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1-20 of 86 articles from 2009 « Prev | Next »
Terror Tidbits (Fango #290): What’s Scary: Part Two
23 December 2009 10:00 PM, PST
| Fangoria
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In the first part of this essay, I made a case for one 21st-century remake (Zack Snyder’s Dawn Of The Dead) as a standout, and now we come to the best horror movie of the new century, Dennis Iliadis’ brilliant revisiting of The Last House On The Left. The engine driving this movie is the most powerful the genre has to offer: fear of the Homicidal Other. There have been hundreds—perhaps even thousands—of these in the long history of the fright film, and most have the same underlying premise: You meet the Homicidal Other either as karmic retribution for doing something wrong (think of Janet Leigh in Psycho, who never would have been showering at the Bates Motel if she hadn’t embezzled a bunch of money from the Phoenix business where she worked) or—this is worse—because you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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- no-reply@fangoria.com (Stephen King)
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Fairy Tales, Child Development, And Unconscious Learning
21 December 2009 11:25 AM, PST
| Huffington Post
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I just read a review of what sounds like a fascinating new book by film historian David Thomson, called The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder. Thomson explores the far-reaching cinematic influence of this seminal film, a legacy that he argues lingers on today in the increasingly cool depiction of violence in movies and the growing disconnect between filmic images of gore and its actual emotional content. The famous, much-studied shower scene with its gouts of crimson (shot in black-and-white, no less) broke new ground in the way it aestheticized violence. Today, we routinely watch buckets of fake blood merrily exploding every which way in movies, on TV and the internet, all in the name of a quick adrenaline burst, a dark laugh, a gruesome visual. What's missing is the emotional, psychological and even cultural
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- Susan Kim
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Finals Week: 'The Ghost as Domestic Inheritance in Ursula Dabrowsky's Film "Family Demons"'
16 December 2009 12:50 PM, PST
| Pretty/Scary
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Family Demons: The Ghost as Domestic Inheritance by Donna McRae
Low cinematic genres – (as Clover, Williams and Robin Wood and others) have often pointed out – often handle explosive social material that mainstream cinema is reluctant to touch. — Joan Hawkins (1)
Can you make a film about the aftermath of incest and child abuse and its effect on three generations of women in the same family? Would this film contain an inherited ghost running through the narrative that could represent repressed feelings of colonial guilt on another level? Could this film prick the conscience of a nation that might be shuddering in silence for all its past sins? Would you get funding for this film from an Australian funding agency if you didn't have a track record? Would this very serious film fill cinemas, especially Australian ones? Could you get international profile actors to star in your film? Or would Australian film actors like Gracie Otto,
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- Superheidi
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The Naughts: The Film of the '00s
11 December 2009 9:20 AM, PST
| ifc.com
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I'm not sure if "Adaptation" is emblematic of the American-film '00s -- I'm afraid that the real culprit might be one blockbuster or another, exemplifying at this stage our fears instead of our hopes -- but it's certainly an endlessly resonating high-water mark, a mirror-hall launch that Godard could've loved, and which preemptively folded all commentary about it, positive or negative, into its self-knowing structure. Director Spike Jonze never dropped the ball, and Nicolas Cage was surpassingly brilliant, but it's Charlie Kaufman's bomb test, successful enough to establish him, in a stroke, as the most original and fecund screenwriting talent this country has seen since, possibly, ever.
A kind of perpetual motion machine, Kaufman's screenplay might be the most subversive filmmaking act in Hollywood since 1960, when Alfred Hitchcock turned the star of "Psycho" into bathtub carrion only 40-odd minutes into the film, essentially leaving it protagonist-free and the
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- Michael Atkinson
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Exclusive Interview: Writer/Director Tom Holland discusses his screenplay for Richard Franklin's Psycho 2
9 December 2009 8:00 AM, PST
| Fangoria
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Following in my ongoing, loving analysis of one of my all time favorite films Fright Night (see my original, personal essay here and my interview with musc supervisor David Chackler here), I present part one of a lengthy conversation I had with Fn's creator, writer/director Tom Holland.
Holland spent the early part of his professional life as an actor under the name Tom Fielding. starring in soap opera's, various TV programs and - my favorite - director Jacques Demy's Model Shop. Then, into the 1970's the struggling thesp decided to take back his given surname and pursue a career as a screenwriter.
His breakthrough theatrical release was Phillipe Mora's bizarre exploitation shocker The Beast Within, a picture that nailed the psychosexual tone of Holland's words but opted to veer into more visceral, bladder FX driven shlock. He followed that with the ultra violent screenplay for Mark Lester's cult classic Class Of 1984.
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- no-reply@fangoria.com (Chris Alexander)
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North by Northwest's 50th Anniversary Edition: Enduring Appeal and the Mad Men Factor
3 December 2009 7:10 AM, PST
| Huffington Post
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What can you say about a 50-year old movie? If it's by Alfred Hitchcock, and it's a classic of suspense, humor, and style, and it's influenced both the best series on television, Mad Men, and the ongoing Bond franchise, quite a lot. There are a few spoilers here, incidentally, in case you've never seen it.
A few weeks ago, the 50th anniversary edition of North by Northwest was released on DVD and Blu-Ray. I don't know that it's Hitchcock's best movie (that's probably Vertigo) or his most influential movie (that's probably Psycho), but it may be his most enjoyable. The picture looks and sounds wonderful, better than ever, from its famed Saul Bass linear abstraction titles giving way to a New York skyscraper and the teeming bustle of the advertising mecca of Madison Avenue to the witty closing shot of the
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- William Bradley
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DVD Review: ‘North By Northwest’ 50th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray
26 November 2009 10:00 AM, PST
| The Flickcast
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One of the most visually stunning, action packed, clever and suspenseful of all Alfred Hitchcock movies, his 1959 masterpiece North By Northwest finally gets the Blu-ray treatment it deserves. Featuring a terrific remastering with lots of great supplemental material and beautiful packaging the movie really shines and Warner Bros. has clearly pulled out all the tops to bring this classic film to a new generation of audiences.
Just in case you’re not familiar with this Hitchcock masterpiece, it stars Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and a young Martin Landau in a story featuring one of Hitchcock’s signature conceits: the wrong man. Grant’s Roger Thornhill, mistaken for superspy George Kaplan by a group of sinister agents led by James Mason’s Phillip Vandamm, is taken to a county house, forceably intoxicated and almost murdered. He barely manages to escape with his life, mostly due to his high
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- Chris Ullrich
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Image Entertainment has Thriller and a Killer for disc
18 November 2009 1:26 AM, PST
| Fangoria
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Image Entertainment announced recently that it has acquired North American rights to the classic horror/suspense TV series Thriller, hosted by Boris Karloff. The company plans a deluxe DVD boxed set for release in 2010.
Widely acknowledged as one of the great genre shows (Stephen King once called it the best in American TV history), Thriller ran from 1960-62 and featured, among its 67 episodes, adaptations of stories by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Psycho’s Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Robert E. Howard and others. Guest stars included William Shatner, John Carradine, Robert Vaughn, Leslie Nielsen, Elizabeth Montgomery, Ursula Andress and many more. The entire series will be remastered for the disc package, which will also include audio commentaries for many of the episodes, interviews and other extras currently being developed. Stay tuned for further details on the specific contents and release date.
Image also has Freeway Killer coming on DVD
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- no-reply@fangoria.com (Michael Gingold)
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Blu-Ray Review: Alfred Hitchcock Makes Striking HD Debut With ‘North by Northwest’
11 November 2009 2:06 PM, PST
| HollywoodChicago.com
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Chicago – It is as difficult for me to write critically about “North by Northwest” as it would be for someone to discuss their first love. The films of Hitchcock are, without question, why I do what I do and my only concern, as they start to be released on Blu-Ray, is that they won’t live up to the bar set by the package put together for first Hitch movie on the next-gen format - “North by Northwest”.
Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
What more could possibly be written about “North by Northwest”? As co-star Martin Landau recently told me, it played to him like a “greatest hits” of Hitchcock’s career to that point. This is Alfred Hitchcock at the top of his game playing with themes that had been a part of his career since silent film. Released in between “Vertigo” and “Psycho,” “North by Northwest” is one of the most
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- adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
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Free Lecture, Screening to Highlight Hitchcock's The 39 Steps, 12/6
9 November 2009 1:43 PM, PST
| BroadwayWorld.com
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The Maltz Jupiter Theatre invites you to look, listen and learn during an evening devoted to the great film director Alfred Hitchcock.
On Dec. 6, the theatre will host a free lecture by film expert Martin Leichter, "Hitchcock: The Mayhem Behind His Movies," about the director's 18th film, The 39 Steps. Leichter will serve as a tour guide to the film, illuminating key points, and telling the audience what to watch for in the 1935 thriller, which will be screened immediately following the lecture.
Nearly 30 years after his death, Hitchcock's name remains synonymous with great film. The silver screen would be decidedly less glittering without such masterpieces as Rebecca, Vertigo, The Birds, Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest and The 39 Steps. And who can forget his countless cameos on the big screen, and his droll introductions to his Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series?
In The 39 Steps, Robert Donat plays an innocent man framed
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The Box
7 November 2009 7:34 PM, PST
| The Scorecard Review
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The Box
Directed by: Richard Kelly
Cast: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella
Running Time: 1 hr 55 mins
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: November 6, 2009
Plot: A financially desperate couple (Diaz, Marsden) is randomly presented with a box – inside the box is a simple red button. However, there is a catch – if they press the button, they will be awarded one million dollars. At the same time, someone in the world that they don’t know will be killed.
Who’S It For? Like the title object’s existence, The Box is a film made for the curious: those curious to see how the Donnie Darko director does with a mainstream budget, or those curious to see how the film should be placed in a list of this year’s bad-funny movies. Fans of psychological thrillers might want to take a gander, but at their own risk.
Expectations: Imagine a trailer that has
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- Nick Allen
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AFI's 100 Years ...100 Movie Quotes
4 November 2009 4:45 AM, PST
| Extra
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"Extra" brings you AFI's 100 Best Movie Quotes of all time! From "The Wizard of Oz" to "Taxi Driver," see if your favorites made the list!
AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie QuotesGone with the Wind (1939)
“Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.” —Said by Clark Gable as Rhett Butler to Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.
The Godfather (1972)
“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” —Marlon Brando as Don Corleone.
On the Waterfront (1954)
“You don’t understand!
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Tortured Overtures: Horror Film Score Themes of the 1970s
3 November 2009 12:12 PM, PST
| SoundOnSight
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Undertones: Volume 7
It's the time of the year again where folks' minds turn to the macabre and the ghoulish; where death is celebrated rather than feared and of course, when dusty copies of horror films are taken off the shelf to terrify and amuse. So, in honor of the Halloween season it would seem only right that this installment of Undertones concern itself with the scores of horror films or, more specifically, those that emerged during a particularly groundbreaking and ultra-violent decade of cinema - the 1970s.
Many of the horror films of the 1970s did not involve supernatural beings such as vampires, werewolves and swamp things, but the terrors of home and society at large. The menacing figures of films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974) and Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) may have worn crazy masks and looked decidedly 'un-human' but the messages these films posited concerned themselves with that of
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- Ricky
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Culture Warrior: Horror 1960
2 November 2009 9:34 AM, PST
| FilmSchoolRejects.com
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Although Halloween has come and gone, the Fsr universe of readers and contributors alike have hardly satiated their horror fix, so this week’s Culture Warrior presents three movies that were major game-changers for the genre.
1960 saw the horror film, and filmgoing at large, change dramatically and permanently. Long gone was the horror of the literary monster that characterized 1930s Universal classics personified by Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, and the dawn of a new decade in turn also said goodbye to the 1950s B-movie creature features. In 1960 horror switched its gaze to a far more terrifying direction: inward. Horror now focused on the horrific capacities of the human being, on the grotesque monster potentially inside all of us. No longer would horror be relegated to B-movie status, instead enabled with the capacity, through depiction of psychological trauma and inner monstrosity, for a unique kind of profundity that other genres couldn’t even come close to. Three
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- Landon Palmer
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Directors We Love: Alfred Hitchcock
1 November 2009 4:03 PM, PST
| Cinematical
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This is a no-brainer, right? Everyone loves Hitchcock. But it was not always so. The great director, whose North by Northwest comes out on a new, 50th Anniversary DVD and Blu-Ray on Tuesday, was once considered a populist panderer with little artistic value in his work. Even if you were a film critic, it was not the done thing to explore the mood and structure of a film. And even the rare critic that did that, such as Manny Farber or James Agee, tended not to go crazy over Hitchcock's work. (He was too popular and supposedly did not need defending.) At the time, it was more important in film to have a strong moral message, or to impress audiences with size and scale. Hitchcock worked in the lowest genres, telling stories about creeps and murderers and kidnappers, none of which had any benefit to society. Yes, Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director five times,
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- Jeffrey M. Anderson
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Top Five Movie Screamers
30 October 2009 7:09 PM, PDT
| Alt Film Guide
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Top Ten Movie Screamers: 10 to 6
5 – Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960)
I don’t recall myself recoiling in horror while watching Janet Leigh’s shower scene in Psycho, but I do recall quite vividly one night long ago when I was showering at an acquaintance’s place and imagined myself facing the same fate as Leigh’s unlucky bank teller. So, I guess that sequence did leave a lasting impression on me. (Needless to say, I was out of that acquaintance’s shower stall and all dried up in a matter of seconds.)
4 – Fay Wray in King Kong (1933), Doctor X (1932), and The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
Fay Wray has to be here. To her belongs the title of [...]
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- Andre Soares
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Top Ten Movie Screamers
30 October 2009 6:53 PM, PDT
| Alt Film Guide
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Doctor X directed by Michael Curtiz (top); Janet Leigh in Psycho (bottom)
Halloween Time. So, here’s my list of the Top Ten Movie Screamers of All Time.
Well, at least the Top Ten Movie Screamers of All Time That I Can Think of Right Now.
You won’t find any new movies here because I tend to avoid most recent horror movies — partly because most of the recent ones I’ve seen are total crap; partly because there’s enough horror in the world out there and I see no need for me to go looking for more at the movies.
Also, most of the screaming newcomers don’t have the vocal flair of their predecessors. Even Naomi Watts, a really good actress, pales next to [...]
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- Andre Soares
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Sirius Xm Lists Top 101 “Halloween Horror Score Chop Down”
30 October 2009 4:16 PM, PDT
| WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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Quick, what’s the scariest horror film score out there? I’m sure a couple of no-brainers came to mind, and a few of you probably thought of something wholly original. Thanks to the Cinemagic channel on Sirius Xm, we have an official list to choose from. There are a few shocking inclusions, and a couple of omissions, one that I, myself, deem glaring.
See for yourself:
Halloween John Carpenter 1
Psycho Bernard Herrmann 2
The Shining Wendy Carlos/Assorted 3
Jaws John Williams 4
Alien Jerry Goldsmith 5
Omen, The Jerry Goldsmith 6
Bride of Frankenstein Franz Waxman 7
Thing, The Ennio Morricone 8
Exorcist, The Pendereki 9
Fog, The John Carpenter 10
Rosemary’s Baby Christopher Komeda 11
Hellraiser Christopher Young 12
Friday the 13th Harry Manfredini 13
A Nightmare on Elm Street Charles Bernstein 14
Suspira Goblin 15
Poltergeist Jerry Goldsmith 16
Changeling, The Rick Williams 17
Dawn of the Dead Assorted 18
Haunted Palace, The Ronald Stein 19
Amityville Horror, The Lalo Schifrin 20
Creepshow John
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- Kirk
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Here's the Top 101 Scariest Film Scores!
30 October 2009
| shocktillyoudrop.com
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This month, Shock readers were asked to participate in Sirius Xm Radio's "Halloween Horror Score Chopdown" on Cinemagic. After gathering submissions, the show's team started rolling them out on Sirius Monday. If you haven't been tuning in, here's the complete list of soundtracks that made the cut.
What do you think?
Halloween John Carpenter 1
Psycho Bernard Herrmann 2
The Shining Wendy Carlos/Assorted 3
Jaws John Williams 4
Alien Jerry Goldsmith 5
Omen, The Jerry Goldsmith 6
Bride of Frankenstein Franz Waxman 7
Thing, The Ennio Morricone 8
Exorcist, The Pendereki 9
Fog, The John Carpenter 10
Rosemary's Baby Christopher Komeda 11
Hellraiser Christopher Young 12
Friday the 13th Harry Manfredini 13
A Nightmare on Elm Street Charles Bernstein 14
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Geek Deal: Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece DVD Collection for $54
28 October 2009 9:32 AM, PDT
| Slash Film
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Amazon's Gold Box Deal of the Day is the Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece DVD Collection for $53.99, 55% off the $120 list price. The collection features "14 of the finest works from the universally acclaimed Master of Suspense come together for the first time in one collection." Packaged in a velvet box, the individual discs inside come four to a case, decorated with original poster art. A 36-page booklet is filled mostly with stills and poster art. As with all the gold box deals, this deal is only good until midnight.
The titles include: The Birds; Marnie; Vertigo; Rope; Rear Window; Psycho; The Man Who Knew Too Much; Torn Curtain; Frenzy; Shadow of a Doubt; The Trouble With Harry; Topaz; Saboteur; and Family Plot. Each of the 14 films is supplemented with numerous documentaries, commentaries, and other bonus materials: 14 documentaries; 9 featurettes; Commentaries; Newsreel footage; Production photos, sketches and notes; Storyboards; Theatrical trailers; Masters
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- Peter Sciretta
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