I greatly enjoyed Craig DiLouie’s Episode Thirteen, and liked how he converted the found footage genre into a novel. So when I heard that he had a new one coming out I had to get my hands on a copy. How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive came out this week, released through Orbit…
Tag: tropes
Death Whisperer (2023) – Taweewat Wantha
I love digging into horror films from around the world, seeing how different directors and cultures dole out their scares, what is frightening to them, and how some things are scary across the board, seemingly tapping into some primal fear. Thailand delivers Death Whisperer, which according to the film’s intro is based loosely on a…
Lone Wolf McQuade (1983) – Steve Carver
With a musical score by Francesco De Masi and an opening credits sequence that feels very much in line with a Sergio Leone western, expectations surrounding Lone Wolf McQuade on my initial viewing went up a little. Despite the fact that I know Chuck Norris isn’t a very good actor. Norris plays the titular McQuade,…
The Delta Force (1986) – Menahem Golan
Chuck Norris has never really done it for me when it comes to action movies. No matter what his martial arts skills, he’s not the best actor, and consequently, he found himself stuck in lower-budget action films, much like The Delta Force. But with all of it’s trappings and tropes, the film has a really…
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…
Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire (2023) – Zack Snyder
I’ll say this. Snyder can create some great visual images, but as a director, I often find myself disappointed by his work. Sadly, the first installment in his Rebel Moon series leaves me unimpressed with what he’s created. Playing as a cross between Star Wars: A New Hope (apparently Rebel Moon was originally going to…
TIFF ’23: The Dead Don’t Hurt
Viggo Mortensen wrote and directed this Western drama that is filled with recognizable Western tropes but Moternsen neither completely rejects them nor subverts them, he simply uses them to fill out his story about an immigrant couple that finds themselves living and loving on the edge of a corrupt Nevada town in the 1860s. The…
Deep Blue Sea (1999) – Renny Harlin
This one is for my friend Lindsay, who insists this is a better shark movie than Jaws, and yet it can’t help but make a number of references to it, not the least of which is a familiar-looking licence plate. Director Renny Harlin does, for the most part, deliver a fairly solid thriller though even…
Mexican Gothic (2020) – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Mexican Gothic is a wonderfully lush, and haunting novel, embracing all the familiar tropes of the Gothic genre, romance, the old dark house, family secrets, and the hints of something preter- or supernatural all juxtaposed into Mexico of the 1950s. We’re introduced to Noemi, a vivacious, smart, stubborn, flirtatious young woman who is still looking…
Young Guns (1988) – Christopher Cain
A fun cast gives a bit of a young update on a classic western tale as Emilio Estevez climbs into the saddle as Billy the Kid in Christopher Cain’s Young Guns. Featuring a high-profile cast that included Lou Diamond Phillips, Kiefer Sutherland, Dermot Mulroney, Terence Stamp, Jack Palance and Terry O’Quinn. John Tunstall (Stamp) has…
The Mind Reels 