Battlestar Galactica (2005) – 33, and Water

Just over a year after the miniseries aired, the first season of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica launched on 14 January, 2005. It opened with an episode titled 33. It’s tense, it’s well-crafted and a helluva way to launch the main series. Written by Ronald D. Moore who also served as the series showrunner, it finds…

Split (2016) – M. Night Shyamalan

It’s been awhile since I watched a Shyamalan film. I kind of tuned out after awhile. I think Lady in the Water did it for me. But I did remember enjoying his earliest films, The Sixth Sense, The Village, Unbreakable. And it seemed like enough time had past that I could see if I could…

Blown Away (1994) – Stephen Hopkins

Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones star in a cop thriller about revenge and the past. Set in Boston, Jimmy Dove (Bridges) is verging on retirement from the Bomb Squad following his marriage to Kate (Suzy Amis). Unfortunately, Dove’s past comes calling for him in the form of Ryan Gaerity (Jones) an IRA extremist with…

Longlegs (2024) – Osgood Perkins

I really wanted to see this one in the theaters, but I could never make it work with my schedule, so when it finally popped up on a streaming service, I was all in. Immediately. And I loved it. It’s spooky, freaky, and Osgood Perkins masterfully frames his images. He makes use of negative space…

Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – 4K Review

Rosemary’s Baby is still terrifying. Some fifty-five years on, Roman Polanski’s film, starring Mia Farrow, still packs a wallop, and what better way to celebrate its enduring legacy than a new 4k release of the film from Paramount Pictures? It’s been the better part of a decade since I last watched this film, and I…

TIFF ’23: Sleep

Midnight Madness at TIFF is always a lot of fun, and some great genre films get scheduled that are designed to deliver to the late-night audience. Sleep hopes to do that this week. A Korean entry to the film festival from writer/director Jason Yu. It’s his first feature film, and Yu creates a tense, moody…

The Guns of Navarone (1961) – J. Lee Thompson

I’m going to go on the record here before I write this one up. This is the first time I have watched The Guns of Navarone. I watched the semi-sequel, Force 10 From Navarone because it was Harrison Ford, sure, but never saw the original. I buckled up and settled in for an incredibly tense,…

Green Room (2015) – Jeremy Saulnier

Two Star Trek alum star in Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room, Anton Yelchin and Patrick Stewart (in a way you’ve never seen him before), and with a couple of other recognizable faces like Imogen Poots and Alia Shawkat, Saulnier is intent on plunging the viewer into a gruelling and brutal experience as a punk band attempts…

The Black Phone (2021) – Scott Derrickson

Director Scott Derrickson reteams with his Sinister star Ethan Hawke in Derrickson’s adaptation of the Joe Hill story, The Black Phone and Hawke is nothing short of terrifying as a child killer known, in the late 70s era Colorado the story is set in, as The Grabber. The Grabber is stalking a town that lives…