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: dread
Undertone (2025) – Ian Tuason
Undertone is a smart and engaging horror film. With its slow and ominous camera movements, there’s a constant sense of tension created by the knowledge that there may be something lurking just off camera that you are about to catch a glimpse of. It’s also confined to one location, a home (right here in Toronto)….
TAD 2021: The Free Fall dir. Adam Stilwell
Toronto After Dark delivers a gaslighting character thriller with The Free Fall, enjoying its Canadian premiere, and comes in as one of my favorite films of the festival. That being said, I saw the truth of what was going on before everything was revealed, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an enjoyable ride. Sara (Andrea…
Black Sunday (1960) – Mario Bava
Mario Bava’s fantastic gothic feature, Black Sunday aka The Mask of Satan is the next title in Ten Bad Dates With De Niro. This brilliant film, which I had never seen before, has all the enjoyable gothic ambience of Corman’s takes on Poe like The Fall of the House of Usher, and some wonderful gore…
Underwater (2020) – William Eubank
Borrowing (very, Very, VERY) heavily both visually and story-wise from Alien (without the 70s cinema verite nods to overlapping dialogue) as well as having nods to The Abyss, Leviathan, DeepStar Six and even Lovecraft, Twentieth Century Fox invites you into the depths with its new release, Underwater. Kristen Stewart starts as Norah, a mechanical engineer…
The Croning (2012) – Laird Barron
This week’s book shelf brings a bit of cosmic horror as I delve into Laird Bannon’s novel, The Croning. The story spans the decades of one man, and the horrors that are around him, and the realization that these nightmare terrors are real. It’s unnverving, as we are introduced to geologist Don Miller, and his…
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…
Toy Story (1995) – John Lasseter
As I return to the Family section in the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book, I am delighted to dig into another Pixar movie. In fact, the first Pixar feature film. Since 1995, Pixar has released incredible films that have become a treasured part of modern culture. It’s hard to believe that it…
Star Trek: The Original Series (1968) – And the Children Shall Lead and Is There in Truth No Beauty?
Captain’s log: stardate 5029.5 And the Children Shall Lead. Written by Edward J. Lasko, this episode aired on 11 October, 1968. It started out with the some good ideas – the Enterprise arrives at a Federation colony to discover that all the adults have taken their own lives, leaving the children, who seem oblivious to…
Just After Sunset (2008) – Stephen King
So as I bounced back and forth about what I wanted to read next, I decided it was time to pick up another Stephen King collection. Short stories can be strange things, and collections of them can be just as odd. They either work together or they don’t, and some stories can be hits,…
The Mind Reels 