By Thomas M. Puhr. Coogler’s strong character work in the film’s first half undercuts his efforts to embrace pure horror in its second.” Spoiler Alert Ryan Coogler’s knack for bringing a humanist touch to a variety of genres—starting with social realism (Fruitvale Station), transitioning to crowd-pleasing sports sagas (Creed), and […]
Now Available – Becoming Nosferatu: Stories Inspired by Silent German Horror
A new collection featuring stories and poems in the tradition of Nosferatu and other silent expressionist classics….” Becoming Nosferatu: Stories Inspired by Silent German Horror, edited by Matthew Sorrento (editor, FilmInt Online) and Gary D. Rhodes (contributing editor) is out now from BearManor Media, featuring stories and poems in the tradition of Nosferatu and other silent expressionist […]
“Pain Creates Character Distortion”: David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds
By Jonathan Monovich. Conspiracies brew throughout the film and their legitimacy, though probable, becomes increasingly unbelievable, mirroring the mind’s desperation for answers….” In Dead Ringers (1988), the troubled Dr. Beverly Mantle (Jeremy Irons) says that “pain creates character distortion.” This quote encapsulates the essence of David Cronenberg’s oeuvre. Cronenberg has […]
“I Try to Make Each Film Feel Like a Debut”: Can Evrenol on Saýara
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. The idea of making a truly dark revenge film at heart, in this day and age of global political-correctness-vs.-fascism, felt like the right thing to do (especially) if you are a true genre fan/filmmaker.” – Can Evrenol Going back at least to Metin Erksan’s classic The Well […]
It Lives! Andrew Repasky McElhinney on A Chronicle of Corpses at 25 Years
By William Blick. Aren’t all genre films structuralist in nature? Isn’t everyone either obeying or disobeying genre conventions?” –Andrew Repasky McElhinney At the turn of the millennium, the filmmaking industry was in flux. A wave of visionary film directors emerged to embrace new forms of cinematic expression. The horror film […]
Alchemy, Technology, and the Cinematic Grimoire: E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten (1989)
By Gary D. Rhodes. How of one ounce of Silver maie Silver be noe more.” – Thomas Norton, The Ordinall of Alchimy (1477)* Embodied practice and cinematic technology yields alchemical crucible in E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten, a non-dialogue film of 1989 that the London Film Festival declared “breaks all moulds, […]
Architects of Their Own Stories – The Cinema Coven: Witches, Witchcraft and Women’s Filmmaking
A Book Review by Dávid Szőke. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas reveals the potential of contemporary filmmaking to challenge conventional cultural narratives about the witch, offering these figures greater space where they are no longer just passive objects of our anxieties but architects of their own stories.” The figure of the witch as […]
Two Early Genre Gems: The Bat (1926) and The Canary Murder Case (1929)
By Thomas Gladysz. Released by Undercrank Productions, The Bat stands as a high point in the ‘old dark house’ genre / sub-genre.” In the first decades of the 20th century, film was finding its way. Then, the various genres were being defined — and redefined, with the release of just […]
Nosferatu (2024) – Against Tradwives and Uplift Stories
By J. M. Tyree. More revenants, albeit less interesting ones, are likely to emerge from this weirdly unkillable source, one that has always reached into the uncanny ability of cinema itself to bring dead things back to life.” Robert Eggers’s new version of Nosferatu is not my favorite contemporary vampire […]
Slow-Paced Stakes: The Vourdalak
By Andrew Montiveo. A hauntingly unique addition to the vampire canon, much like the story that inspired it.” When discussing vampiric cinema, Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu inevitably comes to mind. Ironically, the “original” Nosferatu was truly original – a German knockoff of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Stoker’s 1897 novel remains the definitive […]