Burnt Offerings (1976) – Dan Curtis

The 1976 creepy house tale of Burnt Offerings didn’t engage me as much as the novel did. It has a fairly solid cast, but honestly, it didn’t quite have the eeriness that seemed to permeate the book. The film features Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Bette Davis, Burgess Meredith and the always-menacing Anthony James. The Rolf…

The Witch: Part 2 – The Other One (2022) – Park Hoon-jung

The Korean actioner, The Witch: Part 1 – The Subversion was very engaging and I loved how it built a world and introduced the viewer to genetic manipulation, enhancing the human state, the variety of parties involved and a hint of the plan at its heart. The first film ended with some interesting reveals about…

Batman: Hush (2019) – Justin Copeland

The DC Animation adaptation of Hush by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee is a solid piece of work and attempts to walk a balancing act between the established canon of the animated films, and the comics. There are also a lot of layers at work throughout the course of the film, something that doesn’t happen…

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) – James Cameron

It’s been thirteen years since writer/director James Cameron introduced to the distant world of Pandora, and its blue-skinned, lean humanoid inhabitants the Na’vi, who live in harmony with their planet. It’s been thirteen years since we left Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his wife, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and their family has grown, with three children…

Murder By Contract (1958) – Irving Lerner

I’ve been checking out some noir titles over the past few weeks, checking in with one of my favorite genres. This was perhaps my least favorite of the bunch. I think it could have been a little better constructed, and perhaps delved into the issues that plagued the film’s lead character, Claude (Vince Edwards). Claude…

The Medium (2021) – Banjong Pisanthanakun

Thailand delivers a moody, atmospheric character piece, shot in documentary fashion that explores spirituality, faith, belief, family and vengeance. Initially, the ‘documentary’ is supposed to be about shamnisim and focuses on Nim (Sawanee Utoomma), and how she serves as a vessel for a goddess that has selected females of her family for generations. Through Nim,…

Eternals (2021) – Chloe Zhao

The MCU unveils its latest film this week, and Chloe Zhao delivers the most diverse, and inclusive cast and storyline that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen to date. It’s also one of the comics in the Marvel family that I don’t know very well, but that allowed me to go into the film blissfully…

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) – David Yates

This is it. It all led to this film, after seven films, the Harry Potter franchise comes to its close with this, the second part of the adaptation of the seventh and final novel. Picking up where the first film left off with Voldemort’s (Ralph Fiennes) claiming the Elder Wand, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma…

The Witch (2015) – Richard Eggers

Eggers’ atmospheric The Witch, is always an enjoyable Halloween watch, it’s beautifully executed, wonderfully scripted, and has everything you would expect in a classical telling of an 17th century new world fairy tale. A devout family in New England, whose father, Will (Ralph Ineson) has been deemed by the local village to be too extreme…

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) – David Yates

This is it, the first titanic installment of the Deathly Hallows, the final book in the popular series was split into two separate films, and worked to wrap everything up in a suitable fashion for Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), Ron (Rupert Grint) and all their friends, allies and enemies as everything races…