Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Watson (Nigel Bruce) find themselves in Quebec, Canada (read as the Universal backlot) for their next adventure, The Scarlet Claw. An original story, this adventure sees the dogged duo working to solve a murder that may or may not have paranormal trappings. While Watson is played up for humor again,…
Tag: paranormal
The Stone Tape (1972) – Peter Sasdy
The Stone Tape is an interesting exercise, though trapped by the confines of its production, working on stages and studio cameras, and the actors delivering their lines as if they are performing on stage instead of more restrained performances for film and television. Written by Nigel Kneale who wrote the Quatermass series/films the story follows…
Butterfly Kisses (2018) – Erik Kristopher Myers
Found footage films can be hit or miss, and they usually need something exceptional to lift one above another to make it worthy of note. I think Butterfly Kisses falls into that category. What it ends up being is a film, within a film, about film. Gavin (Seth Adam Kallick), a would-be filmmaker, trying to…
Fallen (1998) – Gregory Hoblit
Denzel Washington doesn’t often take on roles in films that have paranormal or supernatural overtones, so when he does make one it’s got to be worth the watch. And Fallen is that. I hadn’t watched this one since it came out on VHS, oh so many years ago, and figured it was time for a…
Episode Thirteen (2023) – Craig DiLouie
Orbit Books brings me my first real creepy novel of 2023, Episode Thirteen. Using the familiar structure of the found footage genre, something that has been co-opted successfully for all of the ghost-hunting shows that seem to plague reality television, DiLouie compiles a literary found footage film, offering up video transcripts, EVP recordings, text messages,…
Mission: Impossible (1973) – The Pendulum, The Western, and Imitation
This is it, the final instalment of Mission: Impossible as I complete my exploration of The Complete Series on Blu-ray, available now from Paramount Canada. The last three episodes of the series are much like those that went before it. They remain episodic in nature, interchangeable with anything that has gone before, and no real…
Mission: Impossible (1973) – Incarnate, and Boomerang
Phelps (Peter Graves) and his IMF team pursue a criminal to the Caribbean in an attempt to discover the location of the gold bullion that she has hidden away somewhere State-side. She’s a little superstitious, so what better way to get her to crack than to have Barney (Greg Morris) and the rest hint at…
Insidious: The Last Key (2018) – Adam Robitel
The final (?) installment of the Insidious films brings us full circle. It takes place shortly after the events of the third film and ends leading us into the events of the first. Elise (Lin Shaye), Specs (Leigh Whannell), and Tucker (Angus Sampson) are all back delving into an investigation into Elise’s own past. Whannell…
Insidious: Chapter Three (2015) – Leigh Whannell
Writer Leigh Whannell who had penned the previous two entries in the Insidious series slips into the director’s chair for the third installment, which also serves as a prequel to the Lambert story that occupied the first two films. The film introduces us to a small family living in the city. There’s Sean (Dermot Mulroney),…
Red Lights (2012) – Rodrigo Cortes
Red Lights is a bit of a mess, there are some solid ideas to it, but it doesn’t come off as well as it could have. It does feature a solid cast including Robert De Niro, Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy, Elizabeth Olsen, Joely Richardson, and Toby Jones. Dr. Margaret Matheson (Weaver) is a skeptic who…
The Mind Reels 