genre, but also raises lots ot morality questions, and is executed seamlessly and skillfully. Spirals can be…
Tag: climax
Horror in the High Desert (2021) – Dutch Marich
This one started out solidly enough, but by the time it ended, I was wondering how it spawned a number of sequels. The last fifteen minutes of the film, the real found footage part of the story, is shoddy at best. The story follows a series of talking heads, as they attempt to delve into…
Lock Up (1989) – John Flynn
I haven’t watched all of Sylvester Stallone’s films for the blog, but of all of them, Lock Up is arguably thee worst one that I’ve watched to date. It’s horribly done, underuses Donald Sutherland, which is arguably a crime, and despite shooting on location in an actual prison, nothing works. Stallone’s character says that three…
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) – Paul W.S. Anderson
Ok. Sure it took me ten years to get to the final chapter of the Resident Evil franchise. But it was worth it. I’ve always enjoyed these movies for the escapism they provide. They’re bloody and violent, and put women in strong leading roles letting them kick ass. I’ll always settle in for Milla Jovovich…
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Gulliver’s Fugitives (1990) – Keith Sharee
It’s been a bit since I read a Next Gen novel, but I do like spending time with the Enterprise D and her crew. Gulliver’s Fugitives is an interesting concept, but not executed as well as it could have been and a little flawed. Troi is having some troubling visual experiences following a screening of…
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) – Michael Pressman
With the success of the first Turtles movie, things got kicked into high gear immediately for a sequel. Unfortunately, the second film lost some of the charm of the first movie and decided to go for a more silly, kid-friendly approach (something that would plague the third film as well). There are some change-ups in…
The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) – Tony Scott
Tony Scott updated the gritty 1974 classic, The Taking of Pelham 123 with his signature style, and introduced it to the 21st century. Featuring his signature editing, camera work and saturated colors, Pelham rockets along, resting easily on the shoulders of the film’s two leads, Denzel Washington, and John Travolta. Washington plays Walter Garber, a…
Rolling Thunder (1977) – John Flynn
William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones star in this slow burn revenge thriller that sees the pair as former P.O.W.s of the Vietnam War finally returning home. Unfortunately, the world isn’t the way Major Charles Rane (Devane) left it. His city welcomes him back, gifting him a giant Cadillac convertible, and a hefty collection of…
The Spider Woman (1944) – Roy William Neill
Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) is back! By his side, the redoubtable Watson (Nigel Bruce)! Despite the (once again) short runtime, I really liked this one. It got the series back on track to solving mysteries and while the War was still going on I liked the fact that it decided to be more escapism than…
The Shallows (2016) – Jaume Collet-Serra
Blake Lively stars in a tight little actioner that runs shy of 90 minutes, but features some crisp and beautiful location and underwater photography. Lively is Nancy, a med student who has journeyed to Mexico to surf a secret beach that her mother once surfed long ago when she learned she was pregnant with Nancy….
The Mind Reels 