Bryan Bertino who wrote and directed the now iconic horror film, The Strangers, delves into supernatural territory with this unnerving little film that occasionally misses the mark by leaning too heavily into its scares while presenting the idea of a demonic presence as more of a hunting animal, preying on the weakest, separating them from…
Tag: moody
1922 (2017) – Zak Hilditch
Thomas Jane stars in the Zak Hilditch helmed and adapted version of Stephen King’s novella, 1922. Wilfred James (Jane) is a proud farmer in middle America, where he lives with his son, Henry (Dylan Scmid) and his wife who has bigger dreams than living on a farm, Arlette (Molly Parker). With Arlette’s land, added to…
TAD 2022: H4Z4RD dir. Jonas Govaerts
Noah (Dimitri Thiviaos) is about to have a very bad day in H4Z4RD an energetic action film from Belgium that boasts a really dark sense of humour and serves as the second film in Toronto After Dark’s opening lineup, having its Canadian Premiere. Driven by a Euro-pop-techno beat, we catch up with Noah, who loves…
TIFF ’22: The Wonder
With an opening, and an ending that reminds us that how we see stories is all perspective, The Wonder explores the line between fact and faith, science and religion. Based on the book by Emma Donoghue, The Wonder is beguiling, introspective, and moody. In the mid-19th century, an English nurse, Lib Wright (Florence Pugh) who…
The Dead Zone (1983) – David Cronenberg
Christopher Walken stars as Johnny Smith, a school teacher who ends up in an accident that gives him second sight, allowing him glimpses into the past, present and future in the Jeffrey Boam scripted adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel. Directed by famed director David Cronenberg, the film is packed with recognisable names in front…
Millennium (1996) – Pilot, and Gehenna
On 25 October, 1996, the creator of The X-Files, Chris Carter (who brings along Mark Snow to deliver the score) introduced us to Frank Black, played by the incredible Lance Henriksen in Millennium, and despite the fact pilot episodes always have a lot to set up, this one gets all the pieces on the board…
The Tenth Girl (2019) – Sara Faring
In my continued search for engaging and new horror, I delve into lots of books and consult lots of lists, new and old. Well, on a few of those lists, I found The Tenth Girl mentioned and I went to work tracking down a copy to read. It’s a bit of a Gothic tale, set…
Murderers Among Us (1946) – Wolfgang Staudte
The Directory of DK Canada’s The Movie Book continues to provide exemplary titles, despite the fact that they didn’t make the cut for the main body of the text. And Murderers Among Us is a moody, brilliant watch that reminds us of the horrors of war, humanity, and the cost of terrible events. A German…
The Undying Monster (1942) – John Brahm
The Undying Monster, the next werewolf title recommended by DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies book by legendary directory John Landis is suitably moody, dark, gothic, and set in England – despite the fact that most of them speak with American accents. There’s an ancestral home, a curse, a pair of Scotland Yard investigators with…
Interview With The Vampire (1994) – Neil Jordan
Moody, broody vampires are the next stop in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies, by legendary director, John Landis. Adapted from Anne Rice’s novel, with an uncredited rewrite by Jordan, the film headlines Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas as three of the author’s iconic vampires, Lestat, Louis, and Armand respectively. And while Cruise…
The Mind Reels 