Steven Soderbergh is a director that likes to take chances and experiment with his craft, and Presence may be his best example of that to date. It surely won’t appeal to everyone, but there is a masterful hand at work here as the film tells its own style of ghost story. From it’s opening title…
Tag: haunted
Weapons (2025) – Zach Cregger
Much like Cregger’s previous film, Barbarian, it’s best to go into this film for the first time with no real knowledge beyond what is provided by the poster… one night, almost all the kids from a single classroom disappeared. What happened? That’s the initial launching point for a story that shifts narratives and fractures fairy…
The Last Astronaut (2019) – David Wellington
Whatever 1I/2017 Oumuamua and now 3I/Atlas are, they fired my imagination. These intersolar voyagers are cloaked in mystery and possibilities. David Wellington’s novel, The Last Astronaut, takes that idea and runs with it giving us a cross of Crichton, Clarke and Lovecraft. A combination of science and wonder with unnerving horror. Sally Jansen was the…
Northern Exposure (1994) – The Letter, and The Robe
The Letter has some nice Maggie (Janine Turner) stuff. It was written by Meredith Stiehm and debuted on 10 October, 1994. A letter she wrote at fifteen is finally opened, and she finds herself haunted (literally) by her past, and the life choices she thought she would have versus what she does have. There are…
The Night House (2020) – David Bruckner
Rebecca Hall turns a fantastic performance as Beth, a recently widow who is being haunted figuratively and literally as she learns dark secrets about her late husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit). Living in the house that Owen built, she begins to feel a presence in the house with her, and the way corners and arches come…
Shutter Island (2010) – Martin Scorsese
I remember when Shutter Island hit the cinemas, and then hit home video, everyone was raving about it. When I finally had a chance to watch it, I had the mystery figured out pretty quickly, though I will say it was wonderfully executed. Scorsese delivers a gorgeous looking film, and makes great use of visual…
Silent Hill (2006) – Christopher Gans
As we’ve seen over the decades there can be good and bad video game adaptations, I would make the argument that Slient Hill falls solidly into the good adaptations. It’s creepy, incredibly eerie and you don’t have to have any real knowledge of the game to enjoy the film. Using the game as its basis,…
The Return of Ellie Black (2024) – Emiko Jean
To call The Return of Ellie Black a jaw-dropping page-turner doesn’t do the book, the story, or the author, Emiko Jean, justice. It was nothing short of a compulsive read, one that I stayed up late to finish, something that doesn’t happen often for me. I had to know how the story played out, I…
Haunted Mansion (2023) – Justin Simien
There’s just a little too much going on in Disney’s Haunted Mansion. It seems to want to dip its toe into as many genres as it can, but doesn’t give any of them enough time to actually pay off. There are some great concepts and the cast is solid, but it just doesn’t fire on…
Hidden Pictures (2022) – Jason Rekulak
Jason Rekulak delivers a wonderfully creepy ghost story with Hidden Pictures. Filled with familiar ideas and tropes, Rekulak keeps it fresh with his engaging story, delightfully layered characters and the drawings that fill the novel. Mallory is fresh from rehab, she’s trying to get her life together, and with some help she lands a summer…
The Mind Reels 