The Hungry begins with a murder, ends with a murder, and in case you’ve forgotten what it’s about, there are several murders between. This is a bloodbath, I thought, as I watched it. It’s like a Shakespearean tragedy. After watching the movie and while preforming research on it, I saw that it wasn’t like...
The 1977 Italian movie Suspiria is a masterpiece of Eurohorror. I’m don’t recall where I read that quotation, and I won’t even swear under oath that I’m remembering it verbatim, but I remember the word masterpiece, and I remember Eurohorror, because it’s the first time I’ve seen the word. What I didn’t remember, until...
I hate dream scenes in movies! I particularly hate them in Hollywood horror movies, where they are so overworked we should give them a twenty-year vacation. Often they begin the movie and end in a jump scare that wakes the protagonist. It was only a dream! They are lazy and ineffective. Screenwriters write them whenever...
When villagers learn that bandits plan on raiding their village after the barley harvest, they bemoan their fate and argue about what they should do. Ideas range from fleeing their village and their farm and establish a home elsewhere to yielding to the bandits in hopes of light treatment. When they consult “the old...
In 1959 the Heights Art Movie Theater in Cleveland showed the French film Les Amants (The Lovers). The theater manager, Nico Jacobellis, was promptly arrested for showing obscenity, convicted, and fined $2,500. Justice served! Menace to society punished! Not so fast. In 1964, when Jacobellis v. Ohio went before the United States Supreme Court,...
