MOVIE: The Shining (1980)

The Shining Year: 1980 Rating: R Length: 146 minutes / 2.43 hours Stanley Kubrick is one of those directors who can make a great movie in any genre. From science fiction like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to political satire in Dr. Strangelove (1964) to historic epics in Spartacus (1960), it's no wonder that he could excel in horror with The Shining (1980). The descent into madness in an isolated mountain hotel was done with such expert craft that this film stands as a pinnacle of the genre even today. It might not be an exact representation of the Stephen King novel, but it works well for the big screen. Kubrick succeeds in the emotions of unease here through clever application of cinematography and sound design. The audience gets the full experience. We're along for the ride down at Danny's (Danny Lloyd) level. We feel small and insignificant in the vast open spaces of the hotel and its nearby hedge maze. The building insanity in...
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MOVIE: Us (2019)

Us Year: 2019 Rating: R Length: 116 minutes / 1.93 hours I’ve been reluctant to jump on the Jordan Peele bandwagon. This has mostly been because I rarely watch horror films. What initially won me over was the social commentary Get Out (2017) provided. NOPE (2022) was an interesting take on alien films that spoke to the inherently violent nature of animals. With these two movies in mind, I finally filled in the gap and watched Us (2019). Unfortunately, my lack of desire to watch this film when it came out seems to have been justified as I ask, “What was the point?” I don’t want to spoil too much, but the twist was pretty easy to spot quite early on. Once the premise became clear, the movie seemed to be an excuse to just have the characters fight each other to the death—sometimes in the bloodiest way possible. Even the ending didn’t seem to be anything profound unless I’m missing something deeper that was...
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MOVIE: Annihilation (2018)

Annihilation Year: 2018 Rating: R Length: 115 minutes / 1.92 hours While I’ve never quite been fully on board with the works of Alex Garland, I recognize there’s something about his movies that makes me want to see them, eventually. I appreciated his approach to Artificial Intelligence in Ex Machina (2014), but it took a while for me to get around to his next work, Annihilation (2018). His style of science fiction borders on horror, but more importantly, it emphasizes one philosophical question in particular. What makes us human? Instead of exploring the Turing Test as he did in Ex Machina, Annihilation focuses on the larger scale of the universe to answer this question. Even if it takes a while to establish all the exposition, Annihilation does its best work in unraveling the mystery surrounding the return of Kane (Oscar Isaac). Most of this is done once the main character, Lena (Natalie Portman) arrives in the anomaly and can explore the bizarre alien effects on...
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BOOK: Infected (2008)

Infected Year: 2008 Author: Scott Sigler Length: 684 minutes / 11.4 hours Stephen King has written most of the horror I’ve read. In deciding to branch out from the master of the genre, I saw the cover for this book in the listing of audiobooks for my library’s reader app and thought it looked interesting. While the horror here was more body/gross-out horror—which I didn’t have any issue with—there are other, deeper problems with this book. I’ll grant that in terms of audiobooks, it was an interesting recording with the sound effects and “alien voice” bits. However, I can’t say I recommend this book based on those merits alone. Perhaps this is an artifact of the times, but a book that came out in 2008 has not aged well at all. First, is the abundance of “men writing women” tropes that not only minimize the female characters to minor roles but doesn’t consider that perhaps not everything has to be about sex. Furthermore, while the...
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MOVIE: M3GAN (2023)

M3GAN Year: 2023 Rating: PG-13 Length: 102 minutes / 1.70 hours I'm not usually one to watch "horror" films, so I was going to pass on M3GAN (2023) until a friend requested to see it together. By genre standards, this PG-13 cross between Child's Play (1988) and The Terminator (1984) was light on blood and gore that could have bumped it up to an R rating if they showed more of it. Perhaps this was intentional to emphasize the horrors of Artificial Intelligence (AI) overall. Because we all know unchecked machine learning algorithms will always lean toward some kind of murder. I think if you go into this movie understanding that it'll be goofy, then you can munch on your popcorn as it hits all the standard tropes. It's not quite funny enough to be part comedy, but there are some chuckle-worthy scenes sprinkled throughout. From a sci-fi perspective, though, any robotics or AI rules that you'd usually see in these scenarios were mysteriously absent....
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MOVIE: NOPE (2022)

NOPE Year: 2022 Rating: R Length: 130 minutes / 2.17 hours I don't know why I'm so skeptical of watching Jordan Peele's horror films. Once I got around to seeing Get Out (2017), it blew me away with how strong its premise challenged normal horror tropes. And while I haven't seen Us (2019) yet, I didn't need nearly as much convincing to give NOPE (2022) a try. I feel alien-themed horror is a bit of a niche genre with sci-fi entries like Alien (1979) being more prevalent than Earth-centric invasion movies like Signs (2002). NOPE (which can be interpreted as an acronym for "Not Of Planet Earth") definitely falls into the latter category. Overall, I appreciated the slow build-up to the alien reveal. Leaving hints about the cause of various strange events was a great way to add suspense until we finally got to see the alien in question. The alien itself was also a fantastic deviation from the standard "little green men" that usually...
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MOVIE: A Quiet Place Part II (2021)

A Quiet Place Part IIYear: 2021Rating: PG-13Length: 97 minutes / 1.61 hours I'm not usually a fan of horror films, so when A Quiet Place (2018) came out, it was a unique enough concept to pique my interest. While I appreciated the original concept, which played off the audio-visual nature of movies, the cliffhanger ending left me wanting more. Fast forward three years, and I finally got to see the sequel. It was...disappointing. I think I had gotten my hopes up after the first movie wowed me with its suspense and PG-13-level horror but A Quiet Place Part II (2021) was basically just more of the same. What's perhaps the most frustrating thing about both these movies is that they could have easily been combined both films and still kept the run-time below three hours. With each movie being around 90 minutes long, there could have been a tighter story between the two entities if some repetitive scenes were cut out of...
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MOVIE: Escape Room (2019)

Escape Room Year: 2019 Rating: PG-13 Length: 99 minutes / 1.65 hours For all the Young Adult clones that The Hunger Games (2012) spawned in Hollywood, it's interesting to see something that takes the elaborate death traps present in that series and applies them to the horror genre. While I'm sure the Saw series likely did this kind of thing already, I haven't seen any of those films to know (too bloody for my tastes). This is where Escape Room (2019) takes an interesting premise and makes it feel like a generic Hunger Games knock-off while remaining a PG-13 horror film. At first glance, Escape Room is a smart thriller that forces its "players" to solve these rooms and eventually escape alive. Some of these set pieces are quite well done, including an oven and an upside-down bar. The reason these people were trapped in a series of escape rooms was also somewhat interesting, even if it wasn't explained very well. However, as is the...
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MOVIE: Poltergeist (1982)

PoltergeistYear: 1982Rating: PGLength: 114 minutes / 1.90 hours Some movies have spoilers, and then some movies have so deeply-ingrained themselves in the popular culture zeitgeist that it’s nearly impossible to not have some knowledge of them before actually sitting down and watching the film itself. Poltergeist (1982) is just such a film for me. I’ve seen it referenced on many different lists and other places that claim it to be a great horror film. I’ve also seen it referenced and parodied in several places (like The Simpsons). The combination of its notoriety and its parody meant that I had pretty much already seen this film before actually watching it. Since I already knew the “big reveal” that caused the main characters’ house to become haunted, I had to watch this movie with a slightly different focus. Mainly: how and why has this film stood the test of time? Sure, it dates itself sometimes with its early-1980s style; however, the special effects for...
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MOVIE: Parasite (2019)

Parasite Year: 2019 Rating: R Length: 132 minutes / 2.20 hours If you haven’t discovered South Korean cinema yet, Parasite (2019) is a fantastic introduction for the uninitiated. Director Bong Joon-ho has been hard at work over the last 20 years, helping craft films that are thoughtful and horrifying. Movies like The Host (2006) and Snowpiercer (2013) give a sense of his artistic style. Parasite merely takes his ability to shed light on class conflict and molds it into a masterpiece that’s half heist-comedy, half horror-drama, and all suspense. If it weren’t for the somewhat lackluster ending, I’d give this film the full five stars it deserves. At the base of Parasite is a conflict between the impoverished and the rich. This theme could be easily applied to any country with a wide income disparity, which is probably why it works so well in the United States as well as in South Korea. To survive in these environments, the poor must do their best to...
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BOOK: Nightflyers (1985)

Nightflyers Year: 1985 Author: George R.R. Martin Length: 247 minutes / 4.12 hours Those who are familiar with George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series may be lamenting the end of the semi-faithful Game of Thrones television show. In the time we’ll all have to wait until the next Song of Ice and Fire book comes out, there are other little stories from this author to satiate our appetite. Nightflyers is a short novella by Martin that also seems to be hinging itself on the success of Game of Thrones, albeit in the science fiction genre instead of high fantasy. Considering how verbose Martin can get with his works, it was almost refreshing to read a story that was so focused and short. Granted, even though Nightflyers is science fiction, all of the notable George R.R. Martin elements were present: mainly, sex and violence. Depending on your tolerance of these elements, I can say that they’re at least naturally integrated with this...
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MOVIE: A Quiet Place (2018)

A Quiet Place Year: 2018 Rating: PG-13 Length: 90 minutes / 1.50 hours I’m not a fan of horror. In recent decades, the “gorenography” surrounding the genre seemed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Jump scares and excessive on-screen violence were the norms. It seems that films like Get Out (2017) have changed that, judging by how expertly A Quiet Place (2018) still holds to some of the horror tropes but tells a story that’s much more thrilling than seeing a group of people gored to death one-by-one. In the end, A Quiet Place is expert storytelling at its finest, based partly on how adeptly it uses the medium of film to convey its horror. While there seemed to be a few minor plot holes and curious decisions on the part of the characters, I’m just going to chalk them up to “horror logic” and move on to why I think this film is required viewing, even for people who hate horror movies. What...
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MOVIE: Get Out (2017)

Get Out Year: 2017 Rating: R Length: 104 minutes / 1.73 hours I'll admit that I'm not a fan of horror films. The fact that Get Out (2017) was released in that weird, "horror month" of February that merely exists so people trying to catch up on their Oscar nominations don't have to watch anything new meant that it mostly passed under my radar. When buzz about the movie continued for the rest of the year, I was still skeptical as horror has been known for its cheap tricks and gratuitous violence, both of which I don't particularly care for. The trick is, Get Out is certainly a horror film, but with the minimum required trappings to be considered one. With a few jump scares and a violent and bloody ending, Get Out works on a level that's best described as "blatantly subtle." It's not so much that it screams about the racial differences between black people and white people, but that it does so...
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BOOK: The End of Desire (2007)

The End of Desire Year: 2007 Author: M.R. Sellars Length: 340 pages Much like 7th Son: Descent, I picked this book up at a convention without knowing anything about it. Consequently, while this is the third book in the Miranda Trilogy, I must admit that I have not read the two prior books in the series. As such, I have tried to make my review of this book as it stands by itself, and any confusion from lack of prior knowledge is merely my fault for not having started at the beginning. Of course, after reading this book, I certainly had trouble understanding how there could have been two books before it. First off, the plot was as slow as Louisiana molasses. So many words were spent on practically meaningless interactions that didn’t add anything to the narrative. The few scenes of action were too long in coming and too short in duration. Add to this the stupidity of the characters and you can see...
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MOVIE: Alien (1979)

Alien Year: 1979 Rating: R Length: 117 minutes / 1.95 hours Science fiction in film has faced an uphill battle in terms of being taken seriously. Up until the late 1960’s, most sci-fi was low-budget, B-movie schlock more likely to be Mystery Science Theatre 3000 fodder than Oscar potential. This all changed in 1968 with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now that sci-fi could be considered art it took almost a decade for other films to capitalize on Kubrick’s groundbreaking work. Star Wars (1977) expanded on the special effects and made sci-fi a fun, action-filled ride. Regarding the horror aspect of sci-fi, Alien (1979) remains the founding film of these combined genres. Not only does Ridley Scott do a fantastic job directing this movie, in particular through the use of elaborate sets, puppetry, and just plain spectacular cinematography; but the fact that Alien has an incredibly strong female protagonist (Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley) puts it leagues ahead of its time in terms of character-driven plot....
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MOVIE: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil Year: 2010 Rating: R Length: 89 minutes / 1.48 hours I'm not really a fan of the horror genre. Mostly, I feel the plots are contrived, the characters are downright idiotic, and the violence is over-the-top. Of course, when I heard about Tucker and Dale vs. Evil years ago, I said, "pass." The friend who suggested I see it assured me that it wasn't like all the other horror films. The fact is, it is exactly like all the other horror films, but it is self-aware of this fact. Because the film is self-aware, it recognizes every single horror genre trope and makes fun of it. As time went by, more people suggested I see this film, so I finally caved during a slow weekend at home. Being the self-aware film that it is, the plot is simple and the production values are limited, at best. What really makes the film enjoyable to watch is the fact that the whole...
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