Franchise Corner Entry: RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD ***** USA 1985 Dir: Dan O’Bannon. 90 mins Despite an eight minute pre-titles sequence that suggests it’s going to be a direct satire of George Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (name-checked on-screen by James Karen),…
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Franchise Corner Entry: THE EXORCIST THE EXORCIST ***** USA 1973 121 mins Dir: William Friedkin. Three key American horror films of the 1970’s have recently turned “40” and, like JAWS and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, THE EXORCIST remains unmatched in many ways. Adapting William Peter Blatty’s wrenching novel, William Friedkin…
SHARKNADO **** USA 2013 Dir: Anthony C Ferrante. 86 mins The Asylum’s monopoly on the market for high-concept low-budget monster movies reached its apex with this hybrid of knowing killer-shark horror and Hollywood disaster movie. SHARKNADO plays out like an amped up extension of the more serious BAIT and…
JAWS ***** USA 1975 Dir: Steven Spielberg. 124 mins Streamlined from Peter Benchley’s tackier, bloodier novel, Spielberg’s trend-setting summer blockbuster is more monster movie than revenge-of-nature flick: this shark isn’t avenging anything; it’s just eating the cast because it’s a monster in a monster flick. Said shark is demonized by…
WRONG TURN **** USA 2003 Dir: Rob Schmidt. 84 mins Ditching the self-conscious, post-modernist attitude infecting too many post-SCREAM slasher movies, this commendable attempt at an intense latter-day DELIVERANCE from Stan Winston’s studios nicely taps into the paranoia of rural in-breds familiar from 70’s horror. As with DELIVERANCE, the villains…