For the second of Popblerd’s 31 Days of Halloween, we look at Charles Laughton’s “Night of the Hunter”, a Gothic, deep-south potboiler starring Robert Mitchum.
Posts tagged "horror movies"
The 31 Days of Halloween, Day 1: May
Popblerd’s countdown of 31 great Halloween movies kicks off with Lucky McKee’s twisted, bloody character study “May.”
Pass the Popcorn: “The Woman in Black”
A small part of me feels sorry for Daniel Radcliffe (at least as sorry as I can be for someone who, at nearly three years my junior, has already made more money than I will ever see). After starring in the monolithic Harry Potter series for a whole decade, it’s hard to imagine he’ll ever be able to break free from that iconic role. So when trailers began appearing for the new film The Woman in Black, I think everyone’s […]
Pass the Popcorn: Kevin Smith’s “Red State”
The notion that Fred Phelps – pastor of the charming family church Westboro Baptist, prolific funeral picketer, originator of the adorable slogan “God Doesn’t Much Care For Homosexuals At All” “God Hates Fags” – is perhaps the worst person on the globe right now isn’t new; after all, perhaps the only good thing about the Phelps clan is that nobody actually takes them seriously. No, what’s truly surprising about public perception of the Westboro Baptist Church is that it took this […]
Pass the Popcorn: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
Call me old fashioned, but sometimes I think the modern day slasher formula has ruined the contemporary horror film. While some movie makers adhere to the Hitchcockian pillars of suspense and atmosphere, it seems far easier to scare by showing rather than implying. On one hand I can understand: dread, especially of the supernatural variety, can be so difficult to manufacture consistently. It’s far easier, and far more instantly gratifying, to scare the audience on the most basic of grounds: […]
Pass The Popcorn: “Final Destination 5”
A good critic is essentially a reductionist, distilling popular art and entertainment into its most basic components and highlighting which parts add to and which parts detract from the final product. It’s easy to take a movie like The Social Network and sing high praises for the hauntingly ambient soundtrack, the laser precise direction, and the compelling performances, just as it is easy to take a movie like Vampires Suck! and rake it over the coals for terrible writing and […]
