Born to Kill (1947)

I am a sucker for an older noir probably because I love the formula: the dramatic lighting, the at-once brute simple but utterly confounding plot, the histrionic scores. Our actors (character and otherwise): alternatively glamorous or grotesque. Hard to imagine these...

Apostle (2018)

This review contains minor spoilers. In this Netflix period drama, prodigal son and erstwhile missionary Thomas (Dan Stevens) returns home to find his father aging and addled, and his sister Jennifer kidnapped and secured on a mysterious (Welsh) island. The island is...

Halloween (1978)

It is hard to overstate the brilliance of this early John Carpenter effort, and the influence it had on the modern slasher film. It isn’t the first film of its kind nor the best, but it is masterfully made (on a small budget with a small crew and tight schedule)...

The Car (1977)

The Car is one of the more flagrant Jaws ripoffs (and everyone involved knew and owned this, at the time), although of course it takes place entirely in a land-locked, somewhere-out-West small town near a canyon. It might seem silly to think on all the...